A Search for the Spiritual Roots of Sustainable Development …
329
8 Civil Society Initiatives—The Earth Charter
The Brundtland Commission, and not the least Gro Harlem Brundtland herself,
repeatedly said that the Sustainable development entirely depends on the acceptance
of a new ethics. The report from the Commission Our Common Future says: “We
have attempted to demonstrate how human survival and well-being may be dependent
on our capacity to successfully transform the principles behind sustainable development into global ethics” (World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED) 1987). Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, expressed herself in a similar way
when opening the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in 1988: to come
to grips with the environmental dilemma requires that “we develop… a new holistic ethics in which economic growth and environmental protection go hand in hand
around the world” (Usher 1989).
This is formalized in the Earth Charter initiative. In 1994, Maurice Strong,
Secretary-General of the Rio Summit, and former head of state of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev, working through organizations they each founded, Earth Council and Green Cross International respectively, initiated the development of an Earth
Charter as a civil society initiative. The drafting process, from 1997 managed by an
Earth Charter commission, drew on hundreds of international documents and consultations, came to consensus on the Earth Charter in March 2000 at a meeting held
at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The Earth Charter was formally launched in The
Peace Palace in The Hague later that year.
13
In the period up to 2005 the Earth Charter campaign recruited thousands of organizations representing millions of people, and finally also the global institutions
UNESCO and IUCN. Important strongholds in the development are found in e.g.
Boston, USA, Moscow and Buenos Aires. Their website http://www.earthcharter.
org is an important meeting place.
Efforts to have the Earth Charter formally recognized at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 2002, came very close to success, resulting
in numerous public statements of support from world leaders and heads of state.
The Earth Charter played a role as a global consensus statement on the meaning of sustainability, the challenge and vision of sustainable development, and the
principles by which sustainable development is to be achieved. Today it has in many
ways been replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015. Its role as an
ethical statement, however, remains. It is seen as an ethical foundation for sustainable development, and could be understood as an enlargement of the Declaration of
Human Rights, or a basic document for a global environmental ethics. In the Earth
Charter the ethics of UN conventions is enlarged to include also Nature.
14
13 Earth Charter Initiative. http://earthcharter.org/.
14 Earth Charter. http://earthcharter.org/discover/the-earth-charter/.
329
8 Civil Society Initiatives—The Earth Charter
The Brundtland Commission, and not the least Gro Harlem Brundtland herself,
repeatedly said that the Sustainable development entirely depends on the acceptance
of a new ethics. The report from the Commission Our Common Future says: “We
have attempted to demonstrate how human survival and well-being may be dependent
on our capacity to successfully transform the principles behind sustainable development into global ethics” (World Commission on Environment and Development
(WCED) 1987). Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, expressed herself in a similar way
when opening the World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in 1988: to come
to grips with the environmental dilemma requires that “we develop… a new holistic ethics in which economic growth and environmental protection go hand in hand
around the world” (Usher 1989).
This is formalized in the Earth Charter initiative. In 1994, Maurice Strong,
Secretary-General of the Rio Summit, and former head of state of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev, working through organizations they each founded, Earth Council and Green Cross International respectively, initiated the development of an Earth
Charter as a civil society initiative. The drafting process, from 1997 managed by an
Earth Charter commission, drew on hundreds of international documents and consultations, came to consensus on the Earth Charter in March 2000 at a meeting held
at UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The Earth Charter was formally launched in The
Peace Palace in The Hague later that year.
13
In the period up to 2005 the Earth Charter campaign recruited thousands of organizations representing millions of people, and finally also the global institutions
UNESCO and IUCN. Important strongholds in the development are found in e.g.
Boston, USA, Moscow and Buenos Aires. Their website http://www.earthcharter.
org is an important meeting place.
Efforts to have the Earth Charter formally recognized at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, 2002, came very close to success, resulting
in numerous public statements of support from world leaders and heads of state.
The Earth Charter played a role as a global consensus statement on the meaning of sustainability, the challenge and vision of sustainable development, and the
principles by which sustainable development is to be achieved. Today it has in many
ways been replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals of 2015. Its role as an
ethical statement, however, remains. It is seen as an ethical foundation for sustainable development, and could be understood as an enlargement of the Declaration of
Human Rights, or a basic document for a global environmental ethics. In the Earth
Charter the ethics of UN conventions is enlarged to include also Nature.
14
13 Earth Charter Initiative. http://earthcharter.org/.
14 Earth Charter. http://earthcharter.org/discover/the-earth-charter/.