Background

Curator of this important topic, event and EPL special section: Editor-in-Chief Bharat H. Desai, PhD, who provides insight:

“Our EPL Special Section has the theme Road to Stockholm+50 and Beyond. The global movement for protection of the environment reaches its 50-year-milestone in 2022. It was the first UNCHE in June 1972), hosted by Sweden, that proved to be ta landmark event to address the "world problematique" of the environment. In his address, the Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme prophesized that: “The decisive question is in which direction we will develop, by what means we will grow, which qualities we want to achieve, and what values we wish to  guide our future…there is no individual future, neither for people nor for nations.” At the event, the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the only other head of government present, sought to draw a realistic picture by underscoring that the development is “one of the primary means of improving the environment of living, of providing food, water, sanitation and shelter, of making the deserts green and mountains habitable.”

The emphasis of the 2022 UNCHE conference was to be stock-taking the developments of the past half a century with a view of analyzing and assessing the mistakes and success stories. The ultimate goal is to better understand what we have done, what we should have done, and how today’s environmental problems should be addressed in the light of the lessons of our past performances. The general question is how international environmental law has developed in these different issue-areas in the 50 years since the 1972 Stockholm conference.” 

Upcoming Book

The topics discussed in the webinar are all covered in the book Envisioning Our Environmental Future and it is hoped that many environmental law students and institutions around the world will get to read the important papers that lay the groundwork for the future (Ed. Bharat H. Desai; IOS Press).