ABSTRACT

The upheavals in IUCN in 1975 went almost unnoticed in the wider environmental community. For the centre of international action had shifted to UNEP. In the five years following the Stockholm Conference, the UNEP Governing Council established itself as the global forum in which governments debated world environmental issues and coordinated action. More and more ministers began to attend the annual (and later biennial) sessions of the Council. UNEP also established a series of global services – GEMS, the Global Environmental Monitoring System; IRPTC, the International Register of Potentially Toxic Chemicals; INFOTERRA, the International Environmental Information System; and (as a joint venture with UNESCO) IEEP, the International Environmental Education Programme. UNEP also began to establish itself as a major promoter of new international environmental law. 1