ABSTRACT
Environment has finally risen to the top of the global political agenda. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 signified international recognition of the environment as an issue that could not be constrained by the borders of nation states (Robinson 1992). But Rio also revealed deep political divisions on the world environmental stage. Those divisions were represented and articulated primarily as a North-South, rich versus poor country schism (Johnson 1993). Ironically, the ecological internationalism that was to be the breakthrough of the conference gave way to positioning in which negotiations were geared back to the interests of nation states.
