ABSTRACT
The Brundtland Commission report wrote, “The globe is one, but the earth is not” (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). The challenge for effective governance is how to encourage governments to pursue comprehensive policies to achieve Sustainable Development within an international political context that has inhibited the pursuit of comprehensive and long-term goals. An international society of states founded on the principle of national sovereignty alone discouraged serious state attention to international environmental externalities, as well as suppressing the voices of those in ecologically threatened areas, often the poor within societies, and led states to ignore the global commons outside national jurisdictions. While developing countries have not been pollution havens for the rich, they do lack the ability to forcefully present their positions at international negotiations on sustainable development and environmental protection.
