ABSTRACT
The largest international conference ever held until then, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), took place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June 1992. A total of 183 states were represented, 103 of them by their heads of state or government. Not surprisingly, the conference has been called the Earth Summit. Total attendance at Rio was reported as 35,000 people (Brooke 1992). In addition to 8,000 delegates, there were some 3,000 accredited representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), 9,000 members of the press, members of the conference secretariat, and others (Gardner 1992, 1).
