¹ Of course there are still those who would deny that there are such duties. For discussion and references see Beitz, 1979, pp. 15–27.

² See ‘Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order’, Resolution 3201 (S-VI), 1 May 1974, United Nations General Assembly, Official Records: Sixth Special Session, Supplement No. 1 (A/9559) (New York, 1974), p. 3. For discussion see Beitz, 1979, pp.127–176.

³ However, it should be noted that the expression ‘sustainable development’ is itself an ambiguous and difficult one. A good introduction to the literature is Pezzey, 1992.

⁴ Beitz, 1979, and Pogge, 1989, have recently rejected what Beitz calls ‘the morality of states’. I agree with them on this point, but neither addresses questions of the environment, and our positive views regarding duties across national boundaries are quite distinct.

⁵ One might reasonably object to this model even in some apparently clear cases. For example, it is not obvious that it is morally permissible to transfer toxic wastes from a rich country to a poor one, even if the benefits of receiving the waste appear to make people better off than they otherwise would be.

⁶ Sovereignty intuitions are weak with respect to some other commodities as well as environmental ones. Few people believe that ownership entitles someone to destroy a great work of art. The analogy between artworks and environmental commodities is worth exploring in detail, but I cannot explore it here.

⁷ In commenting on an earlier draft of this paper, Stephen M. Gardiner pointed out that the apparent clash between sovereignty and conditionality intuitions could be accounted for by a theory that distinguished duties to rectify past injustices from other duties that we may have. On this view the countries of the North may have duties unconditionally to transfer resources to the countries of the South in order to compensate them for past injustices associated with industrialization of the North. However, the countries of the South may also have duties not to pursue unsustainable development paths. On this view the clash between the sovereignty and conditionality intuitions flows from confusing distinct duties rather than from treating the environment as a commodity. I cannot pursue this interesting suggestion here.

⁸ The human rights movement brought the topic of conditionality into play. It is plausible to think of international guarantees of human rights as infringements of national sovereignty. It should be noted that although governments in the developing world typically oppose conditionality, often their citizens do not. See, for example, Glantz, 1990, pp. 43–44.

⁹ Although I have not been able to take all of them into account, I especially thank Stephen M. Gardiner and James W. Nickel for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper.