The authors outline the genesis of CITES and the governance processes supporting its operation, including regular amendments to its species lists, interpretive Resolutions and action-oriented Decisions adopted at meetings of the Conference of the Parties to CITES. They also discuss the evolution of CITES, including within the context of decisions taken at global sustainable development summits, such as Rio+20, and an exploration of how these summits have recognized and further enhanced the contributions of CITES to sustainable development. Finally, they detail some of the practical tools and mechanisms of CITES, such as legal acquisition findings, non-detriment findings and quotas for proposed trade, the review of significant trade in commercially-exploited species and guidance on addressing livelihood issues, and outlines how these mechanisms support the sustainable use of wildlife and, in doing so, make a tangible contribution to sustainable development.

The editors lay out new directions for law and policy on sustainable development in the context of the CITES and CITES-listed species, draws out key findings from the book, identifies elements of the future international law and governance research agenda, and offers tentative conclusions on the state of international efforts to secure implementation of the CITES in the context of global SDGs.

Preliminary ideas

World decision-makers are looking for new solutions to many critical problems, including traditional development issues (e.g. economic stagnation, persistent poverty, hunger, malnutrition, and illness), as well as newer challenges, e.g. worsening environmental degradation and accelerating globalization. One key approach that is receiving growing attention is based on the concept of sustainable development or ‘development which lasts’. Following the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and the adoption of the UN's Agenda 21, sustainable development has become well accepted worldwide (UN 1993; WCED 1987).

A key question for policy-makers is: how can we make development more sustainable? In order to help them address this question, analysts have a number of concepts and tools at their disposal. In this chapter, we discuss generic approaches, including the sustainable development triangle, integrative methods (e.g. optimality and durability) and other elements, e.g. indicators, cost–benefit analysis, and multicriteria analysis. Externalities, valuation techniques, and discounting are explained. In Chapter 5, we expand on the use of cost–benefit analysis for adaptation to climate change at the project and more aggregate level. In addition to cost–benefit analysis and multicriteria analysis, we also discuss other techniques in Chapter 5. The latter techniques include methods that have been applied specifically in the context of mitigation options, notably the so-called ‘safe-landing’ and ‘tolerable windows’ approaches, and cost-effectiveness analysis.

Both development and sustainable development are wide-ranging topics that have been researched thoroughly in past decades, and boast an extensive literature.

The chapter shows that one way of tackling the problem of weak regulatory systems that allow corporations to ignore environmental sustainability in their business activities is to make corporate investments in environmental sustainability in developing countries economically attractive to the corporations. And in the process enable them to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals in these developing countries, while reaping economic rewards for doing so. ‘Green capitalism’ as a concept merges economic capitalism with green objectives and when appropriately utilised, can be an effective tool for achieving the SDGs in developing countries. This chapter analyses the application of green capitalism in developing countries and how it merges the profit-focus of capitalism with environmental sustainability. Utilising the ‘environment contestation approach’, the chapter examines how ‘green capitalism’ reconciles the notions of free-market enterprise and the sustainable development desired by developing countries. It discusses the regulatory steps needed to prevent potential ‘greenwashing’ by corporations while incentivising increased investments in SDGs-related projects within these jurisdictions. Using available statistics, the chapter examines the success of ‘green bonds’ issuance for environmental projects as a reflection of the increasing reliance on green capitalist tools for achieving the SDGs in developing countries.

First the evolving perceptions.

The concept of sustainable development did not come up overnight. It is based on tenets expressed almost one and a half centuries ago. In his 1864 classic Man and Nature, George Perkins Marsh tells us, ‘Man can control the environment for good as well as ill’; ‘Wisdom lies in seeking to preserve the balance of nature’; and ‘The present generation has an obligation, above all, to secure the welfare of future generations.’ At the turn of the last century, Mohandas K. Gandhi, asked if he would like a free India to become like Great Britain, replied, ‘Certainly not. If it took Britain half the resources of the globe to be what it is today, how many globes would India need?’ More recently, Rachel Carson in 1962 with her book Silent Spring, which made the general American public aware of the dangers of pesticides, launched the modern popular environment movement.

Introduction and Overview

The term sustainable development entered the lexicon of specialists following the release of a report by the UN's World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED). The commission, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland of Norway, defined sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. … At a minimum, sustainable development must not endanger the natural systems that support life on Earth.” In 1992, at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, sustainable development emerged as the common theme linking conventions to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases and to preserve biodiversity. With these conventions being ratified by more than 140 countries, one might conclude that the concept must have broad international appeal.

The widespread acceptance of sustainable development as a guiding philosophy is also the result of its vagueness or multiple interpretations. Sustainable development means different things to different people, including academics, who often define the term from the perspective of a particular paradigm within their specialized field. Economists would tend to think of sustainable development as a steady state within a natural resource or macroeconomic growth model. Sociologists might think of sustainable development in terms of a socioeconomic system that evolves slowly and nondestructively with its supporting ecosystem.

Chapter 4 showed that biogeographic conditions, such as climate systems and access to waterways, have a strong influence on economic development. The relationship between these conditions and economic development can, however, vary across space and time. Some countries are strongly affected by abrupt weather circumstances because of higher dependence on the agricultural sector and/or less availability of insurance. Chapter 15, on the other hand, emphasized the link between food production, rural development, and migration decisions.

Environmental violence encompasses both the violence between humans and the Earth, and the violence that humans perpetrate on each other through the Earth. The concept of Sustainable Development, while aimed at improving both the human–Earth relationships and the relationships between humans, has problematic historical baggage: It is rooted in a Western idea of development, which is imbued in violence against various non-Western peoples and is perpetuating controversial takes on economic growth and appropriate technology. This renders the concept of Sustainable Development questionable, adding complications to the realization of its many, at times contradicting, goals. This chapter discusses issues in the concept of Sustainable Development and its implementation, suggesting a shift to the pursuit of a different concept: Sustainable Life.

In Part II, we discussed how human populations have dispersed throughout the biosphere and become a planetary force. In Part III, this was investigated with help of the worldview framework. This permits an interpretation of socio-ecological developments in terms of extreme manifestations of particular values and beliefs and the dynamic responses to it. Both science and ethics are important components in this venture.

The seventeenth Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – meeting in Durban, South Africa, in 2011 – agreed on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action, which contains a commitment “to develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties.” The negotiations around such a protocol will be conducted within the framework of norms expressed in the Convention. Analogous to a game, these norms are the rules according to which the parties to the Convention have agreed to play when deliberating about joint action and supplemental treaties, such as the one they committed to develop in the Durban Platform. If taken seriously, the norms would play an important role in constraining negotiations, thereby narrowing the range of disagreement.

This chapter discusses one especially important norm for the morality of climate change policy expressed in the Convention; the right to sustainable development is stated in Article 3, paragraph 4:

Sustainable development is understood in many different ways. But in the context of the Convention and other related UN resolutions, its meaning is fairly determinate. I call the conception of the right to sustainable development more or less fixed by this context the institutional conception of the right to sustainable development in order to distinguish it from the many other understandings of sustainable development in use.