The chapters in this volume are based on the papers that were presented at a seminar in March 1994 organized under the auspices of the newly established ILA Committee on Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development. The seminar focused on the legal principles and international practice of sustainable development and good governance as one of its constitutive elements. The book is divided into four parts: Evolution of Concepts, Participatory Development, Development Cooperation and Human Rights, and Sensible Economic and Social Policies. They reflect the holistic concept of sustainable development advanced by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature sustainable development. This concept implies that maintaining a quality of life for many generations is socially desirable, economically viable and ecologically sustainable. The volume highlights the principle of sustainable development as a major topic in international law embodied in the international instruments agreed upon at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (1992). The introductory chapter discusses the interlinking of development and good governance, including human rights, democracy, and sensible economic and social policies as presented in the 1994 UN Agenda for development. The management of the economy, society and environment towards sustainability will be one of the most momentous discussions of our times. According to one author sustainable development is incompatible with continuous growth of the economy, while good governance appears to be incompatible with the achievement, within a reasonable time scale, of a non-growth society. Other provocative opinions make this volume a highly challenging source for any scholar interested in the subject.

At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, political leaders from more than a hundred countries made a formal commitment to intensify efforts to resolve global environment and development problems and to strive for sustainable development. This volume examines how governments in the developed industrial world have responded to the challenge of sustainable development since it was catapulted into the international stage. It focuses on the central government engagement with sustainable development in Australia, Canada, Japan, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union. The study shows that sustainable development has been integrated into governmental idiom in most jurisdictions and has come to be associated with a series of changes to the structures and approached deployed to manage environmental problems. Yet, it also reveals significant differences of interpretation and priority, and in enthusiasm with which sustainable development has been received.