INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT LAWS

ENVIRONMENT- YEAR POINTS TO REMEMBER

CONFERENCE/CONVENTION/
PROTOCOL
Ramsar Convention- 1971 • The Convention on Wetlands is the oldest of
The Convention on Wetlands the modern global intergovernmental
[waterfowl convention] environmental agreements.
• It was adopted in the Iranian city of Ramsar in
1971 and came into force in 1975.
• The main theme of the Ramsar philosophy
is the “wise use” of wetlands.
• Number of parties to the convention: 171
parties are part of the convention
• World Wetlands Day: celebrated annually on
the 2nd of February.
• There are about 2400 Ramsar sites globally,
covering around 2.5 million sq km.

INDIA
• It entered into force in India on 1 February
1982.
• Largest Ramsar site in India: Sundarbans
wetland (4220 sq-km) of West Bengal.
• Smallest Ramsar site in India: Renuka
Wetland (0.2 sq. km) of Himachal Pradesh.
• State with the highest number of Ramsar
sites: Tamil Nadu (Total 14 Sites)
• Uttar Pradesh has second highest number (10)
of Ramsar sites in India.
• Nodal agency: Ministry of Environment,
Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC)
• 75 Ramsar Sites in 75th Year of
Independence (2022)
• United Nations Conference on the Human
Environment
• It was first declaration of international
protection of the environment
Stockholm Conference 1972 • Adopted 26 Principles
• It was held in Stockholm, Sweden from June
5–16 in 1972.
• From India, Indian PM Indira
Gandhi attended it

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 • United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) has been established by the United
Nations General Assembly in pursuance of the
Stockholm Conference.
• UNEP is an agency of the United Nations. It
coordinates the UN’s environmental activities.

Economic and Social Council resolution 1346

(XLV) of 30 July 1968 recommended the General
Assembly consider convening a UN conference on
problems of the human environment.

• It came into force in 1975. India ratified the

convention in 1977.
• The convention aims to promote cooperation
among countries to protect heritage all over
Convention Concerning the the world that is of such outstanding
Protection of World Cultural and 1972 universal value that its conservation is
Natural Heritage important for current and future generations.
• Currently, there are 194 State Parties to the
convention.
• It was adopted by the General Conference of
UNESCO
§ CITES entered into force in July
1975. Currently there are 184 Parties.
§ Aka Washington Convention
§ Aim: Ensure that international trade in
specimens of wild animals and plants does not
threaten their survival.
CITES 1973 § The CITES Secretariat is administered by
UNEP (The United Nations Environment
Programme) and is located at Geneva,
Switzerland.
§ World Wildlife Day has been celebrated
every year on the 3rd of March since 2013.

• CMS is also known as the Bonn Convention.

• It is the only convention that deals with taking
or harvesting of species from the wild.
• It currently protects 173 migratory species
Convention on Migratory Species
1979 from across the globe.
of Wild Animals
• Enforcement: November 1, 1983.
• Species Covered: Convention has two
Appendices:

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 Appendix I lists migratory species that are
endangered or threatened with extinction.

Appendix II lists migratory species which have an

unfavourable conservation status and which require
international agreements for their conservation and
management.

Migratory Species: A migratory species is one that

cyclically and predictably crosses one or more
national jurisdictional boundaries due to factors like
food, temperature, shelter, etc.
Aim- Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable
Development.

Published by the International Union for

World Conservation Strategy 1980
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
(IUCN), United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) and the World Wide Fund for Nature
(WWF) in 1980.
Declaration adopted in 1982 (10th anniversary of
Nairobi Declaration 1982
Stockholm)
• Adopted by United Nations member nation-
states on October 28, 1982.
World Charter of Nature 1982 • It proclaims five principles of conservation by
which all human conduct affecting nature is to
be guided and judged.
• The 1985 Vienna Convention for the
Protection of the Ozone Layer was an
Vienna Convention for Ozone international agreement in which United
1985 Nations members recognized the fundamental
Layer
importance of preventing damage to the
stratospheric ozone layer.

• The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances

that Deplete the Ozone Layer and its
succeeding amendments were subsequently
negotiated to control the consumption and
production of anthropogenic ozone-depleting
Montreal Protocol for ODS 1987
substances (ODSs) & hydrofluorocarbons
(HFCs).
• The Montreal Protocol’s control of ODSs
stimulated the development of replacement
substances- hydrochlorofluorocarbons

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 (HCFCs) and HFCs, in a number of
industrial sectors.
• ODSs include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),
bromine containing halons and methyl
bromide, HCFCs, carbon tetrachloride
(CCl4), and methyl chloroform.
• These ODSs are long-lived (e.g., CFC-12 has
a lifetime greater than 100 years) and are also
powerful GHGs.
• It is an international treaty that was designed
to reduce the movements of hazardous
waste between nations, and specifically to
prevent transfer of hazardous waste from
developed to less developed countries
(LDCs).
• It does not address the movement of
radioactive waste.
• The Convention is also intended to minimize
the amount and toxicity of wastes generated,
Basel Convention on Hazardous to ensure their environmentally sound
wastes- Not in my backyard 1989 management and to assist LDCs in
syndrome environmentally sound management of the
hazardous and other wastes they generate.
Examples of wastes regulated by the Basel
Convention:
• Biomedical and healthcare wastes.
• Used oils.
• Used lead acid batteries.
• Persistent Organic Pollutant (POP) wastes.
• Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs).
• Thousands of chemical wastes generated by
industries and other consumers.
• It was the biggest International Conference
in the history of International relations – was
also called as the “Parliament of the planet”
then.
United Nations Conference on • Led to the establishment of the Commission
Environment and Development 1992 on Sustainable Development
/Earth Summit • Three major agreements adopted:
• Rio Declaration on Environment and
Development, a series of principles
defining the rights and responsibilities
of States (27 Principles)

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 • Agenda 21, a global plan of action to
promote sustainable development.
(non binding action plan)
• Statement of Forest Principles, a set
of principles to underpin the
sustainable management of forests
worldwide
• Multilateral treaties were opened for
signature:
§ United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC)
§ Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD)
§ Convention to Combat
Desertification
• The primary goals of the UNFCCC were to
stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at levels
that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
interference with the global climate and to
combat global warming.
• The convention embraced the principle of
UNFCCC 1992 common but differentiated responsibilities
which has guided the adoption of a regulatory
structure.
• India signed the agreement in June 1992
which was ratified in November 1993.
• Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement are a part
of the UNFCCC
• The Convention on Biological Diversity (a
multilateral treaty) was opened for signature at
the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in
1992 and entered into effect in 1993.
• The convention called upon all nations to take
appropriate measures for conservation of
biodiversity and sustainable utilisation of its
CBD 1992
benefits.
• The Convention has three main goals:
1. conservation of biological diversity (or
biodiversity);
2. sustainable use of its components; and
3. fair and equitable sharing of benefits
arising from genetic resources.

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 • The Convention is legally binding; countries
that join it (‘Parties’) are obliged to implement
its provisions.

• The UNCCD addresses particularly the arid,

semi-arid & dry sub-humid areas,
called drylands, where some of the most
vulnerable ecosystems and peoples are found.
• It became effective in 1996 after receiving 50
ratifications.
• The convention obliges national
governments to take measures to tackle the
issue of desertification.
UN Convention on • The convention’s 2018 – 2030 Strategic
1994
Desertification Framework is a comprehensive international
commitment to attain Land Degradation
Neutrality (LDN) aiming at:
o The restoration of productivity of
degraded land.
o Enhancing the livelihoods of people
dependent on them.
o Mitigating the impact of droughts on
vulnerable populations.

• The Protocol to the 1979 Convention on

Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution
on Further Reduction of Sulphur
Oslo Protocol on Further Emissions is an agreement to provide for a
1994
Reduction of Sulphur Emissions further reduction in sulphur emissions or
transboundary fluxes. It supplements the 1985
Helsinki Protocol on the Reduction of
Sulphur Emissions.
• The Kyoto Protocol was adopted on 11
December 1997. Owing to a complex
ratification process, it entered into force on 16
February 2005. Currently, there are 192
Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
• Aim- by committing industrialized countries
Kyoto Protocol 1997 and economies in transition to limit and
reduce greenhouse gase(GHG) emissions in
accordance with agreed individual targets.
• The Kyoto Protocol is based on the principles
and provisions of the Convention and follows
its annex-based structure. It only binds
developed countries, and places a heavier

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 burden on them under the principle of
“common but differentiated responsibility
and respective capabilities”, because it
recognizes that they are largely responsible for
the current high levels of GHG emissions in
the atmosphere.

• The Aarhus Protocol on Persistent Organic

Pollutants, a 1998 protocol on persistent
organic pollutants (POPs), is an addition to the
Aarhus Protocol on Persistent 1979 Geneva Convention on Long-Range
1998
Organic Pollutants Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP).
• It is implemented by the European
Monitoring and Evaluation Programme
(EMEP)
• The Rotterdam Convention (formally, the
Rotterdam Convention on the Prior
Informed Consent Procedure for Certain
Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in
International Trade) signed in 1998 is a
multilateral treaty to promote shared
Rotterdam Convention 1998
responsibilities in relation to importation of
hazardous chemicals, effective from 2004.
• It covers pesticides and industrial chemicals
that have been banned or severely restricted
for health or environmental reasons by Parties.

• Stockholm Convention on Persistent

Organic Pollutants is an international
environmental treaty, signed in 2001 and
effective from May 2004, that aims to
eliminate or restrict the production and use
of persistent organic pollutants (POPs)-
organic chemical substances which possess a
set of physical and chemical properties such
that when they are released into the
Stockholm Convention on POPs 2000
atmosphere/environment, they:
-Remain intact, without getting degraded, for
exceptionally long periods of time (several
years)
-Become widely distributed throughout the
environment as a result of natural processes
involving soil, water and, most notably, air
-Accumulate in the fatty tissues of living
organisms including humans, and are found at

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 higher concentrations at higher levels in the
food chain
-POPs tend to concentrate in living organisms
through a process known as
bioaccumulation.

• CBD covers the rapidly expanding field of

biotechnology through Cartagena Protocol
on Biosafety
• It addresses technology development and
transfer, benefit-sharing and biosafety issues.
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety 2000
• The Biosafety Protocol seeks to protect
biological diversity from the potential risks
posed by living modified organisms resulting
from modern biotechnology.

• The Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable

Development was adopted at the World
Summit on Sustainable Development
Johannesberg Declaration/
2002 (WSSD). It is also called Earth Summit
Rio+10
2002.
• It was held 10 years after the Earth Summit
in Rio de Janeiro
• Review of MDGs

Millennium Development Goals

In September 2000, leaders of 189 countries gathered
at the United Nations headquarters and signed the
UN World Summit 2005 historic Millennium Declaration, in which they
committed to achieving a set of eight measurable
goals that range from halving extreme poverty and
hunger to promoting gender equality and reducing
child mortality, by the target date of 2015.

• It is the second Protocol to the CBD; the first

is the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety.
• It is a 2010 supplementary agreement to the
1992 Convention on Biological Diversity
Nagaoya Protocol on Access to (CBD).
2010
genetic resources • The Nagoya Protocol is about “Access to
Genetic Resources and the Fair and
Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from
their Utilization”, one of the three objectives
of the CBD.

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 • The Rio+20 conference in Rio de Janeiro,
June 2012, galvanized a process to develop a
Rio+20/ The United Nations new set of Sustainable Development Goals
Conference on Sustainable 2012 (SDGs) which will carry on the momentum
Development generated by the MDGs and fit into a global
development framework beyond 2015. (17
Goals)
• Aims to protect human health and the
environment from anthropogenic emissions
and releases of mercury and mercury
Minimata Convention on compounds
2013
Mercury • The Convention is named after the Japanese
city Minamata. This naming is of symbolic
importance as the city went through
devastating incident of mercury poisoning.
• The Paris Agreement is a legally binding
international treaty on climate change. It
was adopted by 196 Parties at COP 21
Paris Agreement 2016
• Its goal is to limit global warming to well
below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius,
compared to pre-industrial levels.
• Amended the Montreal protocol on
Kigali Agreement 2016
Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer
• Held at the headquarters of the United Nations
in New York City on 23 September 2019
• The UN 2019 Climate Summit convened on
the theme, "Climate Action Summit 2019: A
Race We Can Win. A Race We Must Win."
UN Climate Action Summit 2019
• The goal of the summit was to further climate
action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to
prevent the mean global temperature from
rising by more than 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above
preindustrial levels.

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Additional Notes

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature is a global union composed of

both government as well as civil society organisations. With more than 1400
organisations as its members, the IUCN is an international authority on the status of the
natural world. India is a member of it. Established in 1948, the IUCN has the tools and
knowledge repository to help the world conserve nature and ensure sustainable
development.
• The World Conservation Strategy was published by the International Union for
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in 1980.
• The Brundtland Commission, formerly the World Commission on Environment
and Development, was a sub-organization of the United Nations (UN) created by
UNGA resolution which aimed to unite countries in pursuit of sustainable
development. It was founded in 1983. The Brundtland Commission officially
dissolved in 1987 after releasing Our Common Future, also known as the
Brundtland Report. The document popularized the term "sustainable development."
In 1988, the Center for Our Common Future replaced the commission.
• The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was a body
under the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) tasked with overseeing the
outcomes of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development/Earth Summit. It was replaced in 2013 by the High-level Political
Forum on Sustainable Development, which meets both under the General Assembly
every four years and the ECOSOC in other years.

The Declaration of Helsinki is a statement outlining the ethical principles for medical
research involving human subjects that was initially adopted by the 18th Assembly of the
World Medical Association in Helsinki, Finland in June 1964.

COP27

• In November 2022, the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt hosted the 27th
session of the Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 27), with a view to
building on previous successes and paving the way for future ambition to effectively
tackle the global challenge of climate change.

• The term “loss and damage" dominated COP27. Loss and damage refers to the negative
consequences that arise from the unavoidable risks of climate change, like rising sea
levels, prolonged heatwaves, desertification, the acidification of the sea and extreme
events, such as bushfires, species extinction and crop failures.

REDD+ is a voluntary climate change mitigation approach that has been developed by
Parties to the UNFCCC. It aims to incentivize developing countries to reduce emissions from

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deforestation and forest degradation, conserve forest carbon stocks, sustainably manage forests
and enhance forest carbon stocks.

The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation

and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries – or UN-REDD Programme – is a
multilateral body. It partners with developing countries to support them in establishing the
technical capacities needed to implement REDD+ and meet UNFCCC requirements. The UN-
REDD Programme is a collaborative programme of the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and harnesses the technical expertise of
these UN agencies.

UN assigns specific years to topics to raise awareness and engagement. The following years
pertain to environmental topics:

• 2007 – International Year of the Dolphin:

• 2010 – International Year of Biodiversity
• 2011 – International Year of Forests
• 2012 – International Year for Sustainable Energy for All
• 2013 – International Year of Water Cooperation
• 2014 – International Year of Family Farming
• 2015 – International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies
• 2016 – International Year of Pulses
• 2017 – International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development
• 2020 – International Year of Plant Health
• 2021 – International Year of Fruits and Vegetables

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