Global Environmental Degradation and International Organizations
| Date | 01 July 1990 |
| DOI | 10.1177/019251219001100307 |
| Published date | 01 July 1990 |
| Author | Mukund G. Untawale |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
371
Global
Environmental
Degradation
and
International
Organizations
MUKUND
G.
UNTAWALE
ABSTRACT.
International
organizations
are
critical
for
global
environmental
policymaking
as
catalytic
agents
of desirable
change,
and
in
the
case
of the
United
Nations
Environment
Program
(UNEP)
as
the
coordinative
mechanism
as
well.
Only
in
the
face
of
severe
degradation
or
impending
catastrophies
has
the
world
community
responded
to
challenges.
However,
for
the
policy
to
be
effective,
the
necessary
financial
support
needs
to
be
generated,
assured,
and
vastly
increased;
and
the
locus
of
policy
making
shifted
to
a
main
organ
of
the
United
Nations—conceivably
as
an
Environmental
Council,
supplanting
the
Trusteeship
Council
and
being
co-equal
in
status
with
the
Economic
and
Social
Council,
with
the
UNEP
as
its
coordinative
arm.
From
the
perspective
of
global
policy,
the
issue
of
environmental
degradation
has
moved
rapidly
from
a
low-priority
item
to
one
of
the
highest
priority
in
international
governmental
and
non-governmental
organizations,
as
well
as
in
the
increasingly
significant
international
ad
hoc
conferences
which
involve
a
large
number
of
states.
By
the
end
of
the
1980s,
the
environmental
agenda
has
come
to
vie
for
priority
with
the
resources
and
social
agendas,
with
which
it
is
inextricably
intertwined.
However,
despite
encouraging
indications
reflected
in
the
positions
of
the
two
superpowers
and
other
major
states
in
the
United
Nations
system,
environmental
considerations
do
not
seem
as
yet
to
weigh
as
heavily
as
the
economic
and
political
ones
at
the
global
policy
levels.
It
is
the
inescapable
tension
between
the
politico-economic
considerations
on
the
one
hand
and
environmental
ones
on
the
other
which
has
characterized
world
policy
making
in
the
1980s
(see
Soroos,
1986;
Brown
et
al,
1989).
For
the
purposes
of
this
paper,
environmental
degradation
is
viewed
as:
contamination
or
drastic
human
transformation
of
the
land,
air,
and
water
on
the
planet,
or
of
the
condition of
outer
space,
which
is
injurious
to
the
components
of
the
global
eco-system
and
sometimes
in
a
synergistic
way
for
the
system
as
a
whole;
significant
reductions
in
the
numbers,
or
even
extinction,
of
plant
and
animal
species
as
well
as
microorganisms
in
the
global
eco-system
due
to
drastic
changes
brought
about
by
human
activity
or
societal
processes,
such
as
excessive
pollution
or
deforestation;
erosion
of
the
soil
at
such
a
rate
that
its
organic
layer
disappears
more
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