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7. We also address, in more specific terms, the question of international institutions. The preceding chapters have major
implications for international cooperation and reforms, both economic and legal, The internat%onal agencies clearly have an
important role in making these changes effective, and we endearour to set out the institutional implications, especially
as regards the United Nations system.
I. THE CHALLENGE FOR INSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL CHANGE
1. Shiftinq the Focus to the Policy Sources
8. The next few decades are crucial for the future of humanity. Pressures on the planet are now unprecedented and are accelerating at rates and scales new to human experience: a doubling of global population in a few decades, with most of the growth in cities: a five- to tenfold increase in economic activity in less than half a century: and the resulting pressures for growth and changes in agricultural, energy, and industrial systems. Opportunities for more sustainable forms of growth and development are also growing. New technologies and potentially unlimited access to information offer great promise.
9. Each area of change represents a formidable challenge in its own right, but the fundamental challenge stems from their systemic character. They lock together environment and development, once thought eparate: they lock together 'sectors' such as industry and agriculture: and they lock countries together as the effects of national policies and actions spill over national borders. Separate policies and institutions can no longer code effectively with these interlocked issues. Nor can nations, acting unilaterally.
10. The integrated and interdependent nature of the new challenges and issues contrasts sharply with the nature of the institutions that exist today. These institutions tend to be independent, fragmented, and working to relatively narrow mandates with closed decision processes. Those responsible for managing natural resources and protecting the environment are institutionally Separated from those responsible for managing the economy. The real world of interlocked economic and ecological systems will not change; the policies and institutions concerned must.
11. This new awareness requires major shifts in the way governments and individuals approach issues of environment, development, and international cooperation. Approaches to environment policy can be broadly characterized in two ways.
One, characterized as the 'standard agenda', reflects an approach to environmental policy, laws, and institutions that focuses on environmental effects. The second reflects an approach concentrating on the policies that are the sources of those effects. [1] These two approaches represent distinctively different ways of looking both at the issues and at the institutions to manage them.
- ↑ The characteristics and differences of the two approaches are described in our inaugural report, 'Mandate for Change: Key Issues, Strategy and Workplan', Geneva, 1985.
