An Appeal to the Heads of State and Government New York, April 2nd, 1992 The organisations we represent (*) have engaged, since the establishment of the International NGO Steering Committee for UNCED 18 months ago, in an unprecedented effort in facilitating and leading the involvement of the public at all levels, from grassroots groups to consumers' unions, from indigenous communities to environmental networks. Now the UNCED diplomatic process is collapsing, with potentially adverse political, environmental and social consequences. On the eve of the PrepCom IV conclusion, it is clear that such diplomatic failure cannot be reverted in the few remaining days of negotiation or other informal parallel meetings. While announcing the dissolution for Saturday April 4th of the International NGO Steering Committee for UNCED, we launch a final appeal based on the following concerns: (a) Critical issues such as the impact of debt, trade, etc. are still excluded from the UNCED papers, and are unlikely to be introduced at this final stage, partly because those who are negotiating have no political authority nor a broad enough mandate. (b) On most of the more significant issues it currently addresses, UNCED represents a genuine step backwards compared either to existing, internationally or regionally agreed policies and agreements or to other sectoral ongoing negotiations. Examples include, among others, forests, the rights of indigenous peoples, waste, nuclear power related issues. (c) Any commitment UNCED could adopt would be highly questionable and precarious, since no reliable system of accountability is likely to be introduced by the end of this PrepCom. Therefore: • We appeal to the political responsibility of the Heads of State and Government who have already committed themselves to go to the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit. Unless they are able to take the fate of UNCED in their own hands, they will inevitably associate their names to an historical failure. • We urge the Heads of State and Government to remove all those parts of the UNCED papers that, directly or indirectly, could prevent the implementation of more advanced existing policies and programmes, or adversely affect the satisfactory negotiation of agreements in the near future. • We urge the Heads of State and Government to salvage the UNCED process by assigning to the relevant Ministers the task of carrying through on those few issues where some substantial progress is achievable, and of setting clear mechanisms for the review and public acceptability on the implementation of the decisions. Climate change is among the issues that should be subject to this high-level consideration. Signed by:
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