Realpolitik, Reality and Rhetoric in Rio

As Rio prepared for the 1992 Earth Summit by paving the road to the airport and placing in detention the young street kids regularly assassinated by death squads, the inhabitants of Rio, one of Brazil's most depressed cities in a disintegrating economy, positioned themselves for the windfall of 30000 participants in need of services ranging from taxis to transvestites. The Rio conference was one where the average citizen was excluded in no uncertain terms from the formal conference by a phalanx composed of Brazilian troops and UN peace-keeping forces. The ‘cordon militaire’ and spatial isolation of the Rio Centro conference site reflected the larger social and economic contours of the current environmental arena.

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International Environmental Law After Rio: The Continuing Search for Equity

Ethics & International Affairs ◽

10.1111/j.1747-7093.1993.tb00146.x ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 115-129 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Allen L. Springer

Keyword(s):

Rio De Janeiro ◽

Environmental Law ◽

International Environmental Law ◽

Environmental Initiatives ◽

Earth Summit ◽

Environmental Diplomacy ◽

Rio Conference

Springer focuses on the nature and challenges of “leadership” in contemporary environmental diplomacy since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He raises the importance of the issue of equity in international environmental law. Springer argues that competing conceptions of what is fair and just lie at the heart of much of the diplomatic disagreement over major environmental initiatives such as those debated at the Rio conference.

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The Rio+20 Process: Forward Movement for the Environment?

Transnational Environmental Law ◽

10.1017/s2047102512000179 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

pp. 403-412 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Ann Powers

Keyword(s):

Sustainable Development ◽

Civil Society ◽

International Law ◽

International Norms ◽

Legal Institutions ◽

Transnational Governance ◽

Forward Movement ◽

The Road ◽

Earth Summit

AbstractThis commentary summarizes the events at the recent UN Conference on Sustainable Development, commonly referred to as Rio+20, noting both the role of official national delegations and the diversity of non-state parties that were involved in a variety of venues at and around Rio+20. It sketches the background of sustainable development efforts, maps the road from the original 1992 Rio Earth Summit to the 20th anniversary gathering, and comments on the Conference’s outcomes and their implications for international law and legal institutions. In answer to the much debated question of whether the Rio+20 was a success or a failure, or something in between, the author concludes that the Conference, while disappointing to many, may have furthered the cause of sustainable development by producing a document which reflects a baseline of international norms and by fostering the increasingly important role of civil society action, commitments and partnerships, and of transnational governance.

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THE ROAD FROM RIO: INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AFTER THE EARTH SUMMIT

Journal of Environmental Law ◽

10.1093/jel/6.2.193 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 193-218 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

David Freestone

Keyword(s):

Environmental Law ◽

International Environmental Law ◽

The Road ◽

Earth Summit ◽

The Earth

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Seeking to uncover biology's chemical roots

Emerging Topics in Life Sciences ◽

10.1042/etls20190012 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 3 (5) ◽

pp. 435-443 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Addy Pross

Keyword(s):

Environmental Changes ◽

Biological Systems ◽

Significant Development ◽

The Road ◽

Physical Chemical ◽

Systems Chemistry ◽

Biological World ◽

Inanimate Matter ◽

The Origin Of Life ◽

Opening Up

Despite the considerable advances in molecular biology over the past several decades, the nature of the physical–chemical process by which inanimate matter become transformed into simplest life remains elusive. In this review, we describe recent advances in a relatively new area of chemistry, systems chemistry, which attempts to uncover the physical–chemical principles underlying that remarkable transformation. A significant development has been the discovery that within the space of chemical potentiality there exists a largely unexplored kinetic domain which could be termed dynamic kinetic chemistry. Our analysis suggests that all biological systems and associated sub-systems belong to this distinct domain, thereby facilitating the placement of biological systems within a coherent physical/chemical framework. That discovery offers new insights into the origin of life process, as well as opening the door toward the preparation of active materials able to self-heal, adapt to environmental changes, even communicate, mimicking what transpires routinely in the biological world. The road to simplest proto-life appears to be opening up.

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