Earth Summit bogged down in complex argument
Date: 05-Sep-02
Country: SOUTH AFRICA
Author: Jodie Ginsberg and Robin Pomeroy
Environmentalists dismissed the overall summit "action plan" as toothless but got some comfort when Russia announced that it expected to ratify the Kyoto pact on global warming soon. Moscow's signature would almost ensure the pact takes effect.
But a late-night meeting intended to finalise documents for approval by world leaders and their representatives yesterday after 10 days of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg ran into fierce haggling over points so abstruse that delegates struggled to explain them to each other.
At issue were efforts by Canada to shoehorn a reference to respect for human rights into a part of a text already agreed on healthcare and a bid by the United States to add a rider to a passage on holding corporations liable for their actions, which green groups said would water down a small gain they had made.
On the trickiest subject, Ottawa wants to ensure women's rights to abortion and contraception and prevent certain states in Africa and the Middle East from arguing that female genital mutilation could be justified on religious or cultural grounds.
Canadian officials say a reference to the need for access to healthcare to be in accordance not only with "cultural and religious practices" but also "human rights" had been - perhaps inadvertently - omitted from a text agreed weeks ago.
Canadian officials said they wanted to insert 10 words - "and in conformity with all human rights and fundamental freedoms". Failure to do so, women's rights groups and European and Canadian officials said, could be a backward move.
"TALIBAN PARAGRAPH"
In the sort of mind-bogglingly obscure manoeuvring that marks such international bureaucracy, Canada did propose to move its phrase from one paragraph to another. But that drew anger from women's rights groups and officials said efforts to put it there were, in any case, being blocked, mostly by Muslim states.
One delegate called the section where the Canadians had proposed the original insertion the "Taliban paragraph" since it says that healthcare should be "consistent with national laws and cultural and religious values".
Afghanistan's former rulers widely oppressed women.
South Africa and the European Union had backed Canada in linking human rights and healthcare.
"Women's rights are human rights," South African Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said.
A group of women demonstrated in front of the conference hall for the addition of the words to a sweeping blueprint for halving poverty by 2015 by fighting AIDS, slowing global warming and deforestation and bolstering fish stocks.
"CRUMBS FOR THE POOR"
Environmentalists slammed the summit as being scant help towards a goal of easing poverty while promoting environmentally friendly growth. "Crumbs for the poor," said Oxfam International, calling the summit "a triumph for greed and self-interest, a tragedy for poor people and the environment."
"End of term report - Not satisfactory: must do better" said the environmental group Friends of the Earth.
Environmentalists decried the summit for failing to agree any targets for raising the use of renewable energy like solar or wind power, saying it would promote the use of fossil fuels like coal and oil that are blamed for global warming.
They have also complained that the text failed to highlight the ecological and social costs of trade globalisation.
Summit Secretary-General Nitin Desai defended the summit, saying it had fixed targets including rescuing fish stocks and halving the proportion of people who lack sanitation by 2015.
According to the U.N. 2002 Human Development Report, 2.4 billion people, more than a third of the planet, lacked access to sanitation in 2000. "We have an action plan and we have targets and timetables," Desai told a news conference.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said Moscow may ratify the Kyoto Protocol on limiting global warming this year
