From Rio to Johannesburg and beyond

A year after the Johannesburg-hosted World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), by and large we continue to await the birth of a sustainable new world order. In the wake of the US war on terror, one may be forgiven for having lost track of the doings at Johannesburg. This article revisits Johannesburg in the hope that it may inspire critical thinking about issues of the environment, development and the ro ̆le of the Commonwealth therein. It looks back to 1992's Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and attempts to answer the question ‘What did Rio achieve?’. It then considers the Johannesburg summit and goes on to examine some of the initiatives taken by the Commonwealth in the wake of that meeting. Finally, a number of challenges for the Commonwealth as an institution are presented for the period beyond Johannesburg

Cartography · Commonwealth · Development economics · Earth Summit · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Institution · Order (exchange · Political science · Sociology · Summit · Sustainable development · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Commonwealth, Australian Politics and Federalism · Law · Public Administration · Urban and Rural Development Challenges