Sustainable Development and National Laws

The geometric expansion of the global population and increasing interdependence of the international community has created a mandate for sustainable development—development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. To safeguard the earth's future, nations must assume responsibility for their own environmental policies and work within the international community to promote positive norms. Development must proceed with a recognition of the connection between economics and ecology, and the impact national legislation can have on the survival and prosperity of the globe. Individual nations need to enact laws that promote their own environmentally sound and socially viable development, realizing that national policies can have repercussions across national borders. This paper reviews the environmental legislation enacted by the United States as an example of one nation's approach, and reports on the 1992 “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a conference addressing the issue of sustainable development and creating international norms for nations to follow.