SUSTAINABILITY AND JUSTICE:
A POLITICAL NORTH-SOUTH DIALOGUE

World Summit Paper #19; Sustainability and Justice: A Political North-South Dialogue.

Sustainability and justice are two concepts that have long been intimately linked inside the environmental movement. For many years, the dominant paradigm stated that sufficient economic growth was all that was necessary to relieve poverty in the South. This paradigm is now increasingly revealing its dark side: the North’s overconsumption and hunger for raw materials, and the subsequent export orientation and industrialisation of the South, are being paid for through the escalating destruction of the environment and natural habitats, the consequences of which primarily affect the poor. Economic growth – the perceived agent of the “trickle down” effect that in the 1970s purportedly promised a better life for the South – is increasingly destroying the foundations of life.

In October 2000, the Heinrich Böll Foundation – in cooperation with Friends of the Earth Europe and within the framework of the Programa Cono Sur Sustentable – organised the conference “Sustainability and Justice.” For the first time, a systematic dialogue took place among Northern and Southern actors working on concepts of sustainability. Does sustainable development represent a common political project between North and South and where do these projects converge, were the key questions of the conference, that is documented in this publication. The subtitle of the conference was intentional: “A Political North-South Dialogue.” This dialogue met with such a positive response among participants that is has been continued in a variety of forms ever since. In this spirit, this publication is not merely a documentation of contributions to the conference “Sustainability and Justice” or a record of its stimulating debates, but rather a document that bears witness to a process of mutual understanding and learning.

[ pdf; 92 pages ]