*{ 20 novembre 2002

http://www.foei.org/wssd/political_declaration.htm
Septembre 2002 
}

 *partie=titre political declaration *partie=nil 


We are members of Friends of the Earth International, the world’s largest grassroots environment network, with more than one million members in seventy countries across five continents. 

We are citizens of the world. We are moved by the growing damage that human activity is inflicting on our common home and by the poverty and injustice that we see every day around us. We are determined that Governments, corporations, the rich and the powerful shall be held to account for their actions. We work together for the radical changes the world requires if humanity is to have a sustainable future.

We call on the Heads of States and Governments at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to adopt the following principles in their Political Declaration.


1. Many of the world’s environmental and social problems have worsened since the Rio Summit ten years ago. The world’s dominant neoliberal economic system is not sustainable. We must act now to protect our common home for future generations.

2. The principles agreed at the Rio Summit must be confirmed again, and Governments must agree the necessary plans to put them quickly into effect. The precautionary principle must be placed at the heart of decisions about development and the environment. 

3. Justice for all is a prerequisite of sustainable development. Women around the world must have equal access to the goods and benefits of life. The fundamental rights of all peoples and communities must be respected. These rights include the right to the means needed for a secure and dignified life, the right to live in a clean and healthy environment, and the right of the world’s peoples and communities to determine what happens to their land and the resources on which they depend. We must no longer tolerate a world in which millions are forced to live without hope. Such a world can never be at peace.

4. The rights of future generations are as important as those of people now living. We have an absolute duty to hand the world to our children in a better condition than it is today. 

5. All states must accept their responsibility for our common home. But their responsibilities for future action will differ depending on their economic and political power and on the degree of damage they now inflict on the planet.

6. Democracy is essential to a sustainable future. Governments must ensure that powerful corporations and international institutions are held accountable for their actions to the people and communities whose futures they affect. There must be an international legally binding framework for corporate accountability, to include full legal liability and transparency.

7. Diversity is a precious public endowment. It has come to the present human generation in trust for the future. It requires the protection of the world’s plant and animal species, and the ecosystems on which they depend. It also demands respect for the world’s rich and various human cultures.

8. Biological diversity is a consequence of billions of years of evolution. No commercial enterprise has the right to ownership of this natural wealth. Patents and intellectual property rights in life cannot be allowed.

9. We live in a world in which we all depend on each other. There can be no sustainable future for the world if the impoverished and the vulnerable continue to suffer. The past actions of the wealthy North have created an ecological debt to the South, which must be acknowledged and repaid. 

10. The crippling debts incurred by Southern Governments to Northern banks and Governments must be cancelled. The world’s financial institutions, dominated by the corporations and Governments of the North, must end their attempts to force Southern states to adopt policies based on the destructive and inhuman ideology of uncontrolled free trade and free markets. Export led economic policies, introduced at the expense of social and environmental standards, have utterly failed the people of the South. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions must adopt investment criteria and economic policies which are strictly compatible with the Rio principles.

11. The needs of the world’s environment must not be made subordinate to world trade rules: global environmental agreements must supersede the rules of the World Trade Organisation.

12. Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing the world. Action must be taken now to shift to renewable energies and to end the destruction of the world. An essential first step is a commitment by the world’s Governments to a target of 10% of primary energy supply from appropriate new renewable resources by 2010. Subsidies for fossil fuels, nuclear power and other damaging energy sources must end and a moratorium on new oil, gas and mining exploration introduced.

13. Agricultural policy must ensure enough healthy food for local consumption and ensure food sovereignty. At the same time, diversity and local resources must be protected. The huge and wasteful subsidies on production in the US and European Union must end. Genetically modified food must not be forced upon people and communities, nor dumped on Southern countries under the guise of food aid. There should be a moratorium on the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment.

14. Access to clean water is essential to a decent standard of life. This right must be guaranteed to all the people of the world. Water is a public good. The privatisation of water resources must not be permitted.

These principles are a charter for a sustainable future. They offer the chance of a world in which all humanity has the chance for a decent and fulfilling life. They are the benchmark by which the outcome of the Earth Summit should be judged. We pledge to work for them in the future and we hope and expect to live to see them achieved.