“On biodiversity, we’ve done disastrously. On climate change, the window’s closing” said Tommy Koh during a recent talk.

It has been thirty years since the 179 countries gathered in Rio de Jainero Brazil between 3-14 June 1992 for the historic United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the ‘Earth Summit”. The Conference produced some of the most influential instruments to guide States on environmental matters: The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration with its 27 principles.

Ambassador Tommy Koh had successfully led the negotiations of the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea to adopt, in 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. He was elected in 1990 as Chair of the UNCED preparatory committee (PrepCom). Over a period of two years, Tommy Koh, as Chair of the PrepCom, oversaw important negotiations on environmental and developmental issues that included the protection of the atmosphere; protection and management of land resources; conservation of biological diversity; protection of the ocean; sea and coastal areas and freshwater resources; management of wastes; legal and institutional matters; financial assistance to developing countries for environmentally sound development; transfer of technology; and living conditions of the poor.

He drafted the Rio Declaration of Principles on Environment and Development.

Have States failed to live up to the expectations of the 1992 UNCED? Have States failed to fulfil their obligations under the three conventions adopted at UNCED, despite having near-universal membership? What are the success stories? What are the areas in which progress has been made?

The Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore will host Ambassador Tommy Koh to explore these questions and others in a 30-year retrospective of the historic 1992 Earth Summit.