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Abstract
This introduction notes the contributions of various authors to the first issue of the Journal of Global Ethics 2015 Forum and briefly explains the United Nations process through which the sustainable development goals have been formulated up to the receipt by the General Assembly, in August 2014, of the Report of the Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals (UN A/68/970). The goals are identified as a confluence of distinct streams of UN work attended to variously by policy experts and political figures in the past several decades. Sources include, most obviously, the Millennium Declaration of 2000 and the Millennium Development Goals, but also the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Human Development Reports of 1990 forward, and the 1987 Brundtland Report.
Notes on contributor
Eric Palmer is Professor of Philosophy at Allegheny College. He is co-editor of Journal of Global Ethics and President of the International Development Ethics Association. His most recent publication is the edited collection Gender Justice and Development: Vulnerability and Empowerment (Vol. 2), released by Routledge this past March.
ORCID
Eric Palmer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1406-8060
Notes
2. The conference is often called ‘Rio + 20’ in reference to the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.
3. The OWG was constituted in January 2013 (see Draft Decision A/67/L.48/Rev.1). Further planning for the post-2015 development agenda may be found in a Draft Resolution of October 2013 (Draft Decision A/68/L.4). In September 2014, the General Assembly acknowledged ‘the conclusion of the work of the OWG’, and
Decide[d] that the proposal … shall be the basis for integrating sustainable development goals into the post-2015 development agenda, while recognizing fully that other inputs may also be considered in this intergovernmental negotiation process at the sixty-ninth session of the General Assembly. (A/68/L.61)
4. At the 19 July 2014 OWG meeting, a variety of reservations were expressed by nations: A/68/970, § III paragraph 13 notes, but does not detail these. A glimpse into the political process may be gained from the record of reservations and other observations by state and other parties (1387 in total) leading up to that meeting. See ‘Statements by Topic: Sustainable development goals’, http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?menu=1573.
5. Regarding the developing discussion of financing, see Report of the Intergovernmental Committee of Experts on Sustainable Development Financing (15 August 2014, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/69/315&Lang=E) and see subsequent documents at http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/intergovernmental/financecommittee. Also relevant to finance is the work of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Financing for Development Office: http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/. The Third International Conference on Financing for Development, Addis Ababa, July 2015 will be the last major event before adoption of the Goals, anticipated for September.
6. A New Global Partnership, 13. Available at http://www.un.org/sg/management/pdf/HLP_P2015_Report.pdf. A list of ‘national targets’, with the exact targets not presented, is to be found pp. 30ff. See also ‘One Year On: An open letter from former members of the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Agenda’, dated 22 September 2014, available at http://www.who.int/pmnch/media/news/2014/open_letter/en.
7. See especially ‘The first UN Millennium Development Goal: A cause for celebration?’ in Pogge (Citation2010, 57–73).
8. For a clear accounting of the development of the idea of sustainability in recent UN and governmental discourse, see the background paper for the High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability authored by Drexhage and Murphy (Citation2010).
9. United Nations General Assembly, 2005 World Summit Outcome, A/60/1, adopted by the General Assembly 16 September 2005. http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N05/487/60/PDF/N0548760.pdf. See paragraphs 48 forward, and cf. Drexenhage and Murphy for the alternative language.
10. Earth Charter International, ‘Read the Charter’, Section II. http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/pages/Read-the-Charter.html. For UNESCO activity, see http://www.earthcharterinaction.org/content/pages/UNESCO%20Chair%20Project.
11. For information on various Māori conceptions of well-being, including the development of this particular model at meetings in 1982, see Durie (Citation1994, 67–82).