Towards a Global Pact for the Environment

On 10 May 2018, the UN General Assembly (the Assembly) adopted, resolution 72/277 entitled “Towards a Global Pact for the Environment”.  

The initiative for a Global Pact for the Environment aims to provide an overarching framework to international environmental law aimed at further solidifying, consolidating as well as advancing international environmental law considering pressing environmental challenges. The initiative also aims to improve the implementation of international environmental law in furtherance of the Sustainable Development Goals as well as globally agreed environmental goals and targets.

According to the resolution’s text, the Assembly decided to establish an ad hoc open‑ended working group to consider a technical and evidence-based report that identifies and assesses possible gaps in international environmental law and environment-related instruments with a view to strengthening their implementation. The report is to be submitted to the Assembly’s seventy-third session in 2018 providing a platform to discuss possible options to address these gaps. This may include the need to convene an intergovernmental conference to adopt such an international instrument. The working group has been mandated to present its recommendations to the General Assembly during the first semester of 2019.

The Assembly decided that the ad hoc open-ended working group shall hold the following sessions, in accordance with established practice:

(a) An organizational session, to be held for a duration of three working days, by the end of the seventy-second session of the General Assembly, in New York, to examine matters related to the organization of the work of the ad hoc open-ended working group, including the duration and number of its substantive sessions; and

(b) Substantive sessions, to be held in Nairobi, the first of which at least one month after the submission of the report of the Secretary-General which took place from 14 to 18 January 2019 in Nairobi Kenya. 

Attendance at the sessions of the ad hoc open-ended working group as observers is open to the relevant non-governmental organizations in consultative status with Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and those accredited to the following UN Conferences:

•           The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development,

•           The World Summit on Sustainable Development,

•           The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, and

•           The United Nations summit for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda.

The second substantive session of the working group will be held from Monday, 18 March to Wednesday, 20 March 2019 at the United Nations Office in Nairobi.

Registration for this second session can be done here.

The agenda for this session can be found here and more information about the meeting found here.