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10.5.1. First phase: sea resources
In the beginning international environ
mental protection
focused on systematising the issues of jurisdiction and ensuring
the administration of international watercourses by passing laws
for transboundary rivers and lakes. Attention was drawn to the
popula tions of migrating wildlife as well due to the fact that no
state could single-handedly take care of its protection when the
growth of industry threatened to destroy many species; for example,
the government of Switzerland proposed (albeit unsuccessfully) a
formation of an international committee to protect migratory birds
of Europe as early as in 1872. However, different governments had
begun taking measures to protect nature even earlier than that; they
were mostly to do with the interests of local economies – protection
of forests, inland waters, mineral fields and certain wildlife species.
With the exception of the seal protection treaty (adopted in
1911), all the other early attempts to regulate the use of joint natural
resources required so much debate that in the end they turned out
to be inefficient and had to be postponed. Dealing with environ-
mental problems was difficult due to the fact that there was no
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ENVIRONMENT, POLLUTION, DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF UZBEKISTAN
clearly defined ground and strict political approach; moreover, there
were cultural differences, and all the aforementioned aspects led
to different approaches. The attempt to ensure international whale
protection turned out to be an especially unavailing episode in the
history of international environ mental protection. The Convention
on Restrictions of Whaling was signed in Geneva in 1931, and
24 states had either ratified or joined it up to 1935. However,
the Soviet Union and Japan – the two states most involved with
whaling – did not sign the convention. In addition, the states that had
signed the document had few duties to attend to. The International
Whaling Commission was established in 1946 due to the initiative
of the USA; a whaling code was adopted, and the commission could
make amendments without holding official conferences. Yet, despite
the authority given to the commission, the short-term interests of
whaling were impossible to overcome, and the commission did not
heed even its scientific advisors.
During the Conference on the Human Environ ment, whales
were mentioned as a symbol of the antiecological behaviour of
humans. A procession was organised for the protection of whales
and a decision was passed to recommend a 10-year moratorium on
commercial whaling, which was supposed to enhance the activities
of the International Whaling Commission; yet it took 10 more years
to authorise the moratorium.
The North Pacific Fur Seal Convention managed to protect seals
from a direct impact of human activities by providing that hunting
as well as the population of seals both on land and sea territories
were to be controlled. In this case, international cooperation was
more success ful because the fur seals are a particular subspecies
whose be ha viour is easily predictable – they have localised territo-
ries for breeding their young; thus, the territories can be controlled
by the state governments. Whales, on the other hand, have different
sub spe cies that populate different oceans; their behaviour is not eas-
ily pre dic table, resulting in difficulties to determine their numbers
and regulate the size of the population. The differences in political,
economic and geographical factors only contributed to complications
of the process.
Nevertheless, in 1982 the International Whaling Commission
finally voted for halting commercial whaling, setting a period of
transition of three years. The states concerned with whaling – Japan,
the USSR, Brazil, Peru, Norway, Iceland and North Korea – still
opposed the vote. However, in 1990, when the five-year moratorium
had ended, in a conference held by the International Whaling
Commission, most of the members voted to prolong the moratorium.
The states against it accepted the vote since refusing to do so would
have cost them their political and business reputation.
10. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
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