UN Convention to Combat Desertification as an International Environmental Regulatory Framework for Protecting and Restoring the World’s Land towards a Safer, More Just and Sustainable Future

Abstract

There are ongoing international initiatives on how to protect the environment towards sustainable development (SD). These initiatives range from those of the United Nations (UN) to those of other international organizations and institutions. At the level of the UN, these initiatives are mainly its conferences and summits, which may be considered as the UN SRJRS Process. The UN SRJRS Process refers to the cities in which various UN conferences and summits on the environment and development towards SD have so far been convened, namely Stockholm, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro and Stockholm. So, these UN conferences and summits are the (i) UN Conference on the Human Environment, held at Stockholm, in 1972; (ii) UN Conference on Environment and Development, held at Rio de Janeiro, in 1992; (iii) World Summit on SD, held at Johannesburg, in 2002; (iv) UN Conference on SD (Rio+20), held again at Rio de Janeiro, in 2012; and (v) the Stockholm+50, which was held again in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 2022. The UN SRJRS Process and their outcome documents and progressively ongoing strategies are aimed at protecting the environment in the course of development, so as to achieve SD in UN’s member states and territories around the globe, in the interest of humans and society at large. Desertification, which may arise from deforestation, is an environmental problem associated with forests. Internationally, forests are regulated by the UN Statement of Forest Principles, 1992, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992, the Convention on Biological Diversity, 1992, the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD), 1994, and other relevant multilateral conventions, as well as international agreements and efforts associated with forests. This study thus examines the UNCCD, 1994, as a worldwide shared vision and a comprehensive multilateral environmental regulatory mechanism, designed to combat desertification, through relevant implementation measures, such as policies, laws, institutional regulatory frameworks and practices in sovereign states and territories around the globe, so as to protect and restore the world’s land, towards a safer, more just and better sustainable future, especially towards achieving relevant goals of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.