Stockholm + 50: A Look Ahead in International Environmental Politics

 The global environmental awareness and regulatory process has covered a trajectory of 50 years. From the innocent times of the first 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE), the world has travelled very far. It has encompassed a veritable process comprising role of actors, polarizing issues such as balancing of environment-development, emergence of norms and governance forms. In the post-Westphalian governance order, the political landscape has been a determining factor for the contemporary environmental discourse. Even as the global governance architecture has become more complex and hierarchical, what can UNCHE + 50 ordain for our environmental future? What alternatives are possible for survival of the planet earth and betterment of the humankind? This article seeks to examine some of these issues of environmental politics that will determine the future course of action at UNCHE+50 event in June 2022 and beyond.