The difficulties of negotiating formal commitments for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) confirm what we already know – that there is a serious crisis facing the multilateral politics of sustainable development. This crisis has been caused by many factors, but three stand out: the United States’ current reluctance to sign up to formal joint agreements; developing countries’ resentment over the international community’s failure to honour the commitments made at the Rio summit in 1992; and the perception that the UN system lacks the capacity to tackle the multidimensional challenges of globalisation.
However, while formal WSSD negotiations have been mired in controversy, there has been growing interest in an informal, parallel process of developing partnerships for the implementation of commitments that will be made at Johannesburg.
