Report on the 13th Session of Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-13)

held in UN, New York, April 11-22, 2005.

Submitted by Edel Havin Beukes partly based on reports by of Regina Birchem and Karin Aanes, for the EWG and IEC (10.6.2005).

The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) meets annually in New York to review progress made on Agenda 21 ( UNCED, Rio 1992) and on the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (WSSD-2002)

This year (CSD-13) it was the policy making session on water, sanitation and human settlements. The two next years ( CSD-14 and CSD-15) the focus will be on energy, industrial development, air pollution and climate change.
Overarching objectives throughout the whole CSD-process are: poverty eradication, changing unsustainable patterns, of production and consumption, and protecting and managing the natural resource base. Cross-cutting issues are: sustainable development in a globalized world, health, gender equity and education.

The Norwegian Forum for Development and Environment (ForUM) sponsored a side-event on “ The Connection between War, Military and the Environment” organized April 12th by WILPF and ForUM at Church Center,12 Fl.

The main speaker was to be Michael Renner, senior researcher at World Watch Institute, but he had to cancel his talk the night before due to illness. We did not want to cancel the meeting and changed it to a group discussion chaired by Regina Birchem.

“Taking Issue”, a daily publication of the Sustainable Development Issues Network (SDIN) had a page on April 13 about the meeting under the headline: “ Fighting for survival. The connection between War , Military and Environment, a cross-cutting issue for major Groups”:

“The group created a successful dialogue and came up with 7 main outcomes, which can be used as an outline for the way forward .
1. The connection between war, military and the environment should be brought out through the NGO-statements.
2. It will then be helpful for the formulation of the NGO statements that will be put together in June for the MDG (Millenium Development Goals),as this should be recognized as an over-riding issue.
3. That there is a need for a coherent and comprehensive articulate concept on human security.
4. To urge all major groups to take up this issue of the linkages between war, military and the environment, not just at this CSD-process but for the MDG and other meetings happening in the UN calendar.
5. There needs to be more foresight on this issue and this discussion needs to be stepped up a gear now, in preparation for next year's CSD-14 and onwards where the issues of energy and climate change are very relevant to this linkage.
6. The fact that there is a lack at CSD of addressing the ecosystem is a major worry and should be pushed for discussion.
7. Agenda 21, Chapter 20, sets out hazardous wastes, this could be an entry point to be used when discussing military hazardous waste (Gulf War Syndrom, Uranium-mining).”

“Even though the Rio Declaration ( in Rio Principles 24 and 25) mentions military and peace issues, these issues have hitherto not been addressed by the CSD. And even though the CSD deals with production and consumption patterns related to sustainable development , military production and consumption have to date not been on the CSD agenda”

The theme was taken up at the Youth Caucus and the next day under the headline “Invest in the Future”, Taking Issue of April 14 had a report of the recommendations from the Youth Caucus read to the CSD-13 meeting:

“ Sustainable development in a globalizing world. Footprint of Warfare.
1. Military operations between nations in most cases have direct and severe impact on the ability of all sectors, at all levels to provide for the water, sanitation and human settlement. Youth in all cases are disproportionately affected.
2. The use and development of weapons of mass destruction and low level radioactive armament have long-term impacts on the natural resource base for social and economic development.
3. Governments that initiate unilateral military operations must be particularly accountable to the environmental restoration and renewed health of the parties affected.
4. Without explicit condemnation of warfare by concerned parties, root causes of human suffering will continue to destabilize the balance of ecological and social systems.”

Every morning the NGO’s met to hear short summaries of the CSD-13 meetings, to share information , to discuss strategy and plan for the NGO-contribution orally and in writing.. The main groups of the NGO’s also met regularly in Caucuses : Energy, Youth, Women, Fresh water, Trade-unions, Peace, Indigenous peoples and Sustainable Production and Consumption.

Several WILPF-members attended meetings. Regina Birchem, Karin Aanes,Edel Havin Beukes, Ana Teresa Marroquin and Leticia Paul de Flores from the WILPF-section in El Salvador was sponsored by ForUM. In addition Marta Benavides, Philo Morris and others attended under other hats.

The WILPF members joined the discussions and assisted in formulations of the oral and written contributions to the different NGO main groups.

Edel joined the Energy Caucus to get an impression of what the NGO’s in this caucus would take up at CSD-14 and 15. As energy will be discussed then, it is very important that we speak out against use of nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is not the solution for climate problems as some pro-nuclear people want us to believe. And as nuclear power and nuclear bombs are closely connected it will also give us an opportunity to work against nuclear weapons and against uranium weapons (DU).

The official CSD-13 papers can be read at
Other websites:

As far as I know no one was sponsored economically from WILPF. But this must be done in the future! We also need to have an intern in New York that can follow the CSD-process! And we need WILPF representatives from all regions to be there and/or be active in the process in their own country and region before and after the CSD-meetings.

A special thank to Susi Snyder and the members of the WILPF office in New York for assisting us in getting hold of a room and for other practical supports to make the meeting known. Thanks to Linda Bell the economic transactions succeeded.. Edel and Karin have sent in their reports to ForUM to thank them for the support they gave us through their two working groups, on Peace and on Freshwater

WILPF-Norway also received a travelling grant from ForUM of 1800 US dollar to a person from the south , and after consultations with Regina and Susi, two WILPF members from El Salvador shared it. The grant was not big enough to get Sushma Pankule to New York as was hoped for as she is one of EWG’s two convenors. ( ForUM is an umbrella for several Norwegian environment and development organizations.)

We appreciated very much that Regina Birchem came to New York to work with us there!! She has a heavy work load as our President and she took the time to help us with the side event.