Sustainable development some reflections with Regard to the new constitutional dispensation

Introduction and Background

Environmental concerns gathered worldwide attention beginning in 1972 in the historic city of Stockholm during the United Nations Conference on Human Environment. The gist of the Declaration which ensued from that encounter. was that the environment was to be protected for the sake of it thereby overlooking the development aspect of it. Meeting in Nairobi a decade later, the UN began thinking of environment and development and created a commission – the Brundtland Commission, to probe into these issues. An important aspect of the commission’s report describes sustainable development in the following words: Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept, therefore, refers to the objective of continuing to develop the economies of the world while protecting the environment for the benefit of all present nations of the world, and all future generations. Put laconically. future generations should not have to pay the bills for the activities of their ancestors for if otherwise, it would be inequitable. Barely five years after the Brundtland’s report, that is, in 1992, countries of the world again converged in the city of Rio de Janeiro under the auspices of the United Nations and agreed that environment and development are two sides of the same coin. Furthermore, re-echoing the importance of the concept of sustainable development, world leaders meeting in New York during the United Nations Millennium Summit in the year 2000 adopted the concept as one of their watchwords. Reiterating the importance of the concept, the U.N organised a summit in South Africa focusing entirely on sustainable development. It is, therefore, increasingly evident that since l992, the concept of sustainable development has passed from the realm of mere aspirations to the level of a principle of customary international law worthy of note to lawyers. It has legitimacy of its own right and calls for an urgent recognition by everyone to do with the law but the enhancement of sustainable development requires formidable changes in attitudes, institutions, and ideologies and in legal development. This may explain why many countries of the world, which adhere to the principles of international environmental law, have incorporated the ideals of sustainable development into their laws especially in their Constitutions. It is for the above reason that we venture to qualify sustainable development as an emerging umbrella of rights, which of course must be matched by corresponding obligations. However, what is problematic here is the extent to which the incorporation of rights has been effected and the guarantees for their effective translation into practical realities which remain debatable. This article attempts to explore the extent to which sustainable development concerns have been incorporated into the Cameroonian legal framework expressly and/or implicitly and measures for ensuring its concrete application or realisation. In doing this, the Constitutional dispensation of 1996 as amended in 2008 shall be used as a barometer for obvious reason – the Constitution is the supreme law of the land from which all other laws draw their inspiration.