In June 1972, the United Nations convened an intergovernmental conference on the Human Environment at the highest policymaking level in Stockholm. It was the first of the United Nations mega-conferences that set the pattern for international decision-making in the 1970s on critical global issues which required urgent attention and solution. The conference on the human environment was followed in rapid succession by several other similar major conferences on pressing international problems. These were, in chronological order, on population (Bucharest, 1974), food (Rome, 1974), human settlements (Vancouver, 1976), water (Mar del Plata, 1977), desertification (Nairobi, 1977), science and technology for development (Vienna, 1979) and new and renewable sources of energy (Nairobi, 1981).
By Asit K. Biswas, 1984. Article published in Reader’s Forum, Pages 236-241.