Preface

Many of the environmental problems we face today are increasingly complex in nature and widespread in extent, and cut across national boundaries or are of global scale in their effects. But they are rarely truly global in their causes or sources. Even the so-called global environmental problems are rooted in human activities taking place at local and national levels, and therefore best dealt with at those levels closest to the source, rather than at the global level, although in most cases they do simultaneously require some kind of regulatory action and/or cooperative effort at international levels. (Commonly referred to as the “subsidiarity principle” in international law / international relations vernacular.) However, this does not negate the importance of regional approaches to dealing with problems of the environment commonly shared by countries within a geographical or economic/geopolitical region. Among the various United Nations bodies, UNEP has long recognized the importance of this regional approach, and established regional offices in each of the five regions of the world where the UN regional economic commissions are located, and assisted them in setting up environmental coordinating units (all of which have by now become fully established and incorporated into the institutional structure of the regional commissions.) The Regional Seas Programme has been hailed as one of the greatest achievements of UNEP to date. In the Asia-Pacific region, a “Regional Strategy for Environmentally Sound and Sustainable Development (ESSD) ” was adopted at the second Ministerial Conference of ESCAP in 1991, followed five years later by the adoption of the “Regional Action Programme (RAP), 1996-2000 ” at the third Ministerial Conference. Because of the vastness and diversity of the region in terms of geography, topography, climatic, ecological, and other natural conditions as well as differences in socio-cultural, economic and political systems, intergovernmental initiatives for environmental cooperation were first taken at the subregional level, starting with the adoption of the ASEAN Sub-regional Environment Programme (ASEP) in 1977, followed by the establishment of the South Asi