The 1992 Rio Earth Summit was heralded as the turning point for global environmental policy. More than one hundred countries came to the Rio summit, which sought to merge two critical international concerns—environmental protection and economic development—that had been evolving on different tracks during the 1970s and 1980s. For developing countries, the merger of environment and development was a major improvement over earlier environmental conferences and provided hope for increased North-South cooperation. In addition, the cold war had recently ended, and the rise of a one-superpower world meant that East-West conflicts would not dominate this conference, as they had earlier international environmental efforts.

On paper, at least, the Earth Summit did provide a potential vision for moving toward sustainable development—that is, toward both greater environmental protection and greater economic justice. The Earth Summit yielded two legally binding treaties: the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Also a product of the Summit were a set of nonbinding general principles known as the Rio Declaration, a set of nonbinding principles on forest management, and the blueprint for sustainable development entitled Agenda 21.

The assembled governments also established the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) to integrate environment and development into the UN system while providing a forum to monitor the implementation of summit commitments.