Exploring Sustainable Development

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Sustainable Development andInternational Relations

Alan Grainger

Introduction

Sustainable development was originally, like the dominant 20th-century ideal of development, a creation of international relations, being offered by the developed countries to the developing countries as a ‘guide to best practice’. But whereas developing countries can see working examples in developed countries of the ideal of development for which they are aiming, they cannot do this in the case of sustainable development. For if they did comply with the sustainable development ideal, as proposed in the World Conservation Strategy (IUCN, 1980), they would be avoiding the past development paths of the developed countries, with all the environmental degradation these ...