Pathways to sustainability?

This article examines the way that 'sustainability' is used as a rallying point for different ideological positions and interests. Sustainability is important for its discursive effect, as well as a Principle for better environmental management. Since the Rio Summit ill 1992 the international community, has become more global, culturally and economically, but the effects of globalisation, including the environmental effects, are not necessarily shared. One area ill which this is clearly, evident is ill the measures that are taken collectively to protect 'nature'. The article examines the way in which interests in nature are evaluated, and made, legitimate, especially interests in the 'Commons'. The approach of the 'realist' tradition ill international relations is that states seek, to protect and enhance their own interests, but the interest ill 'environmental regimes' since the 1970s also implies a 'softer', more consensus-building approach to international collaboration. For some commentators it raises the question of whether the international community should welcome 'soft law, and voluntary compliance, or seek More radical solutions based on a concept Of 'global sovereignty'. Whenever the merits of these different positions one thing is clear: the material consequences of contemporary policy discourses Carry 'real', not 'imagined' effects for sustainable practices in the future.