It is a peoples’ declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society for the 21st century. Created by the largest global consultation process ever associated with an international declaration, endorsed by thousands of organizations representing millions of individuals, the Earth Charter seeks to inspire in all peoples a sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the human family and the larger living world. The Earth Charter is an expression of hope and a call to help create a global partnership at this critical juncture in history

The principles of the Earth Charter are based on such broad consensual views as contemporary science, international law and the insights of philosophy and religion and the wisdom of indigenous peoples. It is truly a ‘peoples’ document and is now widely recognized as a global consensus statement of ethics and values for a sustainable future.

A Brief History

In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development issued a call for the creation of a new charter that would set forth fundamental principles for sustainable development. The drafting of the Earth Charter was part of the unfinished business of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

In 1994 that unfinished business was re‑launched by Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the Earth Summit and Chairman of the Earth Council, and Mikhail Gorbachev,  President of Green Cross International. Strong and Gorbachev convened an independent Earth Charter Commission in 1997 to oversee the project. After numerous drafts and considering the input of over 5,000 people, the Commission came to consensus in March 2000, in Paris. The Charter was officially launched at The Hague in the Netherlands on June 29, 2000.

Since that time, a formal endorsement campaign has attracted over 14,000 organizations in 504 cities, in 78 countries, and has been translated into 32 languages, representing millions of people and including numerous national and international associations. Efforts to have the Earth Charter formally recognized at the world summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, in 2002, came very close to success, resulting in numerous public statements of support from world leaders and heads of state.

The Earth Charter has already been used as a basis for peace negotiations, as a reference document in the development of global standards and codes of ethics, as resource for governance and legislative processes, as a community development tool and as an educational framework for sustainable Development, to name a few.  The Charter was also an important influence of the Plan of Implementation for the UNESCO Decade for Education on Sustainable Development.

Why do we need the Earth Charter?

Our current patterns of production and consumption are causing environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and the massive extinction of species. The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap between rich and poor is widening. The trends are perilous but not inevitable.

The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for the Earth and one another or risk our own destruction and that of the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions and way of living. We must realize that, once basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more.

We have the knowledge and technology to provide for all and to reduce our impact on the environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our environmental, economic, political, social and spiritual challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge inclusive and long-term solutions.