Liberty Institute &
The Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies
cordially invite you to a Seminar on

Sustainable Development: Preparing for the World Summit
Wednesday, February 6, 2002

Seminar Room, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation,
Jawahar Bhawan, Dr. Rajendra Prasad Road, New Delhi

10.00 - 11.15 am
Session I: Economic Development to Sustain the Environment
11.30 - 1.00 pm
Session II: Institutions for a Sustainable Environment
2.00 - 3.45 pm
Session III: Are the Multilateral Environmental Agreements Sustainable?

Experts participating in the seminar include:

• Michael DeAlessi, Visiting Fellow, Liberty Institute, New Delhi
• Gurmail Singh Benipal, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi
• Dilip Boralkar, Central Pollution Control Board
• Bibek Debroy, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi
• Arnab Hazra, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi
• Barun S. Mitra, Liberty Institute, New Delhi
• Julian Morris, International Policy Network, London
• Prasanna S., Business Environment Assessment, New Delhi
• V. Santhakumar, Centre for Development Studies, Trivandrum
• Yashika Singh, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, New Delhi

As India prepares for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, taking place in Johannesburg in August and September, RGF and Liberty Institute invite you to a seminar on the meaning and implications of 'sustainable development'.

Sustainable development is only possible in an environment in which property rights and the rule of law are upheld.

• Property rights must be secure, enforceable, and transferable. Thus structured, they will create incentives to use resources in a sustainable manner and enable entrepreneurs to obtain the capital they require to do business. Evidence shows that lack of adequate property rights in India is slowing growth by up to 1.5 per cent per annum.
• Contracts must be more readily enforceable through efficient, cheap courts. In India, contracts are undermined by slow, inefficient, expensive courts.
• Intellectual property rights must be structured in such a way that they provide incentives to develop new, beneficial technologies. At present the lack of product patent protection for certain technologies is slowing this process.
• Business should not be burdened with excessive regulation. This undermines entrepreneurial activity and slows economic growth, keeping people poor.

Management of resources and the environment must be decentralised.

• State ownership and management of resources, such as forests and fish, undermines conservation by creating an adversarial relationship between the manager and the user of the resource. Decentralisation to local groups and individuals overcomes this problem.
• Centralised environmental regulations, whether set by government or the courts, fail to take account of local conditions and the will of the local people. Environmental regulations should be decided at the most local level possible.
• Global environmental regulations are mostly unnecessary and many are counterproductive. Setting standards globally contravenes the requirement that regulations be set at the most local level possible.
• Whilst there are many issues that appear to be 'global', most are best solved at the local level. Global regulations only create unnecessary regulatory burdens, thereby actually undermining the ability of local people to engage in environmentally beneficial activities. For example, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species limits trade in things such as elephant ivory and rhino horn, thereby reducing the value of conserving elephants and rhinos. As a result, local people see elephants and rhinos as a nuisance rather than a resource and are inclined to kill rather than conserve them.
• Even for issues such as global warming, where both the science and the economics are uncertain, local solutions work better. A global elite has been pushing for global restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions, but this would have only a small impact, if any, on global temperatures whilst having a strong negative impact on economic growth. Local solutions, focussed primarily on adaptation, would be cheaper and more effective.

For more information and for interviews with any of the participants contact:

Bibek Debroy, Rajiv Gandhi Institute for Contemporary Studies, Tel: 3312456
Barun Mitra, Liberty Institute, Mobile: 98104 16662, Tel: 6528244, Email: info@libertyindia.org