Legislating Sustainable Development: People, Politics and Process

This conference is dedicated to the proposition that Lake Baikal is precious to Russians, and indeed, to the world, and that its future should be governed by principles of sustainable development. Lurking, though, in every presentation at this conference, implicit in the very premise of the conference, is a question not only relevant to the future of Lake Baikal, but to the future of all environmentally sensitive regions of the world where people coexist with nature and where resource conflicts are therefore inevitable. The question, of course, is simply “How in the world do we achieve sustainable development? How can we make it happen?” And how can we do it quickly, for, my friends, we have emergency conditions. Rome is burning.