Present at the creation: the making of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Few major global agreements have been negotiated as expeditiously as the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.1 The negotiations commenced in February 1991 and were completed by May 1992, in time for the Convention to be opened for signature in the following month at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. It took only 15 months for the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) to conclude this path-breaking agreement. By contrast, the Law of the Sea negotiations covered a full decade.