How can we meet the needs of today without diminishing the capacity of future generations to meet theirs? This is the central question posed by "sustainable development". OECD countries committed themselves to sustainable development at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in...

This article tries to explain national incentives for protecting environmental goods either autonomously or collectively; it explores how globalisation has affected those incentives; and it suggests how national environmental policy might respond so as to ensure its effectiveness. The central...