February 2011: The Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) has released a Special Issue of its Natural Resources Forum, a UN Sustainable Development Journal, focused on institutions for sustainable development.

The introductory article highlights that a common thread in the papers in this special issue is the impact of politics on the design, function and influence of rules, institutions and processes. It features an article titled “From Rio to Rio via Johannesburg: Integrating institutions across governance levels in sustainable development deliberations,” which focuses on vertical integration of institutions and governance and takes stock of how vertical integration is envisioned and addressed in the international deliberation process between the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development and Rio+20. The special edition also features case studies on the theme of the edition, including: experiences of sustainability processes in Swedish municipalities; environmental governance and rhetorical free-riders in the Brazilian Amazon; trade-offs between environmental protection and economic development in China’s fisheries policy; and lessons learned on institutional cooperation at a basin level from Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake. It also features a book review of “Transport for Suburbia: Beyond the Automobile Age.” [Publication: Special Edition on Institutions for Sustainable Development]