This prologue sets out the rationale of a book-length study of Stockholm as a central place in the rise of global environmental governance. The main reason is necessity. Ever since the 1970s, the importance of the 1972 UN Conference on “the human environment” has been underscored in the scholarly literature. However, precisely how this importance grew and why and how it was linked to Stockholm and Sweden have never been very well articulated. The prologue explains how the book intends to fill this gap with a rich “Stockholm story” based on primary sources. It also elaborates on the rationale of the book’s title. “The human environment” is a play on the multiple meanings of the words “human” and “environment.” Stockholm institutions and Swedish politics provided a human environment for work in science, diplomacy, and activism that engaged a highly international community of insightful human beings and their institutions and networks. Sharing many humane values, these actors have been turning threatened nature into planetary governable objects and hence a prerequisite for global environmental governance.

Chapter 6 discusses how environmental stewardship established itself as a fundamental norm of international society. The first section reviews the creation of secondary institutions, or environmental regimes, and how dynamics of international environmental rule-setting reinforced but also reinterpreted the underlying environmental norm. The second part focuses on indicators of changing state behaviour and identity, particularly with regard to how environmentalism affected diplomatic practices and multilateralism as a mode of international cooperation. The third part completes the story by examining the spatial dimension of environmental stewardship’s social consolidation, with a focus on how environmental ideas and practices spread worldwide and how the Global South came to not only adopt but also redefine global environmental responsibilities.

This chapter describes and analyzes the law and practice concerning Chinese foreign relations law in the context of global environmental governance. It explains why Chinese foreign relations law is fragmented and unpredictable. Against this fragmentation, it focuses on the field of environmental law and analyses how “environmental diplomacy” plays a role in Chinese foreign relations law pertaining to the environment. To demonstrate general law and practice, the chapter focuses on two core issues, which are allocation of Chinese public powers on negotiating, concluding and approving international environmental treaties and agreements and international cooperation with global environmental institutions. Finally, the chapter explores two issues concerning the legal status of environmental treaties in China, their legal place and methods of implementation that ensure compliance.