The fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-4) saw the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) move from its start-up phase to a long-term planning cycle. Attended by over 1,300 participants from 152 countries, the Bratislava meeting completed a heavy work schedule and adopted 19 decisions. These decisions will guide the work of the Parties and the secretariat until COP-S (to be held in May 2000) and beyond. Several decisions addressed the ecosystem programmes being developed under the Convention.

Decisions adopted by the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment at its tenth session

The General Assembly, among other decisions, requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its seventy-third session in 2018 a technical and evidence-based report that identifies and assesses possible gaps in international environmental law and environment-related instruments with a view to strengthening their implementation; and decides to establish an ad hoc open-ended working group, under the auspices of the General Assembly, to consider the report and discuss possible options to address possible gaps in international environmental law and environment-related instruments, as appropriate, and, if deemed necessary, the scope, parameters and feasibility of an international instrument, with a view to making recommendations, which may include the convening of an intergovernmental conference to adopt an international instrument, to the Assembly during the first half of 2019.