UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Governing Council – GC

As a result of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the UN General Assembly established the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as the central UN body for global environmental cooperation and treaty making. The resolution also established the UNEP Governing Council (GC) to provide a forum for the international community to address major and emerging environmental policy issues.

The GC’s responsibilities included promoting international environmental cooperation and the recommending policies to achieve it, as well as providing policy guidance for the direction and coordination of environmental activities throughout the UN system. The Global Ministerial Environment Forum (GMEF) was formed by the GC in 2000 to institute, at a high political level, a process for reviewing important and emerging policy issues in the field of the environment.

The GC held its final meeting in 2013 and was replaced by the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) in 2014.