55 ethics instruments
Treaties, declarations and codes that set out what design owes to people and to the planet, article by article.
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development / Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — core principles summary, not full text
United Nations General Assembly (resolution 70/1) · 2015
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a political declaration adopted by all 193 UN member states in 2015, not a binding treaty. It sets out 17 Sustainable Development Goals broken into 169 measurable targets, organised around five commitments the Agenda itself names People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace and Partnership. It describes those goals as integrated and indivisible, balancing the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. This record holds the Goals and the Agenda's core commitments rather than all 169 targets.
ACE Manifesto on the New European Bauhaus (2024)
Architects' Council of Europe (ACE), the representative body for the architectural profession at European level · 2024
Published in January 2024 by the Architects' Council of Europe, the representative body for the architectural profession at European level, this manifesto is the profession's own answer to the European Union's New European Bauhaus initiative. Across seven sections it argues that quality in architecture is a matter of public interest, that master planning must precede any spatial intervention, that the act of building should be treated as an evolutionary process, and that Europe's housing crisis requires ending the search for short-term economic gains and reversing the downward spiral of cheap standardisation. It closes with seven numbered conclusions addressed to architects themselves.
African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (Banjul Charter) — core principles summary
Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) · 1981
Adopted at Nairobi in 1981 by the Organisation of African Unity and in force since 1986, the Banjul Charter is unusual among major regional rights treaties in recognising collective rights of peoples alongside individual ones: self-determination, free disposal of their wealth and natural resources, development, peace, and a generally satisfactory environment. It is also the only one with an explicit chapter of individual duties, toward family, society, the state and the international community. Civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights are treated as one indivisible set rather than split across separate treaties, and enforcement runs through a Commission with a strong promotional mandate alongside a Court that can issue binding judgments.
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) — core principles summary
Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) · 1990
Adopted by the Organisation of African Unity in 1990 and in force since 1999, this is Africa's own binding children's rights treaty, adopted because member states judged that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child missed socio-cultural and economic realities particular to Africa. It is a stated correction to that Convention rather than a regional restatement of it. It defines protection from economic exploitation broadly, covering work that is hazardous or that interferes with education, health, or a child's physical, social, mental, spiritual or moral development, and it names harmful social and cultural practices as a distinct category of harm alongside abuse, trafficking and exploitation.
African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (revised, "Maputo Convention")
African Union (revising the 1968 Algiers Convention of the Organization of African Unity) · 2003
The African Union's own binding conservation framework, adopted at Maputo in 2003 as a modernisation of the 1968 Algiers Convention and in force since 2016. Its stated purpose is to encourage individual and joint action for the conservation, utilisation and development of soil, water, flora and fauna, for the present and future welfare of humankind. Unlike many framework conventions it gives itself both a Conference of Parties and a dedicated Secretariat so its provisions can be enforced, and it writes the traditional rights and indigenous knowledge of local communities into conservation strategy rather than treating them as obstacles.
AIA 2030 Commitment
The American Institute of Architects (AIA); the underlying carbon target, the 2030 Challenge, was issued in 2005 by Architecture 2030
Created by the American Institute of Architects in response to the 2030 Challenge issued by Architecture 2030 in 2005, this is a free voluntary programme through which architecture firms pursue carbon neutrality in the built environment. It is the only document in this group with a real measurement mechanism: signatory firms must report predicted design data from every active project each year through the Design Data Exchange, by 31 March, against a defined minimum data set including baseline and predicted energy use intensity. More than 1,350 firms have signed, and the resulting data is published annually and by firm.
American Convention on Human Rights ("Pact of San José") — core principles summary
Organization of American States (OAS) · 1969
Adopted by the Organization of American States at San José in 1969 and in force since 1978, the Pact of San José binds its parties to the classic civil and political rights, with economic, social and cultural rights added later through the separate 1988 Protocol of San Salvador. Enforcement runs in two tiers: the Inter-American Commission receives individual petitions and can refer unresolved cases to the Inter-American Court, whose judgments bind the states that have accepted its jurisdiction. Certain guarantees may be suspended in war or public emergency, but the Convention names an explicit non-derogable core, including the right to life, humane treatment, freedom from slavery and the rights of the child, that stands even then.
Antarctic Treaty System (ATS)
Multilateral treaty system; Secretariat headquartered in Buenos Aires · 1959
Signed in Washington in 1959 and in force since 1961, the Antarctic Treaty sets a whole continent aside for peaceful, scientific use, prohibiting military activity, weapons testing, nuclear explosions and radioactive waste disposal south of 60 degrees south. It freezes rather than settles territorial claims, guarantees freedom of scientific investigation and the open exchange of results, and lets any consultative party inspect any other party's stations at any time. Later instruments extended the same logic to seals and marine living resources, and the 1991 Madrid Protocol designates Antarctica a natural reserve devoted to peace and science, banning mineral resource activity other than scientific research.
Arab Charter on Human Rights — core principles summary
League of Arab States · 2004
The League of Arab States' binding regional rights treaty, adopted in its revised form in 2004 and in force from 2008 after the seventh ratification; an earlier 1994 draft was never ratified and never entered into force. It grounds itself in the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration and the international covenants while also affirming the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, placing itself deliberately between the two lineages rather than choosing one. Its rights list follows the familiar civil and political core, and enforcement runs through an independent Arab Human Rights Committee reviewing state reports every three years rather than through a court. Ten states have ratified it, and Arab civil society groups have criticised it as falling short of international standards in documented ways.
Architects Declare Climate and Biodiversity Emergency (2019)
UK Architects Declare, a network of architectural practices originated by Steve Tompkins and Michael Pawlyn and launched by the then 17 UK Stirling Prize recipients; now a registered charity. Wider umbrella: Built Environment Declares. · 2019
Launched on 30 May 2019 by the then seventeen UK recipients of the Stirling Prize, Architects Declare is a pledge signed by individual architectural practices rather than by institutes or states. Its twelve commitments are concrete enough to change a firm's scope of work: whole life carbon modelling and post occupancy evaluation as part of basic service, upgrading existing buildings rather than demolishing whenever there is a viable choice, open-source sharing of knowledge, and a shift to low embodied carbon materials. Over 1,400 UK practices have signed, and more than 8,200 across 28 countries under the wider Built Environment Declares banner.
ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) · 2002
A binding regional treaty adopted by the member states of ASEAN in 2002 and in force since 2003, written for one specific recurring harm: smoke from land and forest fires that crosses national borders. Prevention and monitoring are named as the primary duty, with emergency response as the backstop, and the treaty followed more than a decade of softer regional measures that proved insufficient. It was the first regional treaty anywhere aimed specifically at haze pollution, and it is now ratified by all ten ASEAN member states, Indonesia only in 2015.
ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) — core principles summary
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) · 2012
A political declaration adopted by the ten ASEAN member states at Phnom Penh in 2012, and the first region-wide human rights instrument for Southeast Asia. It affirms a broad set of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to a safe, clean and sustainable environment, modelled on the structure of the Universal Declaration. It is not a treaty: it creates no enforceable individual claim and no regional court or commission with binding authority. Its clause requiring rights to be considered in the regional and national context drew sustained criticism from UN human rights bodies and civil society as a possible basis for limiting rights, and that criticism belongs with the text.