Uncertainty of outcome. A second, related criticism of the concept of sustainable development is that, due in part to the difficulties in pinpointing its meaning, the concept inherently fails to establish a pecking order among the three “pillars” of sustainable development – economic, social, and environmental. As such, it gives policy-makers leeway to choose which of the three pillars gets priority in drawing up a specific legislative proposal. This leads to the possibility legitimately to prioritise, in particular, the economic pillar of sustainability - i.e. the aim of achieving economic growth and development - over environmental aims, making “deep greens”, in particular, very suspicious of the concept.96 In the international context, for instance, such fears are arguably borne out by the Johannesburg Declaration and Plan of Implementation which, with their emphases on reducing poverty as the “greatest global challenge facing the world today”, represented a shift in focus at UN level from the environmental pillar to the social and economic pillars of sustainable development. In the EU context, it is arguable that, though sustainability often features as a green catchword in policy documents and in the preamble to legislation, it rarely noticeably alters the substantive rules or standards ultimately adopted (in contrast to the more concrete integration principle, discussed below). In the European Council’s March 2008 launch of a new cycle of the Lisbon Strategy (for 2008-2010), for instance, the goal of environmental protection was not expressly mentioned at all (despite, as we have seen, the Gothenburg Council’s declaration that sustainable development formed the third pillar of this strategy).97 Indeed, as Krämer aptly notes, a prioritisation of economic goals is still inherent in the very structure of the EC Treaty - which prima facie prohibits obstacles to intra- Community trade and anti-competitive practices, for example, but does not as such prohibit causing significant damage to the environment.98 Such prioritisation is also evident, for example, in judicial dicta such as that of AG Léger in First Corporate Shipping considered above - from which the clear inference is that economic (or other) considerations may, in some circumstances, trump environmental considerations. As a result, many feel that the practical effect of the sustainability principle in promoting environmental protection has in fact been minimal.99 Indeed, to some, sustainability’s of intergenerational j...
