Profile: Highlighting the absence of a 'WSSD+5' anniversary summit in 2007, this article explores the reasons for the ebbing of enthusiasm for multilateral summits. It identifies their percieved ineffectiveness, shifts from policy formulation towards implementation, and the rise of bilateral partnerships. However the political potential of summits as moments where dominant actors can be confronted by protestors is also significant. The article ends by reflecting that, 20 years after the Brundtland Report, the entire discourse of sustainable development has an uncertain future.