Anna Huggins, Multilateral Environmental Agreements and Compliance: The Benefits of Administrative Procedures

Abstract

Much ink has been spilled over compliance mechanisms and their merits in the context of international environmental governance (IEG). At the same time, much scholarly attention has been given to administrative procedures as a means of securing compliance with multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Against this backdrop, Anna Huggins proposes an elaborate framework that provides the benchmark against which the benefits of administrative procedures within three areas of international environmental law (IEL)—namely, ozone layer depletion, climate change, and trade in endangered species of fauna and flora—can be gauged. By aptly navigating and drawing insights from global administrative law (GAL), regulation theory, international relations, and third world approaches to international law, the author skilfully articulates her proposed framework. The framework presents a useful tool to evaluate the extent to which administrative action in the compliance mechanisms of MEAs are circumscribed by administrative procedures and mechanisms (at 16). In this regard, the author’s main argument is twofold: first, the adoption of administrative procedures in the compliance systems of MEAs ensures that compliance decision-making occurs in procedurally constrained spaces; second, proceduralization brings with it the potential for affected states’ interests to be heard and taken into consideration in compliance decision-making processes (at 5).