Choosing Environmental Instruments in a Transnational Context

Abstract

This article analyzes the choice of instruments in international environmental agreements using a transnational legal process analysis. A transnational approach helps explain developing country opposition to international allowance trading and the difficulty experienced in reaching agreement on satisfactory ground rules for trading under international agreements. International allowance trading depends upon international transactions and therefore requires detailed international legal rules. Since these rules generally require the unanimous consent of all treaty parties, agreement to a well designed program on an international level will prove difficult. Because key countries may either oppose trading as inequitable or not agree to a set of good design criteria, international allowance trading may discourage effective participation in international agreements. An option of transnational pluralism, an approach that relies upon national compliance using nationally chosen methods, merits consideration as an alternative to international selection of environmental instruments.