Formation and evolution of international environmental agreements compliance bodies

Abstract

The article deals with the formation and evolution of international environmental agreements compliance bodies. Their effective functioning is an important component of the mechanisms and procedures for ensuring compliance with relevant agreements. The study demonstrates that in international environmental law, like in other branches of international law, there is a problem of ensuring compliance with regulations. However, in the field of environmental protection at the international level, a system of autonomous compliance ensuring bodies, which are not classic international intergovernmental organizations, but have certain decision-making and control powers, has been formed, which is not typical for other branches. A feature of international environmental law is the emphasis on its non-coercive enforcement, which affected the authority of bodies and methods and means of control and ensuring compliance with the obligations of the parties to the Environmental Protection Act. A traditional example of the use of non-confrontational means aimed at facilitating the implementation of a treaty, rather than forcing it, is the Montreal Protocol enforcement procedure. It was she who became the prototype for many other MDONS. These bodies make up the core of the institutional component of international environmental protection regimes.
 The study of the development of these bodies over the past 30 years has shown that their creation to ensure the relevant treaties is an expanding trend. At the same time, the international community is trying to find an ideal balance between facilitation and coercion in the powers and functions of these bodies, which would help to facilitate and ensure compliance with the environmental obligations of the contracting states. Most of the procedures for ensuring compliance with international environmental agreements are based precisely on the facilitation approach. However, in the absence of the means of coercion these agreements often demonstrate their inability to guarantee compliance. As a result, the design of new international compliance bodies should demonstrate a successful combination of the elements of facilitation and enforcement. As it seems, in this regard the work of the Committee on Implementation and Compliance with the Paris Agreement to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change will be telling.