Improving Global Water Governance: Dealing with Weak International Regimes through Enhanced Multi-Level Governance

Abstract

Distinguishing between international design failures and national implementation problems is a subject of some concern in the area of international natural resource and environmental policy such as water policy. Many observers have traced the failings of existing global governance architectures to the lack of hard law at the international level. However, recent work on international regimes, especially that dealing with regime fragmentation and the interplay between regimes, suggests that the ‘failure’ of a regime to develop ‘hard law’ may simply reflect the lack of need for such efforts. This work has highlighted the corresponding need to deal with an issue at a national or local level. Efforts at these levels, however, have also often failed, in large measure due to the inability of national governments to control private sector actors. Much can be learned in water policy from other sectoral experiences in institutional policy design and this paper examines the nature of regime complexes in Forestry and Migration in order to draw lessons for international water policy-making. Both experiences suggest the correct approach to the problem on the part of domestic governments is to focus on multi-level governance (MLG) and the tools and instruments required to put an effective multi-level architecture in place. Water policy-making may be better served by regional agreements than by efforts to develop national or international regimes.