The Integration of Multilateral Environmental Agreements: Lessons from the Biodiversity-Related Conventions

Abstract

It is a well-worn truism that modern international environmental law has developed at an astonishing rate. From humble beginnings, an expansive cohort of instruments and actors has emerged to address a wide variety of ecological threats. Nevertheless, concerns have been consistently raised by commentators, activists, and institutions that this sprawling network has advanced largely at the expense of structural coherence. Indeed, as observed by the Governing Council of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), ‘[w]hereas the creation of the various legally-binding conventions and protocols on the environment constitutes an outstanding achievement on the part of the international community, it also raises the need for continuing policy coherence among the various instrumentalities that exist in this area at both the inter-agency and intergovernmental levels.’ Improving global environmental governance therefore represents both a significant challenge and a pressing concern for the international community. These practical difficulties are attributable largely to the inherent nature of international environmental law making. The emergence of such treaties is often the product of disparate political motivations, pressures on certain valued natural resources, regulatory reactions to specific events, and the catalyzing effect of periodic inter-governmental processes to establish overarching global goals. Consequently, environmental treaties have tended to emerge in a relatively unco-ordinated and ad hoc manner. In the early 1990s, the phenomenon of ‘treaty congestion’ was identified as afflicting the environmental treaties that emerged in the wake of the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment. While this term remains obscure from a legal perspective, it may be broadly