The role of international regimes in the formation and maintenance of Baltic environmental cooperation

Abstract

Since 1991, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have created a successful cooperative regime in the field of environmental protection. It is built up on international regime-like arrangements, based on bi- or trilateral agreements as well as on commonly accepted behavioural norms and rules. The article argues that such regular cooperation between the three Baltic countries has not sprung from merely their own interests, i.e. from the need to solve the existing problems with transboundary externalities and shared natural resources or to achieve major political goals more efficiently in collaboration than individually. The formation and maintenance of the trilateral cooperation can, to a large extent, be attributed to the influence of normative institutions called international regimes as well as individual members of the international community.