Effectiveness Of Environmental Regimes Research Articles

National legislative adoption of international wildlife law after treaty ratification

Since the 1970s, the world has witnessed a proliferation of international treaties championing the protection of wildlife. The effectiveness of those treaties, which together comprise international wildlife law (IWL), depends on their national implementation by individual states rather than on their number. National implementation of IWL ranges from legislative action, to resource allocation, to individual behavioural change. Inadequate IWL implementation can facilitate and even lead to wildlife crime. Therefore, examining how countries operationalise their commitments derived from IWL is important to understand the efficacy (or lack thereof) of wildlife treaties. The main goal of this article is to investigate the dynamics by which nations internalise international wildlife commitments into state law, by using Norway as a case study. The article thus explores the social dynamics that shaped the domestic legal action that Norway undertook after its ratification of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention). The study is based on historical data documenting Norway’s legislative processes derived from the conventions and historical records of the country’s environmental conflicts. It applies Chambliss’s sociology of law perspective on conflict to interpret the material. While many globalisation scholars hold that globalisation stripped states of legislative sovereignty, this article argues that Norway’s wildlife policy is mostly dependent on clashes between national forces, rather than Norway conceding legislative powers to the international community. In other words, the tension between economic growth and ecosystem conservation determines how Norway implements IWL commitments. This article contributes to the literature on environmental regime effectiveness and the domestic impact of treaties.

When Do International Treaties Matter for Domestic Environmental Legislation?

While thousands of international treaties have been concluded, it remains unclear whether they have been implemented. This article investigates the relationship between the conclusion of environment-related international treaties and the adoption of domestic environmental legislation. Thanks to data sets that are considerably more comprehensive and fine-grained than those previously used, we can analyze the direct link to environmental legislation rather than the less direct link to environmental outcomes. Moreover, we can disaggregate for specific environmental issue areas. Our results suggest a positive relationship between domestic environmental legislation with both international environmental agreements and preferential trade agreements (PTAs) with environmental provisions. This link is more robust for PTAs, mostly present in developing countries, more pronounced before rather than after the treaties’ entry into force, and shows significant variation depending on the issue area. These findings contribute to the literature on environmental regime effectiveness and the domestic impact of treaties.

Environmental regime effectiveness and the North American Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement

Scholars and practitioners around the globe are grappling with how to improve the effectiveness of complex, transboundary, and multilevel environmental regimes. International environmental agreements (IEAs) have been around for decades yet achievements and outcomes have not met expectations. While international relations scholars have primarily focused on the effectiveness of agreements between states, public policy scholars have been interested in outcomes at a variety of scales including international, national, sub-national, and local across various environmental policy domains and at the instrument and program levels. This article presents findings from a case study of environmental regime effectiveness that uses a modified version of the Oslo-Postdam solution to assess the effectiveness of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, a long-standing, bilateral international environmental agreement between Canada and the USA. The findings indicate that there is a need to more broadly define international environmental agreements in complex transboundary systems to include both formal and informal regime features and multilevel governance efforts and to focus on specific policy goals and ecological outcomes associated with IEAs. This case also illustrates the potential to modify the Oslo-Postdam approach by combining expert assessment and data collection methods with traditional policy analysis and program evaluation methods in assessments of environmental regime effectiveness.

Formalizing knowledge on international environmental regimes: A first step towards integrating political science in integrated assessments of global environmental change

International environmental regimes are considered key factors in dealing with global environmental change problems. It is important to understand if and how regimes are effective in tackling these problems, which requires knowledge on their potential impact on these problems as well as on their political feasibility. Integrated assessments of global environmental change, which are mainly bio-physical and technology-economic oriented, barely address knowledge on environmental regimes, due to problems in drawing general and policy relevant lessons on regime effectiveness and inherent difficulties in modelling human and social dimensions. This paper presents an innovative approach to formalize knowledge on the effectiveness of environmental regimes, so that scientists from both the political science and integrated assessment domain can understand it, discuss it and contribute to it. We constructed a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of conditions that influence regime effectiveness and implemented it in a computer model using fuzzy logic methodology. We evaluated the fuzzy model in an ex post case study on four existing international environmental regimes. The model can be used as an aid in analysing the effectiveness of existing or future regimes, highlighting which determinants contribute to success or failure, and it enables systematic and meaningful comparisons between regimes and policy measures.We discovered that formalizing knowledge on environmental regimes in a framework and model enhanced its transparency and deductive power as it forced us to be explicit about our choices and assumptions. Developing and using the framework and model also revealed the lacunae in knowledge in environmental regime theory which may inform regime researchers to further structure and increase their knowledge. By making knowledge on environmental regimes explicit and understandable we have taken an important step towards a better integration of political science in integrated assessments. We believe, however, that this integration is still in its early days and requires further attention in the future.

Effectiveness of international environmental regimes: Existing knowledge, cutting-edge themes, and research strategies

International environmental regimes--especially those regimes articulated in multilateral environmental agreements--have been a subject of intense interest within the scientific community over the last three decades. However, there are substantial differences of opinion regarding the effectiveness of these governance systems or the degree to which they are successful in solving the problems leading to their creation. This article provides a critical review of the literature on this topic. It extracts and summarizes what is known about the effectiveness of environmental regimes in the form of a series of general and specific propositions. It identifies promising topics for consideration in the next phase of research in this field. Additionally, it comments on the research strategies available to pursue this line of analysis. The general conclusions are that international environmental regimes can and do make a difference, although often in conjunction with a number of other factors, and that a strategy of using a number of tools combined can help to improve understanding of the determinants of success.

Strategies in international regime negotiations: reflecting background conditions or shaping outcomes?

Negotiation behaviour is usually seen as an intervening variable—adapted to structural and institutional conditions, but with sufficient degrees of freedom to leave its own imprint on outcomes. Little is known, however, about the extent to which negotiation behaviour in fact shapes outcomes. This paper addresses that question, building on data from the Miles et al. (Environmental regime effectiveness: confronting theory with evidence. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2002) environmental regimes project. Four main conclusions can be inferred from the analysis. First, the Miles et al. core model seems to account for a fair amount of the variance observed in the strategies adopted by “pushers” and “laggards,” but it also leaves ample scope for other explanations. Second, both of these groups respond to the choice of strategy made by the other. Third, adding negotiation strategies to the Miles et al. core model does not significantly change the conclusions obtained from that model itself. Finally, sometimes negotiation strategies—in particular combinations of strategies—nevertheless make a real difference, often through interplay with other factors. To better understand when and how this occurs, we need models that are more sophisticated and a combination of methodological tools designed for aggregating as well as separating effects.

Strategic Linkages: The Evolving Role of Trade Agreements in Global Environmental Governance

Recently negotiated linkages between trade and environmental agreements have the potential to enhance environmental regime effectiveness in ways that have been impossible under environmental treaties alone. Specifically, the 2009 U.S.—Peru Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) contains the most prescriptive environmental directives found in any U.S. trade agreement to date and pioneering provisions linking environmental treaty implementation to the TPA’s much stronger dispute-settlement procedures. The combination of these two elements has begun to catalyze Peru’s implementation of relevant environmental provisions and a corresponding potential for regime effectiveness improvements. Simultaneously, these prescriptive provisions contributed to catastrophic social unrest in Peru that must be acknowledged and addressed by policy makers in the United States and abroad before this agreement is exported to other countries.

Como saber se as convenções internacionais de meio ambiente realmente funcionam? abordagens teórico-metodológicas sobre a eficácia dos regimes ambientais

As últimas décadas foram marcadas pela grande quantidade de problemas ambientais transfronteiriços e pelo consequente aumento no número de regimes internacionais relacionados. Entretanto, a criação de um regime por si só não garante sua implementação, tampouco a obtenção plena de seus objetivos ou, menos ainda, a resolução do problema. Este fato vem estimulando um debate interessante na academia: os regimes internacionais são realmente eficazes para tratar de questões de meio ambiente? O presente artigo discute os principais métodos de análise da eficácia dos regimes de meio ambiente. Para tanto, delineia questões conceituais gerais sobre a eficácia dos regimes, discute os questionamentos e necessidades metodológicas no caso específico das políticas ambientais internacionais, analisa as principais abordagens utilizadas e apresenta seus achados mais importantes, focando nos fatores que contribuem para a eficácia.

Obstacles to Achieving an Environmentally Sustainable Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme: Lessons from Previous Legislative Environmental Regimes

This paper was prepared for the Honours Thesis course at the ANU College of Law, under the supervision of Brad Jessup. Australia's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) will not exist in a vacuum, unaffected by existent regulatory shortcomings. This paper aims to identify obstacles to the achievement of a CPRS that promotes environmental sustainability. In particular this paper examines the proposed CPRS in light of past Australian and international experiences in creating and implementing environmental regulation. Past experiences demonstrate the detrimental impact non-compliance, non-enforcement, a lack of ambition and defective rules can have on an environmental regime's effectiveness in promoting environmental sustainability. Conversely, past experiences also demonstrate the combination of elements that can together combine to create an effective environmental regime. This paper analyses the proposed CPRS in terms of its likely ability to overcome the obstacles that have thwarted past Australian environmental regimes, particularly the Commonwealth Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act regime and the NSW Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme. By looking abroad at the German Feed-in Law the paper also offers insight into those factors that could aid the achievement of an effective Australian CPRS.

Exploring discourses on international environmental regime effectiveness with Q methodology: A case study of the Mediterranean Action Plan

Extensive research has been done on the ‘high politics’ of negotiations of international environmental agreements. However, little attention has been paid to the effectiveness of their implementation after coming into force. Effectiveness cannot be easily measured, since different stakeholders use different criteria as the basis of their opinion. The purpose of this study is to investigate discourses on the effectiveness of an international environmental regime. The regime chosen is the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) – and its legal framework, the Barcelona Convention – which was established in 1975 under the aegis of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Q methodology was used to reveal discourses on the effectiveness of UNEP/MAP. After collecting relevant literature and identifying the stakeholders, 25 in-depth interviews were conducted. The stakeholders were from the Secretariat of the Convention, academia, NGO workers, and others that studied or knew the subject well. From these interviews 294 statements were extracted, from which 44 were finally selected to be used in the Q study. The interviewees were approached for the second time to complete the Q sorts. This study revealed four distinct discourses concerning the effectiveness of international environmental regimes. It concludes that there is no one ‘right’ way of defining effectiveness and that no approach can provide more than a partial evaluation of the overall effectiveness of a regime.

Negotiating a New Design for a World Ocean Regime

In a study assessing the effectiveness of international environmental regimes published in 2002 the authors chose to exclude the negotiations of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea as a case study because it was not an environmental regime per se and because the conference was far too complex to be useful as a control case. The present essay applies the analytic structure of the environmental regime effectiveness study to the UNLCOS III negotiations to assess what value, if any, would now be added to a comprehensive analysis of those negotiations. The findings are that the approach of my previous research on UNCLOS III would have been considerably tightened by such an application and a much more nuanced and evolutionary analysis would have been possible on the variable of problem type in which malignancy first increased but later decreased.

International Linkages and Environmental Sustainability: The Effectiveness of the Regime Network

While the literature on environmental regime effectiveness has focused on particular regimes considered in isolation, the overall effects of the system of regimes are more relevant. First, regimes are connected because they often share institutional architecture, deal with different aspects of the same problem, frame issues using similar legal and policy principles, and are subject to attempts to coordinate across issues by groups of nations, NGOs and international agencies. Thus, the network of regimes has social capital that can be applied to particular issues. Second, owing to ecological interconnectedness, regimes can have both positive and negative side-effects on environmental issues that they do not explicitly deal with. Allowing for political interconnectedness using concepts drawn from social network theory and for ecological interconnectedness using broad measures of sustainability, this article argues that nations more central to the network of environmental regimes should score higher on measures of sustainability. This is because the social capital in the regime network can more easily be brought to bear on centrally placed nations to make them cooperate and because they are more likely to be aware of negative regime side-effects. Measures of network centrality do, indeed, positively impact on nations’ performance on four sustainability indicators. The analysis also finds that a nation's position in the general international system further positively impacts on its sustainability scores. This leads to the suggestion that the environmental regime network is supported by social capital in more general international networks.

EFFECTIVENESS OF ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES: TREND ANALYSIS OF TREATY-BASED ENVIRONMENTAL INDICATORS

The literature on environmental regime effectiveness has shown a predilection for behaviour modification studies, whereby effectiveness is associated with a change in the behaviour of relevant actors. There has not been a systematic endeavour to link the implementation of international environmental agreements (IEAs) with improvement in environmental conditions. This article shifts away from the paradigm of behavioural analysis and focuses instead on linking IEA effectiveness with positive environmental changes in treaty-based environmental effectiveness indicators. Thirty-four treaty texts have been analysed to determine potential environmental indicators, and treaty secretariats have been contacted to collect time-series data on the selected indicators. Based on data gathered, trend lines are established for the environmental indicators to depict changes in related global environmental conditions. The results of this exercise show that viewing IEA effectiveness from the environmental modification perspective is promising, though there are serious data limitations still to be overcome.

Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence

Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence

Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence,

Environmental Regime Effectiveness: Confronting Theory with Evidence,

Constructing Effective Environmental Regimes

In the environmental literature, accounts of cooperative progress commonly emphasize the activity and leadership of nongovernmental organizations, as well as the constitutive roles that environmental regimes play by legitimizing, by promoting reflectivist discourse, and by redefining roles. This essay lays out the differences between the constructivist and political-economic theories of environmental regime effectiveness and examines the extent to which the constructivist emphasis is empirically justified by three recent collections of case studies. Of the surprisingly modest effects that environmental regimes have had, most appear to have come through the use of mechanisms that already play a prominent role in the political economy literature. Constructivist processes, despite the attention they have received, appear to have had only a marginal impact.