International Environmental Institutions Research Articles

ROLE AND POSITION OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTIONS IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Problems regarding global environmental issues have become the focus of attention of developed and developing countries. Because the issue of environmental damage certainly has quite a broad impact, namely regarding the exploitation of Natural Resources (SDA) on land, sea and air on a massive scale which then arises threats such as the depletion of the atmosphere and uncertain climate change, especially as the rate increases. population growth that is increasingly unmanageable transnationally. This destruction certainly requires an alternative solution through international legal instruments to be later adopted by other countries through international environmental institutions. Like the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as an organization originating from the United Nations (UN) in the environmental sector and several other institutions have the ability to handle global environmental problems by inviting each country to study dominant problems, such as forest fires, water pollution, or degradation of soil quality. Through international environmental institutions, of course it has become the focus of in-depth studies regarding its position and role in influencing environmental prevention and preservation in all countries around the world. The results of this research show that international institutions through their respective authorities are able to suppress policies in each country in cooperative activities to achieve global environmental protection programs.

The latent net effectiveness of institutional complexes: a heuristic model.

International institutions strive to achieve their own objectives while operating within a complex network of interdependencies. These interdependencies create an extensive web of relationships that serve as potential pathways for broader institutional impacts. The actions taken by individual institutions, their mutual influences, and the pattern of connectivity collectively shape the overall performance of institutional complexes. Understanding the performance of these complexes is crucial, yet we currently lack a methodology to assess it. To address this gap, we have developed a conceptual framework that integrates three distinct areas of study on three different scales: institutional effectiveness, institutional interlinkages, and institutional networks. This framework enables us to consider what we call the latent net effectiveness, or collective problem-solving potential, of a group of interconnected institutions. To put this framework into practice, we have devised a heuristic model, drawing from the extensive literature on international environmental institutions. As an illustrative example, we have applied this model to a network of 378 multilateral environmental agreements with 810 known issue linkages. Our work underscores the relevance of considering the system-level properties of institutional complexes and emphasizes the need for timely network-based governance and policy interventions to enhance the overall effectiveness of institutional complexes. This article is part of the theme issue 'A complexity science approach to law and governance'.

The challenge of the global ecological crisis for world politics

The ecological crisis is one of the greatest challenges humanity faces in this century. Climate change and ecosystem degradation pose real threats to the future of life on the planet. However, despite global security and survival being key themes in the study of international relations, environmental issues have remained on the sidelines of the discipline in recent decades. This reality seems to be changing with the publication of an increasing number of works that seek to rethink the discipline and the practice of world politics through the lens of ecology. These works call for a political transformation to address the crisis and challenge the traditional institutionalist approach dominant in the literature, which focuses on the analysis of intergovernmental cooperation and the effectiveness of international environmental institutions, such as the United Nations (UN) climate and biodiversity regimes.

Deflective Cooperation: Social Pressure and Forum Management in Cold War Conventional Arms Control

AbstractWhy do states create weak international institutions? Frustrated with proliferating but disappointing international environmental institutions, scholars increasingly bemoan agreements which, rather than solving problems, appear to exist “for show.” This article offers an explanation of this phenomenon. I theorize a dynamic of deflective cooperation to explain the creation of compromise face-saving institutions. I argue that when international social pressure to create an institution clashes with enduring disagreements among states about the merits of creating it, states may adopt cooperative arrangements that are ill-designed to produce their purported practical effects. Rather than negotiation failures or empty gestures, I contend that face-saving institutions represent interstate efforts to manage intractable disagreement through suboptimal institutionalized cooperation. I formulate this argument inductively through a new multi-archival study of conventional weapons regulation during the Cold War, which resulted in the oft-maligned 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. A careful reconsideration of the negotiation process extends and nuances existing IR theorizing and retrieves its historical significance as a critical juncture and complex product of contesting diplomatic practices.

Eksistensi Lembaga Lingkungan Hidup Internasional dalam Pengelolaan Lingkungan Hidup

This study aims to examine the role and position of international environmental institutions in environmental management. Environmental issues are international issues that have a broad effect, involving the exploitation of global resources such as the oceans and atmosphere, as well as the existence of transnational environmental destruction. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is a United Nations (UN) environmental agency that specifically deals with global environmental problems by actively promoting the enforcement of sustainable development in the world. The research method used in this paper is a descriptive analysis method with a historical approach and a conceptual approach. The results of this study indicate that the United Nations through UNEP is able to emphasize government policies in environmental protection programs globally.

Why populism may facilitate non-state actors’ access to international environmental institutions

ABSTRACT This article examines populists’ relationship with non-state actors in international environmental agreements (IEAs). We ask whether populist governments favor transnational non-state actors’ access to these institutions. Using data on the design of IEAs since the 1970s, evidence is reported suggesting that populists seek to institutionalize non-state actors’ access to IEAs. To explain this relationship, we argue that populist governments likely want to reduce and undermine the influence of established elites, also in international institutions. To this end, they may want to institutionalize access of their own constituents within IEAs. The empirical implication of this claim is that institutionalized access of non-state actors in IEAs is more likely when populist governments are involved. The empirical results provide strong and robust support for our argument, and these findings contribute to our knowledge in a number of areas of environmental politics and political science in general.

The limits of global property rights: Quasi-Experimental evidence from the Energy Charter Treaty

The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) is the primary international mechanism protecting the property rights of foreign energy investors. By giving firms the ability to sue host governments in neutral venues, the hope was that expropriation risks would reduce and thereby spur investment. Has the ECT lived up to these aims? We analyze how exogenous changes to the property rights provided to Russian firms under the Energy Charter Treaty impact political risk. We find no evidence that the increases or decreases to rights under the investment regime altered firm value. The results indicate that the ECT has limited effects on an investment climate, at least in the eyes of financial markets. The findings suggest that critics of the ECT are right to call for reforming the institution as it may be hampering a green energy transition without adequately providing the promised economic returns. More theoretically, the paper contributes to debates on the relationship between state power and international environmental institutions, and highlights the importance of offshore finance for altering business-government relations in the energy sector.

A Study on the Development of Korean Trade in Response to Green Protectionism and Changes in the International Trade Environment

This paper analyzes ways to develop Korean trade in response to rapidly changing green protectionism and changes in the international trade environment. The purpose is to identify regulations in the international trade environment under green protectionism, analyze the impact of these regulations on Korea, and the direction and measures of Korea’s development in the green protectionist international trade environment. Design/Methodology/Approach – We used the data of prior research based on existing literature. Korea’s institutional shortcomings and direction of development were compared with international environmental agreements, regulations, and institutions of advanced countries. Findings – As a result of this study, to promote t rade, we should make efforts such as i ntroducing a preemptive system in line with green protectionism, possessing related technologies in line with regulations of major countries, and preparing them in advance. If it responds to changes in the international community, it can solve the fact that exports are biased against only a few countries and respond to green protectionism. Of course, support at the Government level will be essential to this. Research Implications – Measures should be taken to cope with environmental regulatory levels in countries subject to export. Measures include having related technologies, improving its own environmental level, and revising existing regulations. In addition, Korea also needs to establish its own domestic teco-friendly trade regulation system in line with the changing trend of the green protectionism international trade environment.

UNGA as the Anchor: Global Environmental Conferencing

It has been nearly 50 years since the pioneering first global UN Conference on Human Environment was organized in Stockholm in 1972. After that, several global conferences took place over the last decades. Some of them have been praised for their contribution to shaping international environmental institutions and international treaties; others have passed almost unnoticed by the wider public. Yet, these global environmental conferences have cumulatively provided the foundations for the development of international environmental policies and the progressive development of law. In the light of ongoing environmental degradation in the ‘Anthropocene,’ the further development of environmental governance seems more important than ever. Hence, this chapter seeks to examine how this future pathway would look like as regards the technique of global environmental conferences have hitherto shaped the existing structures of international environmental governance. It surmises that the UNGA could be described as an anchor that merely maintains the status quo of international environmental law and policy.

Curbing Fossil Fuels: on the Design of Global Reward Payment Funds to Induce Countries to Reduce Supply, Reduce Demand and Expand Substitutes

Existing international environmental institutions curb fossil fuels by rewarding countries for reducing demand and expanding substitutes. This paper argues that it would be beneficial to create new institutions that would reward countries for reducing their fossil fuel supply. Assuming complete information, I prove a Price Preservation Lemma: For any given budget, the optimal way to split the budget between the three approaches (rewarding supply reduction, demand reduction and substitute expansion) leaves the world market price of the fossil fuel unchanged. In a dynamic setting, this result holds under full commitment for any given intertemporal budget. Using this Lemma, I show that the optimum cannot be implemented by relying on the supply side entirely on a deposit purchase fund. The results suggest that it would be valuable to also create funds rewarding countries for taxing fossil fuel extraction in addition to creating a deposit purchase fund.

China's renewed perception of global environmental governance

China's idea of a community of a shared future for humanity (CSFH) has become the guiding principle and norm to be further embedded and integrated into the country's approach to environmental governance. Under the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals, China strongly emphasizes the implementation of its national strategy to mitigate the global climate crisis, and construct international environmental institutions by advocating fair cooperation resulting in mutual gain. China's role as a responsible major country is expected to be more proactive in international process. In particular, the concept of CSFH exerts positive, far-reaching impacts on the greening of the Belt and Road Initiative and the construction of solid South–South relations. Based on the renewed perception, China shall undertake its responsibilities in the reform of the global environmental governance system by leading multilateralism to strengthen the capacity of relevant international institutions such as the UN. Driven by China's political will, this concept reflects China's more confident attitude toward global environmental governance. Most profoundly, mainstreaming the vision of CSFH will elevate China's role to a new level in the coming years in terms of norm creation in international environmental institutions.

Evaluating institutional effectiveness: the case of the Arctic Council

ABSTRACT The 20th anniversary of the Arctic Council (AC) in 2016 provided an excellent opportunity for evaluating the council’s performance over its two decades in operation. Along the AC’s appraisals, various commentators – both from within and without the council’s circles – put forward proposals to reform the AC in order to, arguably, strengthen it and enhance its effectiveness vis-à-vis new challenges facing the Arctic. Interestingly, most of those accounts have only tenuous, if any, connection with the general literature on international environmental regimes and their effectiveness. As a result, they do not draw from the insights flowing from this literature and, in reverse, they miss an opportunity to contribute to the broader body of knowledge about international environmental institutions. The lack of systematic inquiry also hampers our ability to accumulate knowledge about the performance of the AC itself. To address that matter, this article draws up a basic framework through which future assessments of the AC’s effectiveness could be grounded in the general literature on international regimes. The study treats the AC as an institution or regime as these terms are used in the broader literature on international relations. It adopts the political definition of institutional effectiveness and is based on literature reviews related to international regimes and the AC as well as, whenever relevant, on the subject of Arctic governance at large. Overall, the article underlines the critical importance of systematic inquiry and transparency in producing insights regarding the AC’s effectiveness – as of any other institution – to allow for accumulation of our comprehension of what makes the AC work.

Governing Complex Systems: Social Capital for the Anthropocene. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. xiii + 279 pages. ISBN 9780262035934, $90.00 hardcover. ISBN 9780262533843, $30.00 paperback. ISBN 9780262338882, $21.00 eBook. Oran R. Young. 2017.

[Extract] Oran Young, a renowned senior scholar in the field of international governance and environmental institutions, has written an ambitious treatise that engages with an important topic of current times––governing complex systems in the era of the Anthropocene. His intention is clear. We are now living in a world of human-dominated ecosystems where the capacity of humans to alter biophysical systems has reached a planetary scale. We must devise innovative governing mechanisms that differ from those already familiar to us and use them as alternatives or supplements to the regulatory approach of dealing with large-scale complex social-ecological phenomena. The need to create governance systems that are nimble or agile, and also adaptable to changing circumstances, is thus palpable. It is in this context that he brings social capital into focus. This stance is encouraging. Yet, the substance with which he promotes his thesis is less dense (and even somewhat disappointing), as he relies on a collection of previously published essays that are refurbished here to connect with the theme of social capital.

Blocking change: facing the drag of status quo fisheries institutions

Under what conditions can international environmental institutions survive changing power alignments? This article argues that relatively declining powers and private domestic actors play an important role in preserving the status quo because they are eager to retain advantages that existing institutions afford them. This effort to block change affects fisheries negotiations, in particular, by allowing powerful actors to avoid new rules once an institution is in place. I hypothesize, first, that relatively declining fishing powers attempt to retain past institutional successes, while emerging fishing powers seek to alter the status quo. Second, negotiating positions reflect not only a country’s position in the world, but also the access provided to domestic stakeholders who wish to gain, or fear losses, from new agreements. Therefore, I hypothesize that powerful beneficiaries in domestic politics push relatively declining powers to support the status quo when those private actors benefit from highly legalized past agreements and participate in foreign policy decisions. I test these hypotheses by exploring US and EU approaches to fisheries treaty negotiations through archival research and interviews with fisheries negotiators. The evidence supports hypotheses that status quo powers seek to protect earlier deals more intensely when they negotiate with rising fishing powers, and when private parties are most influential. As hypothesized, both governments are particularly protective of the most complex earlier agreements under these conditions.

International Cooperation: The Scope and Challenges of International Environmental Agreements

The present study explores the complex system of international relations in the promotion of international cooperation when addressing environmental problems. The global environmental challenges call for the immediate action of the international actors. The evolution of environmental diplomacy and the multitude of international environmental Conferences and the agreements adopted prove, on the one hand, the emergence of a field of international environmental governance, which is not yet clearly defined, and, on the other hand, the turn of Humanity towards the principles of sustainable development, with the simultaneous respect of its three pillars, the environmental, the societal and the economic ones. Despite, however, the increase in international environmental institutions, in the targets set, and in the legal documents, i.e. the international environmental agreements, the results of this proliferation are not always positive. The enforcement of these accords remains a riddle to solve. Policy instruments can play an important role in initiating incentives and ensuring more successful outcomes of compliance. The international economic regimes and the non-state actors can also contribute in enhancing international environmental cooperation.

Book Review: The Global Environment: Institutions, Law, and Policy

This textbook is the renowned edition of Regina, S. A., and Stacy, D. V. which is revised to frame the contents as one of the award-winning volumes to show highlights of the current trends of global environmental politics, social issues, and sustainable development practices. The contents of this book also offer an inclusive explanation of the key institutions, issues, laws, and policies to describe environmental management and governance systems. As the revised edition, the authors have attempted to describe the key elements of international environmental politics to an appraisal of practical examples including the related institutions, issues, laws, policies and the roles of stakeholders. The authors also include an expanded explanation of the strategies in each case study, which relate to the possible strategies to deal with climate changes, biodiversity loss, harmful of chemical overusing, ozone layer depletion, nuclear energy and natural resource consumptions. This textbook is divided into three sections, with critical thinking and academic reviewing from theoretical aspects and certain concepts of global environmental politics to an appraisal of suitable practice examples. At the beginning of this book, the authors offer the lists of selected acronyms in global environmental policy and a brief chronology, which follows by the contributors. An introduction is written for setting the background of global environmental governance and following by the first section to discuss on the international environmental actors and institutions in generally with examples. In the introduction, Regina S. A. and Stacy, D. reviews the relevant aspects of global environmental governance, and discuss the broader international environmental institutions, laws and regimes for setting the scene of the first section. The first section discusses on the related architects, agitators and entrepreneurs which are embedded in the International and Nongovernmental Organizations in Global Environmental Politics, while also providing examples of the policies of climate change and ozone layer protection. One of the strengths of the first section is that it provides useful and descriptive analyses of the evolution of the international environmental policy arena. A second section considers the big players in global environmental policy-making in both of domestic and international as a part of leadership, partnerships and global environmental politics to face national and global challenges. A third section addresses the cases, controversies, and challenges of the implementation of national and international environmental management policies. It can be reminded that the international institutional relationships are extraordinarily complicated while seeking common workable environmental standards and the involvement of both governmental and nongovernmental organization. In the third section, the complex nexus of multilevel global environmental governance is reviewed by providing several case studies in each chapter which covered the local, national and regional governance of hazardous chemicals, biodiversity, and environmental protection as a conundrum part of sustainable development controversies.

Re-visiting old ideas in order to craft an effective modern international environmental law regulatory framework

The most compelling arguments which have explored how effective environmental protection could be secured through regulatory means have arguably been those that have proposed the turn to international environmental organisation-style institutions to direct regulatory efforts. Sadly, these proposals have been unable to compel real-world change because countries have been unwilling to cede their sovereignty over aspects of the environment falling within their territories to such institutions. I argue that, over time, countries have begun to change their attitudes with respect to their sovereignty over aspects of the environment falling within their territories. While this has been occurring, constructivists have presented compelling theories with respect to how effective international regulation can be achieved. These theories have lent greater validity to fundamental assumptions which informed arguments for the turn to international environmental organisation-style institutions to direct regulatory efforts. As such, based on what I consider to be countries’ changing attitudes and drawing from the compelling body of constructivist literature which has focused on what it takes to establish effective international regulatory frameworks, in this article I reconsider whether the turn to an international environmental organisation-style institution may now be feasible in the modern era.

The dynamics of the contemporary governance of the world’s food supply and the challenges of policy redirection

This paper identifies the governance dynamics and the international policy architecture that frame contemporary policy actions in relation to the food supply and elaborates on key governance tensions that policy makers need to address to feed the world’s growing population by the mid-21st century. Two main dimensions of governance are examined: the international policy space, composed of nation states collaborating through international regimes with other international actors; and the private corporate led governance of the food supply. At the international levels, policy discontinuities and gaps are identified, for example between international environmental regimes and food security institutions. The so-called Washington Consensus has given way to a post Washington divergence of policy approaches amongst states, reflecting the “varieties of capitalism” thesis, and a more multi-polar international policy space over food and agriculture. In the past decade, policy makers have engaged industry in the international pursuit of sustainability, with a focus on policy actions around achieving sustainable consumption and production of food. The resulting contemporary governance trajectories are providing a disjointed but widespread set of policy guidelines with some evidence of convergence. These governance forms are helping to shape the terms of debate but the reliance on industry mediated food sustainability will need to be augmented by stronger political leadership from the individual nation states. Policy advances will need to build on the more collaborative and inclusive forms of governance that are being put in place, and continue to improve the balance of sustainable production and consumption of food.

Max Weber: Ein Leben zwischen den Epochen

tained global financial crisis and affected as well by a significant change of government in the host country. Two-books-in-one and understated in its conclusions, this volume’s strength and contributions are in its thoughtful analytical framework, carefully developed, structured, and laid out; and solid description and documentary evidence. Through his careful comparative, historical study of the most recent summer Olympic Games, Karamichas helps us understand that international environmental policies, institutions, and frameworks are necessary but insufficient ingredients for institutional environmental transformation. Environmental policies and actions must be implemented ‘‘on the ground’’ in various locations. There, local conditions are critical, variable, and subject to a variety of political, economic and social pressures. Karamichas’ story of the ups and downs of the ‘‘greening’’ of the IOC and the Olympic Games is fascinating and told eloquently in this richly detailed and theoretically informed volume.

The green economy agenda: business as usual or transformational discourse?

This analysis of the emergence since 2008 of the green economy agenda and the related idea of ‘green growth’ focusses upon the articulation of these discourses within key international economic and environmental institutions and evaluates whether this implies the beginning of an institutional transformation towards an ecologically sustainable world economy. The green economy may have the capacity to help animate a transition away from current socially and ecologically unsustainable patterns of economic growth only if notions of green growth can be discursively separated from green economy, strong articulations of green economy become dominant, and alternative measures of progress to gross domestic product are widely adopted. The concept of ‘rearticulation’, found in post-structural discourse theory, is proposed to guide this transition. This offers a framework to reconstruct notions of prosperity, progress, and security whilst avoiding direct and disempowering discursive conflict with currently hegemonic pro-growth discourses.