Transboundary Environmental Governance Research Articles

Plastic Politics of Delay: How Political Corporate Social Responsibility Discourses Produce and Reinforce Inequality in Plastic Waste Governance

Abstract As the global plastics pollution crisis grows in severity and complexity, diverse solutions are being proposed across the public and private sectors. Notably, multinational corporations (MNCs) from the petrochemical and consumer goods sectors have become increasingly involved. From providing recycling infrastructure to directly participating in drafting action plans and policies, MNCs are engaging as political actors in plastics waste governance, influencing discourses and actions globally, a process referred to as political corporate social responsibility (CSR). In this article, I examine Coca-Cola’s World Without Waste initiative as a case study of this process. I evaluate how Coca-Cola frames the problems of plastics waste, their solutions, and the roles that Coca-Cola asserts within this complex, transboundary environmental governance issue. Borrowing from literature on corporate climate delay tactics, I demonstrate how the initiative implements discourses and practices of delayed action, hindering comprehensive governance strategies. Through this analysis, I argue that political CSR actions can exacerbate the global plastics pollution crisis through ineffective and inequitable waste governance approaches that perpetuate uneven plastics pollution burdens.

The Ripple Effects of Compliance: Reconfiguring EU Policy Effectiveness in Transboundary Environmental Governance

AbstractResearch on EU policy effectiveness focuses on implementation and compliance within the EU; however, there is a need for a greater understanding of how and why transboundary socio‐ecological issues challenge policy effectiveness beyond the EU's borders. This article introduces the innovative concept of ‘ripple effects’ of compliance, which are harms perpetuated by structural inequalities, and discusses their implications for EU environmental governance. Contributing to transnational compliance research by integrating political ecology and green criminology, the analysis builds on qualitative data on the illegal bird trade from the Western Balkans into the EU. It demonstrates that compliance with conservation policies within Member States undermines EU policy objectives through crime displacement and institutional misfit, which externalise environmental harm to the Western Balkans. Increased enforcement and monitoring of policy implementation alone cannot function as a panacea for policy ineffectiveness. Addressing these dynamics requires strengthened multilevel and cross‐jurisdictional governance that encompasses entire ecosystems.

Co‐optation in co‐production: Maintaining credibility and legitimacy in transboundary environmental governance in East Asia

AbstractThis article challenges the prevailing discourse on regional environmental governance in East Asia, emphasizing the risk of co‐optation among scholars and other experts through state authority in the transboundary co‐production of knowledge and action. By collecting first‐hand materials through the participatory observation of related events, organizing workshops, and conducting interviews, the research identified 15 transboundary cooperative networks in various fields of environmental sustainability issues and the involvement of 25 nonstate actors, including academics and practitioners. Using a comparative ethnographic approach for interpreting a nuanced sense of their experiences at the backstage of transboundary co‐production, the study found several strategies for boundary management to maintain credibility and legitimacy and to remain involved in transboundary co‐production with broad partners, including public and private actors. The nonstate actors have to be careful to engage in transboundary co‐production without eliminating any existing legitimacy of regional governance. In this sense, nonstate actors employ an ad‐hoc strategy of boundary management in determining a contingent situation surrounding the legitimacy of their initiatives and themselves and maintain their credibility to avoid co‐optation.

Transboundary environmental governance: Emerging themes and lessons from Southeast Asia

Transboundary environmental governance: Emerging themes and lessons from Southeast Asia

Civic Stewardship and Urban Climate Governance: Opportunities for Transboundary Planning

Using interview data with civic environmental stewardship groups in New York City ( n = 26), we identify strategies through which civic stewards engage in transboundary environmental governance and urban climate adaptation planning. Our findings articulate the diverse ways that civic stewards engage with planning in urban socio-ecological systems, as they (1) shape physical spaces, (2) broker partnerships, (3) disrupt the status quo, (4) build civic capacity, and (5) envision new futures. We contribute to the literature by embedding civic stewardship within urban planning discourse, suggesting partnerships between civic stewards and government planners that facilitate the co-production of innovative urban climate governance efforts.

Selective border permeability: Governing complex environmental issues through and beyond COVID-19

COVID-19 has changed the permeability of borders in transboundary environmental governance regimes. While borders have always been selectively permeable, the pandemic has reconfigured the nature of cross-border flows of people, natural resources, finances and technologies. This has altered the availability of spaces for enacting sustainability initiatives within and between countries. In Southeast Asia, national governments and businesses seeking to expedite economic recovery from the pandemic-induced recession have selectively re-opened borders by accelerating production and revitalizing agro-export growth. Widening regional inequities have also contributed to increased cross-border flows of illicit commodities, such as trafficked wildlife. At the same time, border restrictions under the exigencies of controlling the pandemic have led to a rolling back and scaling down of transboundary environmental agreements, regulations and programs, with important implications for environmental democracy, socio-ecological justice and sustainability. Drawing on evidence from Southeast Asia, the article assesses the policy challenges and opportunities posed by the shifting permeability of borders for organising and operationalising environmental activities at different scales of transboundary governance.

Participation and politics in transboundary hydropower development: The case of the Pak Beng dam in Laos

AbstractHydropower development in the lower Mekong Basin is being rapidly developed. Taking the Pak Beng hydropower project in Laos as a case study, this paper looks at participation and politics in transboundary hydropower development, how the latter is revealed by multiple, parallel institutional architectures in hydropower decision‐making across scales, and its implications for transboundary environmental governance. We look at the institutional disjuncture in hydropower decision‐making, how it is (re)produced by powerful, albeit conflicting narratives at respectively national and transboundary levels, power relations shaping these narratives, and how these translate into local community's limited ability to convey their voices and represent their development needs. Conceptually, the paper sheds light on the underlying politics in transboundary environmental governance by bringing to light the structural factors that prevent participation, including how these factors are justified, sustained and to a certain extent reproduced as an integral part of legal, policy, and institutional landscapes that govern hydropower decision‐making across scales (e.g., local to transboundary).

Transboundary environmental publics and hydropower governance in the Mekong River Basin: A contested politics of place, scale and temporality

AbstractThis study proposes a conceptualisation of transboundary environmental publics (TEPs) to interrogate the distinctive pathways through which contestations over public participation and ‘stakeholder engagement’ in transboundary environmental governance have emerged. While much attention has been paid to how the discourse and practices of public participation have been co‐opted by powerful actors to serve vested interests, fewer studies have questioned how the contingent and fragmented nature of ‘publics’ entangled with a politics of representation have contributed towards the failings of public participation. This paper examines how state and nonstate TEPs have emerged as multi‐dimensional, material and discursive entities within hybrid hydropower governance arrangements in the Mekong River Basin. Public participation in relation to hydropower dams on the Mekong River's mainstream is intertwined with the contingent formation of TEPs through the Mekong River Commission's Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA). Contestations over public participation may be understood by examining the specific ways in which 1) ‘publics’ were assembled, 2) notions of ‘place’ were interpreted, 3) scalar constructions were influenced by centre‐periphery power dynamics and 4) temporality was defined. To understand how this convening of ‘publics’ fundamentally influences the potential for meaningful public participation, this paper contrasts the TEPs formed through the PNPCA and the Save the Mekong Coalition (STMC), a transnational activism network. The STMC TEP provided reimaginations of scalar constructions and broadened definitions of publics, places, and temporality in participation, reflecting how the topographical and discursive practices that underlie the creation of TEPs have important implications for their legitimacy and effectiveness in influencing decision making.

Expanding transboundary environmental governance: A mobile political ecology of sand and shifting resource‐based livelihoods in Southeast Asia

AbstractEnvironmental change and governance operate across multiple, interconnected scales. In Southeast Asia, there are calls to broaden the study of transboundary environmental governance to address the range of scales, actors, and flows in analysis. In response, we propose a framework to move beyond statist framings of ‘transboundary’ in the region by drawing on van Schendel's proposal for flow studies on the one hand, to overcome the ‘geographies of ignorance’ that stem from fixed studies of nation‐states, and mobile political ecology on the other, to emphasise the role of resource users and their mobilities in environmental governance. We focus on transboundary sand and sediments in rivers, the rise in sand mining in the region, and its impacts on livelihoods and cross‐border flows. Research was conducted from 2015 to 2019 along the transboundary Salween River in the Myanmar‐Thai borderlands. This research shows that sand extraction not only impacts existing sand‐based livelihoods, like riverbank gardening, but also intersects with migration patterns. Migration here is being exacerbated by sand mining alongside processes of environmental and political‐economic change, but these intersections would be overlooked in a fixed or statist approach. We illustrate these complex changes by presenting two ‘sand stories’ that emerge from our research. This primary research combined with a novel conceptual framing expands our analysis of transboundary by revealing and highlighting the linkages between mobilities and transboundary resource flows. In doing so, our analysis brings people, livelihoods and mobilities to the centre of transboundary environment governance and opens scholarly and practice‐based discussions to the range of actors, scales and resource regimes involved.

Environmental governance in Asia - Transboundary Environmental Governance in Asia: Practice and Prospects with the UNECE Agreements By Simon Marsden & Elizabeth Brandon Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015. 384 pp. Hardcover $212.00

Environmental governance in Asia - Transboundary Environmental Governance in Asia: Practice and Prospects with the UNECE Agreements By Simon Marsden & Elizabeth Brandon Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015. 384 pp. Hardcover $212.00 - Volume 8 Issue 1

Addressing knowledge gaps for transboundary environmental governance

Knowledge is widely considered a key ingredient for the effective and sustainable governance of the environment. In transboundary settings – i.e., where political boundaries cross natural resource system boundaries – there are considerable barriers to knowledge production and use. Resulting knowledge gaps can be barriers to governance. This research examines three case studies in which international river basin organizations, tasked with facilitating cooperation in transboundary river basins, recognized and addressed knowledge gaps to support governance of shared waters. We synthesize across the three case studies to develop a typology of knowledge gaps and the strategies used to address those gaps. In identifying common types of knowledge gaps and the on-the-ground strategies used to fill them, this research provides an important framework for assessing and theorizing knowledge at the transboundary scale, as well as useful recommendations and examples for practitioners seeking to develop that knowledge.

Reclaiming community spaces in the Mekong River transboundary commons: Shifting territorialities in Chiang Khong, Thailand

In Northern Thailand's Chiang Khong district, which lies along the banks of the Mekong River and the Thai‐Lao border, an community‐based environmental movement under the leadership of the Rak Chiang Khong conservation group emerged in response to processes that have appropriated territories traditionally used by locals for state‐led economic exploitation. The Rak Chiang Khong has put up fierce opposition to large‐scale development projects such as the China‐led navigation project, which planned to blast ecologically and culturally significant rapids, and hydropower dam development along the Mekong River. As a result, local‐level governance arrangements of the transboundary commons in Chiang Khong have shifted to counter threats both within and beyond the borders of Thailand. Through adapting fishing arrangements, engaging in community‐led research and establishing village conservation zones, overlapping forms of territorialisation have emerged in response to socio‐ecological changes to the river. These new forms of territorialisation are produced by complex configurations of political, cultural, and ecological histories, politicaleconomic changes, and transboundary dynamics. These territorial strategies have been key towards reclaiming the transboundary commons of the Mekong River for riparian communities, and providing a deeper understanding of the values that drive community involvement in the transboundary environmental governance of the Mekong River.

Transboundary Environmental Governance Across the World’s Longest Border. By Brooks, Stephen, and Andrea Olive, eds. 2018. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

<i>Transboundary Environmental Governance Across the World’s Longest Border</i>. By Brooks, Stephen, and Andrea Olive, eds. 2018. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press.

Transboundary Environmental Governance across the World’s Longest Border. Edited by Stephen Brooks and Andrea Olive. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2018. xx + 256. Cloth $39.95.

<i>Transboundary Environmental Governance across the World’s Longest Border</i>. Edited by Stephen Brooks and Andrea Olive. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2018. xx + 256. Cloth $39.95.

A Study on the Payment Standards for Environmental Services in Air Pollution Governance of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei

With the 40 years of rapid development, China has made extraordinary achievements in economy, but also accumulated a large number of ecological environment problems. Especially, a high incidence of air pollution in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei（BTH）, which has high social sensitivity and concern, is the focus of China’s air pollution governance. At present, because of the lack of effective incentive mechanisms, the joint prevention and control of BTH’s air pollution is difficult to promote substantially. The mechanism of payments for environmental services（PES）is an important means of ecological environmental protection and a vital endogenous incentive for transboundary environmental governance. The absence of the basic study of PES for air pollution governance（especially the determination of payment standards）is one of the important reasons leading to the dilemma of joint prevention and control of air pollution in BTH. This paper establishes a CGE model of air pollution governance in BTH based on the Opportunity Cost Method（OCM）, modelling the effects of cutting industrial capacity on economic output and PM2.5 emission reduction by setting different sulfur tax shocks, and quantifying the payment standards for air pollution governance in BTH. Firstly, this paper puts forward the concept of theoretical maximum of payment standards” originally based on specific causes of air pollution in BTH; secondly, it provides the payment intervals that Hebei should accept under specific air quality objectives; thirdly, a complete framework of determining the payment standards for environmental services of BTH’s air pollution governance is proposed. This paper finds that: Firstly, cutting the industrial capacity of Hebei has great effects on BTH’s air pollution control; the PM2.5 emission reduction effect differs highly depending on industries, and the means of pollution control should be chosen precisely based on the structural differences of industries. Secondly, the theoretical maximum of payment standards” based on the hypothesis of Hebei’s governance alone can be used as the upper limit of the payment standards for BTH’s air pollution governance, and the lower limit can be determined by the theoretical maximum of payment standards” and the nominal” proportion of Hebei’s secondary industry; the point value” of opportunity cost under BTH joint governance can be used as the reference of the payment standards for air pollution governance in BTH. Thirdly, in addition to the above, we need to consider multiple factors such as functional orientation, economic disparity and so on to adjust and calibrate the specific compensation amount dynamically. This paper constructs a complete framework of determining the standards of PES for BTH’s air governance, which provides a theoretical basis and technical support to accelerate the substantive process of BTH’s air pollution joint governance, with important theoretical and methodologically innovative significance. The paper is of great policy significance for improving the ecological construction system and the air quality in BTH as soon as possible. It is also of great significance for air pollution governance in other key regions of China.

Transboundary Environmental Governance across the World's Largest Border ed. by Stephen Brooks and Andrea Olive

Reviewed by: Transboundary Environmental Governance across the World's Largest Border ed. by Stephen Brooks and Andrea Olive Paul Todhunter Transboundary Environmental Governance across the World's Largest Border. Edited by Stephen Brooks and Andrea Olive. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2018. vii + 248 pp. Map, tables, contributors, index. C$39.95 paper. Transboundary environmental governance concerns management of resources where "manmade boundaries . . . have been inserted against nature's will." The book provides a significant contribution to a growing literature on transboundary governance along the Canada–United States border. This international border, the world's longest border, contains 20% of the available global fresh surface water, shares numerous and diverse habitats, possesses rich and varied natural resources, and is populated by peoples with close economic ties, parallel histories, and common cultural roots. Important differences also exist, however, that lead to divergence and conflict in transboundary governance. The aim of the editors is "to help us better understand the issues, processes, and challenges that characterize transboundary environmental governance between Canada and the United States." They asked volume contributors to describe the state of existing relationships, governance structures, and processes of transboundary governance, to assess the adequacy of these structures with respect to environmental impacts, and to evaluate opportunities for reform, improved outcomes, and successful accommodation of emerging environmental concerns. The editors have splendidly met these aims. I was most impressed by the coherence of the entire volume, and how each individual chapter made a significant contribution to the whole. Each contributor focused on the editors' aims, provided an entry of similar length and depth, presented interesting case histories, and addressed common themes. Contributors had access to drafts of other chapters, and often referenced points made in other parts of the book. The volume has none of the disjointedness that can characterize edited multi-author volumes. Most chapters share a common structure, with a summary introduction, a historical perspective on the development of environmental governance, a development of those initial structures to accommodate the increasing complexity of environmental and human affairs, and selected case histories. The volume is organized along a geographical gradient cross-cut by major resource types. The editors first provide a lengthy preface that summarizes each contribution. The first chapter reviews the International Joint Commission that grew out of the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and formed the basis of early Canada–United States transboundary governance, but is now overshadowed by multilayered regional agreements of varied types. The next three chapters examine the Great Lakes Basin, each focusing on a different environmental issue: water quantity, water storage, and river navigation; fisheries management; and water quality and pollution. The fifth chapter, on the Prairie Region, will be of greatest interest to this journal's readers. A historical prioritization of economic development led to full allocation of water rights in a region of scarce and unreliable water resources, but now faces challenges from new voices advocating for environmental conservation and sustainability. The St. Mary, Milk, and Souris river basins are the focus of the chapter, a decision for which rational support is given. The omission of the Red River of the North Basin is disappointing, however, given its unique properties and regional importance. A chapter on the Pacific West and two chapters on energy governance follow that are also highly relevant to the Great Plains. Here, in a unique twist, Canada has been the driver for resource development, and the US has been more resistant in its approach to resource development. The final chapter summarizes lessons learned, and looks forward to new challenges posed by invasive species, climate change, and development of the Arctic. Numerous themes emerge from the individual chapters. Multilayered governance has developed with a sharing of power between national, subnational, regional, and local levels of administration. New actors now bring their voices to the governance table, including environmentalists, nongovernmental organizations, and Indigenous, First Nation, and tribal peoples. The early dominance of economic development interests has broadened to consider environmental quality, habitat conservation, and sustainability perspectives. Common-pool resources require different governance structures and approaches depending upon the symmetry or asymmetry of regional benefits and costs of resource development. Transboundary governance has grown in complexity, often leading to institutional...

Book review: Simon Marsden and Elizabeth Brandon, Transboundary Environmental Governance in Asia: Practice and Prospects with the UNECE Agreements (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2015) 360 pp

Book review: Simon Marsden and Elizabeth Brandon, Transboundary Environmental Governance in Asia: Practice and Prospects with the UNECE Agreements (Edward Elgar, Cheltenham 2015) 360 pp

Theory and Practice of Transboundary Environmental Governance: The Case Study of Tainan Environment Alliance in Taiwan

Environmental issues are transboundary in nature and carry the traits of public affairs. Enforcement and consolidation of environmental protection rely on collaborative efforts from different sectors in order to exercise a synergistic effect. In Taiwan, the Tainan Environment Alliance started in 2007 and is a cross-sector collaborative model consisting of the environmental protection authority, the prosecutors’ office, the police department, and environmental protection groups that looks up to itself as an effective and successful environmental reporting entity that helps eradicate and prevent crimes against the environment. Methodologically, document analysis and participant observation are adopted in this study in order to get first-hand information and valuable publications on the cross-sector promotion of environmental policies in this particular case. The case study, on the other hand, is done by means of in-depth interviews and phone interviews with members of the Taiwan Environment Alliance, including the environmental protection authority, the prosecutors’ office, the police department, and the private sector, over the long term through purposive sampling taking on the qualitative research approach. Results of the study show that besides the collaborative relationship between government agencies and non-governmental organizations, to effectively address environmental protection issues, it also relies on a “dynamic” partnership network and the key lies in how to consolidate environmental issues at the individual cognitive level and to accordingly form a collective force.

China's toxic informal e-waste recycling: local approaches to a global environmental problem

Electronic waste or e-waste has been an increasingly severe problem over the last decade, and is the fastest growing waste stream in the world. China's inexpensive labour and manufacturing abilities have already made it “the world's factory” and for e-waste recycling it is no exception. Informal workers do the majority of e-waste collection and recycling in cities throughout China. E-waste recycling work provides livelihoods for migrant workers and the urban poor and has formed a well-established shadow economy. The improper dismantling and burning of e-waste for resource recovery exposes workers to toxins and heavy metals, and causes severe air, water, and soil contamination. The illegal global trade of e-waste makes it a transboundary environmental governance problem of local and global scales. This paper investigates informal workers' knowledge of the environmental impacts of e-waste, perceptions of their work and whether they would be receptive to government regulation of recycling work. It finds that informal recyclers interviewed lack environmental awareness of the dangers related to e-waste recycling and are unwilling to be regulated due to fear of losing jobs and profits through regulation. Weak e-waste legislation and social marginalization are also major barriers to protecting e-waste recyclers and the environment. Through a scalar analysis of environmental governance, this paper proposes strengthening the roles of small enterprises and inclusion of Non Governmental Organization (NGOs) and Government Organized NGOS (GONGOs) to work in the informal sector to find safer recycling solutions to fill the large gap between legislation and de facto practices.

Participatory Rights, Transboundary Environmental Governance and EC Law

Participatory Rights, Transboundary Environmental Governance and EC Law