Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
7.
Theoretical perspectives on international
environmental regime ef ectiveness: a
case study of the Mediterranean Action
Plan
Soi a Frantzi
1
Introduction
Many modern environmental problems are not occasional random events
that suddenly arise, but are rather the result of long-term processes requir-
ing ef ective management through time instead of instant solutions. Their
causes and ef ects are complex issues, strongly interlinked with other
aspects of social, political and economic realities. When these problems
are of a transboundary, or global nature, then their management must
be attempted through regional (bilateral or multilateral) or international
agreements.
Traditionally the focus of academic research has been on issues associ-
ated with the challenge of achieving international cooperation, in other
words on regime formation, but recently there has been an increasing
interest in implementation issues, that is, regime ef ectiveness. This
chapter aims to discuss the concept of ef ectiveness of international envi-
ronmental agreements as debated within the academic literature. In the
i rst section the major theoretical perspectives on international relations
are presented as the context for understanding dif erent explanations given
to international cooperation. Dif erent approaches to dei ning and meas-
uring ef ectiveness of the agreements are then described in more detail. In
the second section there is specii c reference to a particular example of an
environmental agreement. The Mediterranean Action Plan was chosen
for this purpose since it has not been studied extensively and in addition
its ef ectiveness is ambiguous according to dif erent viewpoints. Finally in
the last section, a new dei nition of ef ectiveness is given, drawing insights
from the aforementioned literature, suggesting that for a regime to be
ef ective it has to use a holistic approach, to have a pragmatic vision and
to be of a dynamic nature. This perspective attempts to provide a new
approach to the future study of international environmental agreements.
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