Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
International environmental regimes
Modern environmental problems are often so extensive that they do
not respect national boundaries and cannot be managed by one country
acting alone. The need for international cooperation was at the forefront
of concern about the environment in the 1970s, and since the 1972 United
Nations Conference on the Human Environment, international environ-
mental institutions have proliferated and over 60 multilateral environ-
mental treaties have been signed. For example, new treaties have been
established for the protection of stratospheric ozone, the protection of
many regional seas from pollution, the control of European acid rain and
the conservation of biodiversity, amongst many others (Sands, 2003).
Extensive research has been devoted to the 'high politics' surrounding
the negotiations of these international agreements. However, little atten-
tion has been paid to the actual ef ectiveness of implementation after these
treaties come into force. The main question that has puzzled researchers
is: 'Do regimes matter?' Generally the sequence of events is that scien-
tists recognize an environmental problem, an international agreement is
negotiated, a regime is established and operates for some time, but does
the regime really make any dif erence? Some scholars argue that the envi-
ronmental impact of agreements might be negligible. Others answer that
it is the political benei ts that are of signii cance and this diplomatic activ-
ity counterbalances any weakness in tackling the actual environmental
problem. It can be argued that it is the combination or trade-of of bene-
i ts, in both environmental and political terms, that is the key to a regime's
success. However, it can also be argued that regimes make a dif erence
irrespective of whether this dif erence is in the environmental or politi-
cal i eld. Below, the main academic and research viewpoints considering
ef ectiveness are described in more detail.
International relations and regime theory
The study of international environmental agreements has become an
increasingly important issue in the literature of international relations.
Historically the study of these agreements is based in realism, neorealism
and neoliberal institutionalism, evolving into what is now called regime
theory. In addition, international political economy approaches based on
historical materialism have often been used to study cooperation on envi-
ronmental problems. Some basic observations about these dif erent theo-
retical perspectives are given below in order to demonstrate the background
to explanations used for international environmental cooperation.
Realism
The realist approach has descended from traditional texts
such as Thucydides'
History of the Peloponnesian War
, Machiavelli's
The
