Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Mediterranean countries would try to impose capitalist policies on the
southern Mediterranean developing countries. However, the negotiations
proved to be a compromise where both sides' interests were equally rep-
resented, indicating that historical materialism was not able to provide a
satisfactory explanation of cooperation (Haas, 1990, ch. 7).
A third set of explanations introduced by Haas (1989, 1990) involves the
'epistemic communities' theory. This theory highlights the role of special-
ist knowledge-based 'epistemic communities' in formulating government
policy and altering national interests and i nally leading to international
cooperation. The 'epistemic community' approach gives a more l exible
character to the cooperation, having a broader scope than the other expla-
nations. According to this approach the acquisition of new information
and the negotiations between the states would lead to cooperation under
conditions of scientii c uncertainty. The scope of the cooperation would
be broad and specii cally outlined by the 'epistemic community' and the
strength and duration of the cooperation would vary with the extent of
the involvement of the 'epistemic community' and coalitions within the
states. This cooperation would lead to adoption of convergent pollution
control policies, and would eventually inspire Mediterranean governments
to design and implement new models of comprehensive environmental
policy. Indeed, the countries where scientii c experts were strong had
deeper involvement in MAP and became its strongest proponents, and
vice versa. The 'epistemic communities' explanation complements the
previous two theories, since it accounts for variability in the preferences of
the states through time, an aspect missing from other explanations (Haas,
1989, 1990, ch. 8). However, even though this theory has been useful in
explaining the negotiations and creation of MAP, it is open to question
whether the current operation of the regime is based on 'epistemic com-
munities'. Moreover, the generalizability of the theory to explain other
regimes is not yet proven.
Structure of the Mediterranean Action Plan and its components
According to Raftopoulos (1993) regional action plans usually consist of
i ve components: the assessment component, the management component,
the legal component, the institutional component and the i nancial com-
ponent. The basic characteristics of each MAP component are described
below.
The legal component of MAP
MAP seeks to achieve all its objectives
through its legal component, the Barcelona Convention and related proto-
cols. The Convention for the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against
Pollution was signed in 1976, and has been in force since 1978. In 1995 it
