Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
To explore these factors and chart a pathway toward increased justice
in the articulation and implementation of international environmental
law, the UNCSD and UNFCCC will be reviewed. These organizations
represent different forms of institutions of global environmental gover-
nance. The UNCSD is a “soft-law” institution, which means the policy
statements it produces represent consensus-based recommendations.
While soft-law recommendations can be strengthened over time and
become enforceable, they start out as guiding principles and states face
no serious sanctions if they do not implement them. The UNFCCC, on
the other hand, is dedicated to the articulation, adoption, implementa-
tion, and monitoring of an international treaty. Countries that sign and
ratify such treaties make commitments to abide by the rules and dead-
lines specifi ed in the treaty and stand to be sanctioned if they do not
conform to treaty obligations. Hard-law institutions are less open to
nonstate actor participation, and their politics are more likely to refl ect
international relations well beyond the scope of their immediate concern,
since countries use international treaties to gain favor and to leverage a
variety of gains and losses. But soft-law institutions tend to fl y below the
radar, stick closer to the issues at hand, and have more room for the
consideration of new ideas.
Theoretically, close examination of the UNFCCC and UNCSD encour-
ages us to apply institutional-change and political-opportunities scholar-
ship in the contexts of soft and hard law as frameworks through which
to formulate a systematic set of strategies to push international environ-
mental governance toward the achievement of environmental justice.
I will start with a review of the UNFCCC, since it has received so
much recent media attention. For reasons that will unfold, however, I
argue that any strategy for the achievement of environmental justice at
the international level should include the UNCSD. A relatively brief
review of each organization will ensue, followed by a series of recom-
mendations for ways they can be strengthened as avenues for nonstate
actor input.
The UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol Treaty
Like the UNCSD, the UNFCCC was initiated at the Rio Earth Summit
in 1992. The goal was to create a binding treaty for the reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions in the face of mounting evidence that these
emissions were responsible for increasingly erratic weather patterns,
including global warming. At the summit, the UNFCCC succeeded in
