Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
trade-a
ecting role. This expanded or new institution is often referred to as a World
Environmental Organization (WEO) or Global Environmental Organization (GEO)
(Biermann and Bauer, 2005).
A key argument in favor of a WEO is that it would provide an institutional counter-
weight to the WTO. Some scholars of international environmental politics see an imbal-
ance between the WTO, a fully
ff
edged organization in the UN's terminology that oversees
trade rules broadly and that creates binding rules, and UNEP, a mere programme, that
has neither the powers nor the resources of the WTO. A WEO, on this view, would be
better able to create and support regulations that contradict international trade rules than
the current plethora of single-purpose MEAs (Biermann and Bauer, 2005). A key
counter-argument is that creating an overarching WEO modeled on the WTO risks cre-
ating in the
fl
eld of international environmental management the sort of deadlock cur-
rently found at the WTO, which has been trying since 1999 to update international trade
rules, with little success. Precisely because a proliferation of issue-speci
fi
c MEAs lacks the
comprehensiveness or the political heft of a WTO, they allow for progress that might oth-
erwise not be possible in regulating particular environmental issues (Barkin, 2005). A
WEO would help to clarify the status of trade-a
fi
ff
ecting multilateral environmental rules,
but such clari
cation does not require the creation of a major new IO. In any case, a WEO
is unlikely to be created in the near future, making the debate about it academic.
fi
Regional integration organizations
The practice at most IOs, including all those discussed above, is for member countries to
create a common set of rules that they are all then bound by, administered with some
assistance from the IO. In these institutions states remain the primary players. Regional
integration organizations are institutions that create regulations that member countries
are bound by, meaning that the members may end up having to enforce regulations that
they did not explicitly agree to. Because of this feature, regional integration organizations
are sometimes referred to as sovereignty-pooling institutions
(
e.g. Koenig-Archibugi,
2004
)
.To the extent that such institutions have the authority to regulate in issues of inter-
national trade and the environment, they create a di
erent dynamic in the relationship
between the two issue areas than that found in the relationship between traditional trade
agreements and MEAs.
At this point there is only one regional integration organization that has meaningful
powers to regulate both international trade and environmental management:
ff
the
European Union (EU). Several other institutions o
cially aspire to regional integration
characteristics, including ASEAN, the African Union (AU), and the Southern Common
Market (Mercosur), an agreement among six South American countries. While these
three organizations have achieved di
erent levels of success in managing international
trade among their members, as well as cooperating on other political and security goals,
none has yet made meaningful steps towards a pooling of sovereignty that would allow
real regulation at the regional level. Furthermore, at present the AU and ASEAN seem to
be making little if any tangible progress towards regional integration, and Mercosur if
anything seems to be losing ground.
The EU, with 27 European countries as members, has gone quite far toward regional
integration and pooled sovereignty in both international trade and environmental regu-
lation. In both issue areas basic decisions are made at the EU level (this involves a
ff
