Emerging Forces in Environmental Governance

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Emerging forces in environmental governance
Emerging forces in
environmental governance
Edited by Norichika Kanie and Peter M. Haas
a United Nations
University Press
TOKYO u NEW YORK u PARIS
6 United Nations University, 2004
The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations University.
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ISBN 92-808-1095-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Emerging forces in environmental governance / edited by Norichika Kanie and

Peter M. Haas.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9280810952 (pbk.)
1. Environmental policy—International cooperation. 2. Environmentalism.
3. Sustainable development. I. Kanie, Norichika, 1969– II. Haas, Peter M.
GE170.E48 2004
333.710 5—dc22 2004007410
Contents
List of tables and figures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Foreword. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
A. H. Zakri
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Norichika Kanie and Peter M. Haas
Multilateral institutions
1 Multilateral environmental institutions and coordinating

mechanisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Toru Iwama
2 Consolidating global environmental governance: New lessons

from the GEF? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Jake Werksman
3 The effectiveness of the WTO and WIPO: Lessons for

environmental governance?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Laura B. Campbell
v
vi CONTENTS
Multilevel governance
4 The case for regional environmental organizations. . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Jonathan R. Strand
5 Global environmental governance in terms of vertical

linkages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Norichika Kanie
Science-policy interface for environmental governance
6 Science policy for multilateral environmental governance . . . . . 115

Peter M. Haas
7 The IPCC: Its roles in international negotiation and domestic

decision-making on climate change policies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Yasuko Kameyama
NGOs and environmental governance
8 Institutionalization of NGO involvement in policy functions

for global environmental governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Satoko Mori
9 Civil society protest and participation: Civic engagement

within the multilateral governance regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Dana R. Fisher
Business/industry and environmental governance
10 Balancing TNCs, the states, and the international system in

global environmental governance: A critical perspective . . . . . . 203
Harris Gleckman
11 The private business sector in global environmental

diplomacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Mikoto Usui
Conclusion
12 Conclusion: Institutional design and institutional reform for

sustainable development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Peter M. Haas, Norichika Kanie, and Craig N. Murphy
CONTENTS vii
Acronyms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
List of contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290
List of tables and figures
Tables
4.1 Select list of international organizations with environmental
functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.1 Conceptualizing interactive diplomacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.2 Forces and barriers around vertical linkages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
6.1 Provisions for science in selected MEAs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
9.1 NGO observers versus protesters at international meetings 184
9.2 Disassociation indices for international meetings. . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
9.3 Participant distribution at the Human Dike protest . . . . . . . . . . 189
9.4 Participant distribution at the Another World is Possible
protest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
9.5 How do protesters hear about a demonstration? The
Human Dike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
9.6 How do protesters hear about a demonstration? The
Another World is Possible protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
9.7 With whom do protesters come to demonstrations? The
Human Dike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
9.8 With whom do protesters come to demonstrations? The
Another World is Possible protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
9.9 What percentage of protesters received funding to attend?
The Human Dike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
9.10 What percentage of protesters received funding to attend?
The Another World is Possible protest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
viii
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ix
10.1 Selected factors that create differences between national

environmental regimes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
10.2 Parallel structures between components of state regulatory
systems and voluntary environmental management systems 207
10.3 Features that differentiate between VEM and a state
regulatory system affecting business activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
10.4 Special international aspects of voluntary environmental
management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
10.5 Possible tools to achieve a better balance between corporate
interests and the interests represented by the interstate
system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
11.1 An integrative perspective on corporate game change
strategies towards sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
11.2 Rational motivations for mutual engagement of
multinational corporations and environmental NGOs. . . . . . . . 236
11.3 Key dimensions of pro-poor business community . . . . . . . . . . . .
partnerships for addressing the bottom tier of the world
market. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
11.4 Type 2 outcomes: Two parallel showcases of multi-party
partnerships/initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
12.1 Matrix of functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
Figures
4.1 Idealized bargaining model of environmental governance . . . 81
7.1 Role of the IPCC: Official mandate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.2 Role of the IPCC: Perceptions of different actors . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Foreword
There is consensus that the current system of international environmen-

tal governance is in need of improvement. Greater effectiveness, coordi-
nation, and compliance, it is argued, will ultimately improve the quality
of the environment. Debates over how to achieve this goal, through both
structural and procedural reform, have generated a number of specific
proposals. These range from the partial strategic integration of related
multilateral environmental agreements and/or their functions to the cre-
ation of a full-fledged world environment organization. The dramatic na-
ture of some of these proposals reflects an increasing sense of urgency in
regard to both the physical and human aspects of the sustainable devel-
opment challenge.
Though reform is needed, it can only be undertaken when the benefits
of doing so far outweigh the costs. At present, it seems that much of the
current debate over international environmental governance reform has
been fuelled more by speculation on expected benefits than by careful,
detailed analysis and the consideration of possible negative effects.
It is important that in our enthusiasm for fixing the weaknesses in the
current system we do not inadvertently destroy its strengths. One of the
chief criticisms of international environmental governance today is that it
lacks coherency, and is rife with inefficiencies and overlap that greatly
reduce the potential effectiveness of the system and place unnecessary
burdens on countries.
These weaknesses, however, do not mean that the current system is
x
FOREWORD xi
devoid of positive features that are worthy of recognition and preserva-

tion. In particular, there are three positive aspects of international envi-
ronmental governance in its current form that should be retained. First,
fragmentation, though often criticized, is not entirely harmful. Indeed,
fragmentation can breed innovation, whereby different institutional ar-
rangements evolve to address emerging environmental problems. Sec-
ond, the current system is flexible. Since scientific and technological de-
velopments are constantly reshaping the types of challenges we face, as
well as our capacity to deal with them, institutions must be able to reflect
and respond to these continual changes. International environmental
governance structures as they exist today also provide a certain level of
autonomy to multilateral environmental agreements, and this is crucial
for institutions that deal with a wide variety of complex and often unique
environmental issues. Any reform of the current system must take care to
preserve the benefits derived from the fragmentation, flexibility, and au-
tonomy of the current system for international environmental gover-
nance.
At the same time, there are some obvious gaps and weaknesses within
the existing system. One of the most critical relates to the question of fi-
nancing. Effective environmental management and protection requires a
larger and more predictable funding base. Here again, while there are
economies of scale and function to be gained from carefully thought out
reform, we cannot expect institutional change to make up for what es-
sentially amounts to a lack of political will.
Another problem is the separate treatment of the environment in the
policy-making process. Environmental concerns must be mainstreamed
within decision-making at both the national and the international level.
Much focus has concentrated on the prospect of achieving this goal by
strengthening the institutions of international environmental governance.
In our efforts to ensure that environmental concerns are made a global
priority, we cannot overlook the need to elevate the level of consider-
ation given to environmental issues within the other institutions of na-
tional and international governance. That is, environmental issues must
be incorporate into judicial, educational, social, health, financial, trade,
and security-related institutions at both these levels.
Promoting better integration of the environment into other sectors and
institutions would help to ensure that the powerful processes of global-
ization do not overshadow environmental problems. It would also allow
the global environment to benefit from the unique strengths offered by
each of these institutions, such as the access of non-governmental actors
to a future international criminal court, the dispute-settlement process of
the World Trade Organization, and the binding decision-making powers
of the UN Security Council.
xii FOREWORD
As the debate over international environmental governance reform

gains momentum, it is important to maintain an approach that views re-
form as an ongoing process rather than as an end in itself. In this context,
it is unlikely that there is any one overarching solution to the problems of
international environmental governance. These are complex problems
that will require a variety of innovative solutions. Indeed, the debate
about proposed reforms is an important part of the process. The Institute
of Advanced Studies at the United Nations University has engaged in
these discussions to inform policy-makers and provide impartial analysis
for future decisions surrounding reform. It is our hope that this volume
can contribute to this debate and inform further deliberations.
The recognition of the inherent weaknesses of the international envi-
ronmental governance structure has prompted many debates for a more
integrated, binding, coordinated, and synergistic system. Yet, to date,
there have been few studies that have looked carefully at the short-
comings of the current system or analysed the proposed reforms that
have gained currency in policy circles. This volume, Emerging Forces in
Environmental Governance, and a second volume, entitled Reforming In-
ternational Governance: From Institutional Limits to Innovative Solutions,
are both results of a joint project with the Kita Kyushu University and the
Center for Global Partnership in Japan. Each work seeks to address these
questions and provide substantive analysis as follow-up to the debates
about governance that took place at the World Summit on Sustainable
Development. As we strive to create the most effective institutional ar-
rangements possible to protect our environment and promote sustainable
development, such discussions will undoubtedly continue in the future.
This volume represents an important contribution to those goals.
A. H. Zakri, Director, UNU-IAS

Acknowledgements
This book represents only a part of the effort of many people. As co-
editors of the book, we would like to express our appreciation to all the
people who have invested effort and support in the course of making this
book.
First and foremost we would like to thank Bradnee Chambers, who
has been an excellent collaborator from the outset of the joint research
initiative that led to this publication. Without his help this book would
never have been possible. We also thank Shona Dodds, who worked with
us from the early stages of project development and invested lots of her
time in this project.
We would also like to thank all the contributors to this book and to the
other volume edited by Bradnee Chambers as well as those who partici-
pated in two workshops held in Hawaii in spring 2001 and in New York
in spring 2002. Among those whose names are not listed in the volume,
we would particularly like to express our gratitude to Yozo Yokota, Pro-
fessor of Chuo University and special adviser to the Rector of the United
Nations University, who has given effective supervision to the project and
participated in the Hawaii workshop despite his extremely busy schedule.
We would also like to thank Marc Levy from Columbia University’s
Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN),
who participated in and gave a presentation at our New York workshop.
Norichika Kanie was fortunate in receiving a great deal of moral and
technical support from many people for the workshops and in getting the
xiii
xiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
manuscript together. These include Keizo Takemi, Kiyoshi Yamada, and

other staffs of the Hawaii Tokai International Collage, where we had the
first workshop, staffs of the UNU centre, UNU/IAS, and UNU New York
office, in particular Mary Esther, Scott McQuade and Gareth Johnston of
UNU Press, Masumi Matsumoto from the University of Kitakyushu, and
Kayoko Kanie, who has given not only moral support to Kanie as his wife
but also served as an assistant to the project management, especially
during the first year of the project.
Norichika Kanie would like to express his appreciation to Hiroshi Oka-
moto, Dean of the Faculty of Law and Policy Studies at the University of
Kitakyushu, and the former Dean of the faculty, Hisakazu Nakamichi,
who let him proceed with a rather large-scale project on behalf of the
faculty.
This project was realized only with a generous support from the Japan
Foundation Center for Global Partnership (CGP). It was originally the
CGP’s idea to create interaction between scholars from Japan and the
USA in order to stimulate ideas from both sides. In particular, thanks are
due to Shunsuke Sogo and Junichi Chano, who gave the project encour-
agement and support, and to the President of the CGP, Hideya Taida,
and former President, Yoshihiko Wakumoto.
Last but obviously not least, we would like to thank A. H. Zakri, Direc-
tor of the UNU/IAS, and the former Director of the UNU/IAS, Tarcisio
Della Senta, both of whom gave us an opportunity to work closely with
the institute and its international network of excellent people.
We hope that this book will be able to contribute to our understanding
of environmental governance and our efforts to protect the environment
of the earth.

Ookayama, Tokyo and Amherst, Massachusetts
Introduction
Throughout the process leading up to the 2002 World Summit on Sus-

tainable Development (WSSD) the international community endorsed
the need to integrate better three dimensions of sustainable develop-
ment: the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of develop-
ment. In the words of Dr Elim Salim, former Minister for Environment in
Indonesia and the chair of the main committee to the WSSD and its pre-
paratory committees (prepcoms), these three dimensions of sustainable
development are similar to the components that make up a lemon tea.
When putting sugar and lemon into the tea, those components cannot
be seen in the cup. They are melted and integrated into the body of the
lemon tea. Similarly, effective sustainable development planning seam-
lessly integrates the environmental, social, and economic dimensions
of development so that all three dimensions are taken into account for
public and private decision-making.
Despite years of effort at reform, however, existing multilateral envi-
ronmental institutions are not yet well designed for such policy integra-
tion, as the historical development of environmental institutions shows.
In 1972, when the institutionalization of international environmental
policy-making really began, the issues were focused mainly on the con-
servation and management of natural resources, both living and inani-
mate. No one could have predicted, or even imagined at that time, the
severity or variety of problems that would arise by the twenty-first
century, including such previously unrecognized threats as stratospheric
1
2 KANIE AND HAAS
ozone depletion and trade in hazardous wastes. Today there exist over
500 multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and a plethora of
international organizations, doing the best they can to respond to envi-
ronmental challenges that range from climate change to persistent or-
ganic pollutants. In addition new planning doctrines of critical loads,
integrated assessment, and public participation have emerged and been
applied to multilateral management efforts. The manner in which envi-
ronmental institutions have developed in response to these problems has,
however, largely been ad hoc and fragmented. Collectively, these insti-
tutions serve as a reflection of the muddled hierarchy of real-world issues
that compete for global attention.
The apparently disjointed approach to environmental governance can,
largely, be attributed to the very nature and complexity of environmental
problems. Environmental processes are governed by laws of nature that
are not amenable to conventional bargaining within the domestic or in-
ternational policy-making process. Environmental policy-makers have to
struggle, from the outset, with the issue of ‘‘scientific uncertainty’’ as well
as incompatibilities between the ethical and political ramifications of the
precautionary principle. In many ways, the current international legisla-
tive environment is not conducive to the development of coordinated,
or synergistic, approaches to collective environmental – and sustainable
development – problem-solving. Particular international agreements are
often negotiated by way of ‘‘specific’’ regimes that are considered in rel-
ative isolation. Each agreement is tackled by, more or less, artificially
decomposing the causal complexities involved for the sake of practical
‘‘manageability’’. Agreements are negotiated by specialized ministries or
functional organizations within forums that are detached from the negoti-
ating arenas of other international agreements. Furthermore, the process
of consensus-building within the context of the non-cooperative games
which are characteristic of global multilateral treaty-making involves a
plethora of ad hoc log rolling. This, all too often, obscures the inter-
connectedness of the goals to be shared among different issue-specific
regimes. The treaty-making process is also extremely time-consuming. It
has taken over a decade to advance from the agenda-setting stage, via a
framework agreement, to the negotiation of the first operational protocol
for collective action. Even after the protocol agreement, ratification of
the protocol is a matter of how governments can create a consensus at
the domestic level, and if a government turns out to be unwilling to ratify
the protocol and brings back the issue of scientific uncertainty again for
political reasons, there is still a possibility that the whole negotiation
process can unexpectedly be taken back to an earlier stage, which may
consume extra time.
To date international environmental policy-making has generally been
INTRODUCTION 3
segregated on the basis of topic, sector, or territory. The result is the ne-
gotiation of treaties that often overlap and conflict with one another. This
engenders unnecessary complications at the national level as signato-
ries struggle to meet their obligations under multiple agreements. At the
international level, some coordination efforts exist between environmen-
tal institutions through mechanisms such as the Inter-agency Coordina-
tion Committee and the Commission for Sustainable Development, but
these institutions are far too weak to integrate the three dimensions of
sustainable development effectively. They seem to have served more as a
pooling regime rather than an effective coordination regime.
And yet the process moves. Describing the difficulty of the endeavour
should still not blind us, as analysts, to the fact that amazing accom-
plishments have been achieved multilaterally over the last 30 years.
Most governments created environmental agencies, and, since 1992, units
responsible for sustainable development. Public expenditures on the
enviroment in the advanced industrialized countries now routinely run
between 2 and 3 per cent of GNP. The market for pollution-control
technology is conservatively estimated at $600 billion per year, and this
market did not even exist in 1972. It was created as a consequence
of governments adopting policies in order to achieve environmental pro-
tection and sustainable development. As mentioned above, hundreds
of MEAs have been adopted. Many of these MEAs have actually been
effective at improving collective environmental quality through inducing
states to change policies in a manner conducive to a cleaner environment.
Stratospheric ozone pollution has been reduced. European acid rain is
greatly reduced. Oil spills in the oceans are down in number and volume.
The quality of many regional seas has been stabilized, if not improved. In
the face of sustained economic growth throughout the last 30 years these
are not inconsiderable accomplishments. But still the challenge remains
to do better, and to progress from environmental protection to sustain-
able development.1
We, as social scientists and citizens of the world, have already recog-
nized that certain inherent links exist between human activities and the
natural environment on which they depend. We know, for example, that
there are a number of different gases that all lead to climate change,
acid rain, and ozone loss. Similarly, we recognize that the climate, forests,
oceans, wetlands, and diverse biosystems are naturally co-dependent
within the global ecosystem.
There is growing interest in identifying the ways and means of creating
a more effective synergy between the multitude of environmental in-
stitutions that exist at the local, national, regional, and global levels, and
between those levels. The need for a common understanding of the
interrelationships between different elements and dimensions of the
4 KANIE AND HAAS
environment, and sustainable development, extends well beyond the

limitations of current scientific knowledge.
The multilateral approach to these issues still remains fragmented in
terms of methods and mechanisms of scientific assessment and the de-
velopment of consensual knowledge. This is also the case in regard to
human capacity-building and the arts of domestic-regional-international
interfacing in policy-making. At present it is unlikely that the tendency
simply to piggyback institutions will produce a coherent, holistic approach
to the governance of global sustainable development.
This volume addresses the various new channels of multilateral envi-
ronmental governance that have appeared within an increasingly glo-
balized international system at the end of the twentieth century. While
states ultimately continue to make and enforce international law, they are
increasingly dependent upon multilateral institutions, organized science,
NGOs and social movements, and business and industry for formulating
their views and conducting policy. This collective research project started
with the premise that it is the emerging forces emanating from these
multi-actors which facilitate creating institutional synergism in environ-
mental governance. In other words, the authors believe that the state
alone is not enough to propel changes.
As it is science that makes the environmental aspect of sustainable de-
velopment ‘‘speak’’, the science-politics interface can be one of the most
crucial facets of environmental regime-building. Yet there remains a
great amount of scope for improved efficiency in the process of forging
consensual knowledge, by identifying and utilizing the natural synergies
that exist within the environment itself. Recent research reveals that
most conflicts within the process of environmental regime-building are
located at a cognitive level. What may appear to be political disagree-
ments are often underpinned by disagreements about empirical data,
analysis, and the formulation of assumptions regarding the causal rela-
tionships that underlie a given problem.
The interaction between science and politics has undergone institu-
tional innovations during the past two decades, in that government-
designated expert groups and independent scientists have, to a large
degree, been incorporated within the negotiation setting. Yet it is now
the case that most treaty negotiations have entered a stage where a greater
role is envisaged for the social-scientific disciplines. Social sciences can
provide two important contributions to a better understanding of global
change and sustainable development. The first is through research on the
human dimensions of global change, such as the large-scale demographic
and social forces that drive societies to behave in potentially unsustain-
able manners. The IPCC, for instance, has turned to the use of social
scientists to write reports on the human activities that generate green-
INTRODUCTION 5
house gases and thus are the root causes of climate change. Secondly,
social scientists can study the diplomatic process by which states try to
address shared environmental risks meaningfully, and thus contribute to
improvements in the process. For instance, whereas states have endorsed
scientifically derived ‘‘critical loads’’ for the protection of certain endan-
gered ecosystems (such as in the case of European acid rain), in practice
they often resort to more modest emission standards called ‘‘target
loads’’. Social scientists can help decision-makers understand the process
by which critical loads are adopted, and yet target loads are pursued,
within a broader process of trying to move target load commitments
closer to the critical loads which will be more beneficial for the sustain-
able development of the endangered ecosystems.
This volume is but one of many reflexive efforts by social scientists and
environmental diplomats to understand and improve the process of mul-
tilateral environmental governance. To some extent sustainable devel-
opment entails developing mechanisms by which groups who study and
understand the development process may be better involved in that
process.
Background
In 1999 the United Nations University, in collaboration with over 15 dif-

ferent UN organizations and agencies, agreement secretariats, and spe-
cialized agencies, examined the issue of synergy and coordination within
international efforts to protect the environment. In the report emanating
from this conference, many important questions were raised and several
key conclusions reached. These included, for example, whether existing
environmental institutions will be ‘‘adequate in the medium and long
term, or whether deeper structural realignments are necessary’’.2
In regard to this question, one particular recommendation has con-
tinually resurfaced. This recommendation lies in the realm of structural
change and involves the creation of a world environmental organization
(WEO). Although the idea of a new global international environmental
organization was once sidelined in the 1992 UN Conference on Environ-
ment and Development (UNCED) process, the proposal has regained
currency over recent years within the academic literature.3 There has
been something of a time lag between renewed interest in the proposal at
the academic level and the more recent interest in the idea from a policy
perspective. At a policy level the notion of creating an overarching in-
ternational environmental organization has been lent credence through
a number of recent high-profile statements. These include the comments
made recently by Renato Ruggioro,4 and also the joint declaration of
6 KANIE AND HAAS
Brazil, Germany, Singapore, and South Africa at the ‘‘Rio þ 5’’ UN-
GASS meeting in 1997. Most recently French President Jacques Chirac
supported the idea of a WEO in his speech at the 2002 World Summit on
Sustainable Development.
Proponents suggest that a world environment organization, or a world
environment and development organization (WEDO), could, inter alia,
facilitate greater coherence in the international environmental and sus-
tainable development regime and increase the political standing of envi-
ronmental and developmental issues vis-à-vis other policy areas, such
as international trade as an economic dimension of sustainable develop-
ment.
While many of the proposals that have been put forward may be at-
tractive at first glance, those seeking to probe deeper into the feasibility
and utility of each are confronted with a whole host of complexities and
challenges that must be assessed. Many of the complexities are a con-
sequence of the myriad of interrelated functional, political, and legal
aspects that comprise the challenge of effective environmental and sus-
tainable development governance. To date, attempts at an in-depth ex-
amination of these issues, in a systematic manner, have been rare. It is
this factor that has led to this project, which aims to provide an inter-
disciplinary study of the missing linkages in the existing global envi-
ronmental governance structure. Although the authors recognize the
importance of sustainable development per se, the primary focus is on
the environmental dimension of sustainable development. Sustainable
development is seen from an environmental perspective in this volume.
The idea of launching a research project that looks into the possibilities
for the reform of environmental governance structures emerged during
Norichika Kanie’s discussion with Bradnee Chambers when he worked
for the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU/
IAS) in 2000. After the elaboration of an earlier proposal, the research
project began in 2001 with the support of a generous grant from the
Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. The project consists of
two parts. The first part, the result of which is presented in this volume
and which was coordinated by Norichika Kanie, evaluates the state of
the art and emerging forces in environmental governance. In this part of
the project institutional reform is viewed from the present perspective by
evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the current environmental
governance structure. The second part views the reform from the per-
spectives of various proposals already presented. It looks at actual policy
implication of various proposals for institutional reform that have not yet
been assessed in a concrete manner. This second part includes an assess-
ment of both strengths and weaknesses of establishing a WEO, and the
results are presented in another volume. Since members of the two parts
INTRODUCTION 7
of the project interacted with each other at a workshop and on other

occasions, many of the chapters in this volume consider possibilities for
the proposals investigated in the latter part (such as the possibility of a
WEO) in their recommendations for reform.
The Faculty of Law and Policy Studies at the University of Kitakyushu,
where Norichika Kanie was based, hosted the first part of the project,
and the UNU/IAS was the host of the second part. Bradnee Chambers
of the UNU coordinated the second part.5 The project was basically
designed so that two members of the project would deal with one issue,
such as multilateral institutions, the science-policy interface, the NGO-
GO interface, the industry-government interface, and multilevel gover-
nance.
The project members first met at a workshop in May 2001 in Hawaii to
discuss substantive issues. The first draft papers were presented at a two-
day workshop in March 2002 in New York, which was held as a side
event to the PrepCom3 for the WSSD. Preliminary findings of both parts
of the project were also presented as a UNU report to the PrepCom3.
Based on the discussion and further research efforts after the second
workshop in New York, the final draft papers were submitted and are
presented in this volume. Out of the revised papers the authors have also
presented a report to the WSSD held in Johannesburg.6
Overview of the book
The volume is divided into five sub-themes. The first theme deals with
multilateral institutions, and consists of three chapters. It begins with
a chapter by Toru Iwama that reviews the existing multilateral environ-
mental or environment-related institutions and coordination structures,
with particular attention to the UN system and treaty organs, and gives
insights into the interlinkages of the international environmental gover-
nance system by proposing their restructuring and revitalization and the
creation of new institutions. He shows that there are a number of inter-
related functions fulfilled by various multilateral institutions. They have
‘‘fulfilled their functions successfully in their own given mandates to pro-
tect the environment, but existing multilateral institutions and structures
are inadequate to meet the global environmental challenges that inter-
national society is now facing’’. Therefore, he argues, some kind of
reform is necessary. Proposals for reform are closely investigated by the
other volume coming out of this project, edited by Bradnee Chambers,
but Iwama also provides an overview of those various proposals. As he
argues, when it comes to creating/reforming something, one of the press-
ing problems is finance. However, one may realize by a close look at the
8 KANIE AND HAAS
existing institutions that forces for creating synergies are already emerg-
ing within the existing institutional framework, and we may well start
looking forward from what we already have to hand.
Such a case seems to exist even in one of the pressing issues, the
finance issue. In Chapter 2 Jake Werksman assesses the Global Environ-
ment Facility’s (GEF) role in consolidating the governance of project
finance in areas of the global environment, and draws lessons for a better
financial mechanism in environmental governance. Nearly eight years’
experience of the GEF, designed through a loose set of institutional links
rather than through creating a new international institution, has shown
that it has struggled with ‘‘the need to avoid the duplication or prolifera-
tion of institutions, to tap into the comparative advantages of existing
institutions, and to promote partnerships, cooperation, and healthy com-
petition amongst development agencies’’. In terms of environmental
governance, Werksman concludes, the GEF’s function of consolidating
governance of more than one MEA can lead to greater institutional effi-
ciency, but it may also provide a means for capping and containing de-
veloping country demands for increased resources. At the project level,
there is evidence that the GEF’s position at the centre of more than one
MEA has helped it to avoid funding projects in one focal area that could
have undermined the objectives of another focal area.
If it is the case that forces for creating symbiotic environmental
governance institutions are already emerging even within the existing
institutional framework, then we should also consider how the existing
structure and functions of the institutional framework could improve
global and international governance structures. In other words, we need
tools to identify which elements of the structure and function of the in-
stitution affect success or failure in achieving the goals of the regime.
Lessons may be learned from the experience of other international in-
stitutions, Laura Campbell argues, because ‘‘successful approaches could
serve as a model for environmental governance’’. Campbell has chosen
the cases of the WTO and WIPO, and evaluates them in terms of regime
effectiveness in Chapter 3. She argues that, in the context of global-
ization, issue linkage of environmental issues with other issues such as
trade and investment, dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms,
and economic incentives to participate and comply with agreements ap-
pears to be an important lesson for developing effective environmental
governance structures.
The second sub-theme looks at the linkage between global, regional,
national, and local arenas. So far attention has been paid to the linkage
at the same level of governance structure and between different issues,
called ‘‘horizontal linkage’’, when talking about linkage. However, as
10 years’ experience of implementing Agenda 21 has made clear, equally
INTRODUCTION 9
important is how to translate the decisions taken at global level to

implementation at the local level, and how local, often fragmented, ex-
perience or ‘‘best practices’’ for protecting the environment are accom-
modated into global regime design. Two chapters are devoted to inves-
tigating emerging forces and barriers to narrow the vertical gap. Jonathan
Strand examines in Chapter 4 the question of how regional integration
may serve as a stepping-stone to environmental governance. Recently,
some attention has been paid to vertical linkages, especially in academia,
but so far attention has been paid mainly to global and domestic gover-
nance, rather than the regional level. Strand argues that there is a para-
mount role for regional-level coordination of environmental governance
and that regional environmental organizations could fill an important
niche in multilateral environmental governance. In Chapter 5 Kanie ex-
plores domestic-international vertical linkage, and points out emerging
forces that may narrow the gap between the domestic and international
arenas, as well as identifying barriers to narrowing the gap. The narrow-
ing forces exist in NGO activities, science activities, policies, institutions,
and emerging partnerships between some of the stakeholders, but bar-
riers also exist, which are found in the way to disseminate information,
language, institutional capacity, and complex MEA requirements.
The next sub-theme is on the emerging forces that exist in the interface
between science and policy. In Chapter 6 Peter Haas looks at lessons
about the scientific functions that need to be performed to achieve effec-
tive multilateral environmental governance, and the institutional design
by which such functions may best be performed. He concludes that ef-
fective international institutions in the environmental and sustainable
development domains have been those that operate through networks
composed of multiple international institutions and elements of civil so-
ciety, rather than centralizing science policy functions. Chapter 7 looks
into the case of the IPCC. Yasuko Kameyama assesses the eight gradu-
ally expanded roles of the IPCC in the climate change regime: the IPCC
as a provider of scientific knowledge to the political process; a body to
apply legitimacy to what is written in its reports; a forum to reach
political agreements that would not be achievable in the political arena;
a corridor for an epistemic community to influence politics; a forum to
reach an agreement concerning scientific findings; a tool for researchers
to obtain constant research funds; a tool for negotiators to justify their
governments’ positions; and an organization that disseminates informa-
tion concerning climate change to the public. She argues that, with rejec-
tion of individual political preference, the IPCC roles provide a good
guidance for a future scientific organization.
The fourth sub-theme is devoted to relations between non-
governmental organizations (NGOs), or civil society organizations
10 KANIE AND HAAS
(CSOs), and the environmental governance structure. This nexus is

another noteworthy area of emerging forces that facilitate changes to
the dynamics of environmental governance. In Chapter 8 Satoko Mori
gives an overview of institutionalization of NGO involvement in global
environmental governance, particularly focusing on the development
after UNCED. Among other things she shows the function of the multi-
stakeholder dialogue (MSD) process and the institutional practices of the
UNFCCC and the World Bank. Dana Fisher examines more deeply in
Chapter 9 the relationship between civil society protest and NGOs’ and
civil society actors’ participation in the international meetings of eco-
nomic institutions and multilateral regimes by looking at their engage-
ment at particular meetings in recent years. She looks most carefully at
the World Bank/International Monetary Fund and the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change. She observes that civil society actors
work both within international institutional structures by lobbying mem-
bers of national delegations as NGO participants, as well as by organizing
protests outside of the meetings of such international institutions and
multilateral regimes; she suggests that transparency, NGO participation
throughout the process, and support of demonstrations by institutional
representatives are key to improved environmental governance.
The fifth sub-theme is the interface between business/industry and
government. As a business exhibition was symbolically presented in the
Sandton International Conference Centre at the WSSD, it is impossible
to ignore the role of the business/industry sector in environmental gov-
ernance. However, there are still positive and negative views towards
business/industry involvement in environmental governance activities.
Because they are generally recognized substantially as the main force
that fosters economic globalization, there are still cautious and sceptical
views about their engagement in environment and sustainable develop-
ment activities. In particular, environmental NGOs or CSOs, which ap-
pear to be another kind of emerging force in environmental governance,
generally view industry involvement with sceptical eyes. Such a view is
very well represented in Chapter 10 by Harris Gleckman. He examines
the current balance between international corporate voluntary environ-
mental management and public sector environmental management, and
finds that it is, at least from the perspective of the environment, tilted
too far in one direction. By recognizing the four components of environ-
mental regulatory systems – namely voluntary codes and standards, self-
defined implementation standards, self-financed certification systems, and
elective public reporting – and the drivers at the national and interna-
tional levels, it is possible to construct a number of ways to re-centre the
political balance, to create a sustainable business climate, and to enhance
global environmental protection. Mikoto Usui provides more positive
INTRODUCTION 11
views towards business/industry partnership in environmental gover-

nance. They possess huge power, and thus we should make positive use
of them to find a win-win situation. In his informative Chapter 11, Usui
explores various types of industry-government relationships. He argues
that the multi-stakeholder dialogue programme of the UNCSD as well
as the Global Compact have offered an innovative breakthrough at least
for evading the impasse of institutional parallelism between private busi-
ness and CSOs. It is hoped that the ‘‘Type 2’’ outcome of the WSSD will
stimulate a variety of tri-sectoral partnering projects that involve a me-
diatory or brokering role of various UN agencies, the World Bank, and
the IFC.
Finally, Peter Haas, Norichika Kanie, and Craig Murphy summa-
rize the emerging forces in environmental governance, reflecting on the
chapters in this volume. They present a matrix of functions in environ-
mental governance that provides a mapping of the actor-function rela-
tionship. By clarifying who undertakes which function, our understanding
of the complex environmental governance structure may advance. Also,
the matrix could serve as a hint for further institutionalization or non-
institutionalization of emerging forces in environmental governance in
the world, since emergence of a WEO is unlikely in the foreseeable
future.
In the process leading up to the WSSD a new approach was developed
for enhancing ‘‘partnerships’’ between and among various stakeholders
in society in implementing measures for sustainable development. As
defined by the Commission on Global Governance, partnerships should
be at the core of global governance.7 If so, how shall we enhance part-
nerships? In what kind of governance structure can we enhance partner-
ship functions? Without understanding the emerging forces in gover-
nance, states and civil society cannot establish meaningful partnerships.
The authors hope that this volume can help in understanding the emerg-
ing forces in environmental governance, and serve as a reference for
further discussion on the reform of environmental governance structure.
Notes
1. Haas, Peter M. 2001. ‘‘Pollution’’, in P. J. Simmons and Chantal de Jonge Oudraat (eds)
Managing Global Issues. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
pp. 310–353.
2. United Nations University. 1999. Inter-linkages: Synergies and Coordination between
MEAs, UNU Report. Tokyo: United Nations University, p. 31.
3. See Esty, Daniel C. 1994. Greening the GATT. Washington, DC: Institute for Interna-
tional Economics; Biermann, Frank and Udo E. Simonis. 1998. A World Environment
and Development Organization, SEF Policy Paper 9. Bonn: SEF, p. 12; Ulfstein, Geir.
12 KANIE AND HAAS
1999. ‘‘The proposed GEO and its relationship to existing MEAs’’, paper presented at
the International Conference on Synergies and Coordination between Multilateral Envi-
ronmental Agreements, United Nations University, 14–16 July. Global Environmental
Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1. February 2001, MIT Press. See also the statement that came out of
the Strengthening Global Environmental Governance Conference, New York, 4–5 June
1998.
4. Former Director-General of the WTO.
5. Chambers, W. Bradnee and Jessica F. Green (eds). Forthcoming. Reforming Interna-
tional Environmental Governance: From Institutional Limits to Innovative Solutions. To-
kyo: United Nations University Press.
6. UNU/IAS. 2002. International Sustainable Development Governance: The Question of
Reform: Key Issues and Proposals. Tokyo: UNU/IAS.
7. The Commission on Global Governance defines governance as follows. ‘‘Governance is
the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their
common affairs. It is a continuing process through which conflicting or diverse interests
may be accommodated and cooperative action may be taken. It includes formal institu-
tions and regimes empowered to enforce compliance, as well as informal arrangements
that people and institutions either have agreed to or perceive to be in their interest.’’
Commission on Global Governance. 1995. Our Global Neighbourhood: The Report of the
Commission on Global Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Multilateral institutions
1
Multilateral environmental
institutions and coordinating
mechanisms
Toru Iwama
Introduction
Since the UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, new, di-

verse, and complicated environmental problems have emerged. Accord-
ingly, to address these problems, existing multilateral institutions, the
UN organs in particular, have been provided with new and additional
functions on the one hand and multilateral environmental institutions
have been newly established on the other hand, such as the United Na-
tions Environment Programme (UNEP), the Global Environment Facil-
ity (GEF), the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), etc. In
addition, sectoral multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have
been increasingly concluded, with institutional settings such as a confer-
ence or a meeting of the parties (COP/MOP), a secretariat, and specialist
subsidiary bodies – these are called treaty organs in this chapter.
There are, however, four problems to be pointed out at the present
stage with regard to international environmental governance by multi-
lateral institutions. First, there are missing links between different in-
stitutions in policy-making and its implementation, although they are
addressing common and related issues. Only an ad hoc, fragmental, and
disjointed approach has been applied by different institutions. Different
treaties or regimes were concluded or established for different sectors
of the environment, and these do no address issues in the cross-sectoral
and multi-sectoral context. Secondly, there are overlapping or conflicting
15
16 IWAMA
functions and insufficient coordination among different institutions.

Thirdly, there are no powerful, competent institution(s) whose mandates
are directly related to international environmental governance. UNEP is
only a ‘‘catalyst’’ in the UN system, with a small secretariat in terms
of staff numbers and budget. Less attention is paid to the environment
in the Second Committee of the General Assembly. The UNEP Execu-
tive Director’s voice is lower in the UN Secretariat. Fourthly, multilateral
environmental institutions have not captured the initiatives of numerous
actors, including NGOs and corporations, in policy-making and its im-
plementation.
This chapter reviews the existing multilateral environmental or
environment-related institutions and coordination structures, with a par-
ticular attention to the UN system and treaty organs, and gives insights
into the interlinkages of the international environmental governance sys-
tem by proposing their restructuring and revitalization and the creation
of new institutions.
Existing multilateral institutions
UN organs
The UN organs – principal organs such as the General Assembly, the

Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Security Council, the
International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the Secretariat, specialized
agencies, subsidiary organs, and related agencies – are addressing envi-
ronmental issues in their respective mandates and their roles have be-
come increasingly important,1 but only UNEP, the CSD, and the GEF
are directly related to international environmental governance as far as
their mandates are concerned. The establishment of UNEP and the CSD
were historically important in the sense that they followed the two land-
mark global conferences respectively, the 1972 UN Conference on the
Human Environment (UNCHE) and the 1992 UN Conference on Envi-
ronment and Development (UNCED).
Principal organs
General Assembly
The General Assembly is a principal agenda-setting and policy-making
body2 of the UN system which provides overall guidance to governments,
the UN system, and relevant treaty organs. The bulk of the General
Assembly’s work on environmental issues is carried out by its Second
(Economic and Financial) Committee. Owing to its universal member-
MULTILATERAL ENVIRONMENTAL INSTITUTIONS 17
ship and broad mandate, the General Assembly has been an appropriate
forum to address environmental issues of global concern, although its
powers are limited to making recommendations which are not legally
binding on member states. Among the achievements of the General
Assembly, of historical importance are the convening of the 1972 UN-
CHE and the 1992 UNCED, culminating in the establishment of UNEP
and the CSD respectively, and of international conferences to conclude
MEAs, such as the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Cli-
mate Change (UNFCCC) and the 1995 agreement for the implementa-
tion of the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea of 10 December 1982, relating to the conservation and manage-
ment of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks.
ECOSOC
Of the three principal councils, only ECOSOC is directly concerned with
environmental policies. It receives and merely passes to the General As-
sembly the reports of the UNEP Governing Council, the UN subsidiary
bodies, and the UN specialized and related agencies. However, ECO-
SOC itself had no environment-oriented main or standing committees
or functional commissions3 before the CSD was created as a functional
commission of ECOSOC by the UN General Assembly to ensure the
follow-up to UNCED.4
Security Council
The mandate of the Security Council is to remove causes of conflicts be-
fore they become threats to international peace and security. It is prob-
able that non-military sources of instability in the economic, social,
humanitarian, and ecological fields could in the future become threats to
international security.5 However, there are legal and political obstacles to
be cleared if environmental threats could be interpreted to mean threats
to international security and the Council could enforce the violation of
environmental rules.
ICJ
The ICJ, as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, is em-
powered to decide legal disputes which are submitted to it by the parties
to the dispute. Such disputes include those on environmental matters.
The jurisdiction of the Court comprises all cases which the parties refer
to it and all matters specially provided for in treaties and conventions in
force.6 The major treaties and conventions for environmental protection
adopted since the mid-1980s include provision for the submission of dis-
putes arising from their interpretation and application to the ICJ.7 There
are two recent movements which show that the Court is willing to address
18 IWAMA
environmental matters. The first is its decision in 1993 to establish

a seven-member Chamber for environmental matters in accordance with
Article 26(1) of the Statute of the Court. However, no disputes have
been submitted to the Chamber. The second is that the Court has de-
cided matters which are directly or indirectly related to environmental
protection. There have been five cases submitted to it: three cases on nu-
clear weapons and nuclear weapons testing8 and two cases arising from
environmental damage.9
Secretariat
The Secretariat provides administrative services to the General Assem-
bly and its subsidiary bodies. Although it has within itself departments on
political and Security Council affairs, trusteeship and decolonization, and
economic and social affairs, no department exists on environmental af-
fairs. The Secretary-General, the executive officer of the Secretariat, has
little formal power in this matter, but may influence the course of events
of environment-related matters.10
Specialized agencies
Of the 16 specialized agencies,11 the FAO, IBRD, ILO, IMO, UNESCO,
UNIDO, WHO, and WMO are directly involved in environmental pro-
tection.12 They were assigned or gradually assumed some environment-
related functions which are incidental to carrying out their principal
tasks.13
They have made a number of achievements in the area of progressive
development of international environmental law, including the conclu-
sion of MEAs and the issue of guidelines and other ‘‘soft’’ law. They have
sponsored or initiated negotiations to conclude MEAs and are playing an
administrative role as their secretariats. For example, the FAO worked
to conclude the 1951 Rome International Plant Protection Convention,
the 1956 Rome Plant Protection Agreement for the Asian and Pacific
Region, and the 1969 Rome Convention on the Conservation of the
Living Resources of the South-East Atlantic. The IMO (formerly the
IMCO) is responsible for the negotiation and administration of treaties
and conventions related to ocean pollution: the 1972 Convention on the
Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter
(the London Dumping Convention), the MARPOL 1973/78 Convention,
the 1990 International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Re-
sponse, and Cooperation, and so on. The General Assembly of UNESCO
adopted in 1972 the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World
Cultural and Natural Heritage. UNESCO functions as its secretariat.
And the Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection of the Cultural
and Natural Heritage of Outstanding Universal Value (the World Heri-
tage Committee), which was established by this convention to implement

its administration, is assisted by a secretariat appointed by the UNESCO
Director-General.
Subsidiary organs
Subsidiary organs are established by the General Assembly or by other
subdivisions of the UN system.
UNEP
Of primary importance in the UN system for environmental protection
is UNEP. UNEP was established as a subsidiary organ of the UN Gen-
eral Assembly14 to work as a ‘‘catalyst’’ for activities and programmes
within the UN system. It promotes international environmental coopera-
tion rather than initiating or mandating environmental programmes on
its own account.15 It serves as a focal point for environmental action and
coordination within the UN system, and reports to the General Assembly
through ECOSOC. It consists of a 58-member Governing Council and
the Environment Secretariat, whose head is the Executive Director.16 Its
administrative cost is covered by the regular budget funds of the United
Nations. Additional financing is allocated to its operational activities by
the Environment Fund, comprising unrestricted voluntary contributions.
A set of programmes which UNEP has implemented include stimu-
lation of research, collection and coordination of data, publications, edu-
cation, sponsoring negotiations leading to conclusion of international
treaties, and the establishment of specialized environmental organs, as
well as the adoption of guidelines and other types of soft law.17
In view of the progressive development of international environmental
law, UNEP’s achievements in sponsoring international negotiations to
conclude MEAs are to be noted. It sponsored the negotiations leading to
the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (the
Vienna Convention), the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that
Deplete the Ozone Layer (the Montreal Protocol), and the 1989 Basel
Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous
Wastes and Their Disposal (the Basel Convention). The 1998 Conven-
tion on Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chem-
icals and Pesticides in International Trade (the Rotterdam Convention)
was negotiated under the auspices of UNEP jointly with the FAO.
UNEP initiated the preparation of the 1992 Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD). UNEP and the WMO co-sponsored the Intergovern-
mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for the negotiation of a climate
regime, culminating in the adoption of the UNFCCC in 1992. UNEP also
provided substantive support and expertise for the conclusion of the 1994
Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing
20 IWAMA
Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa (the De-

sertification Convention). It initiated the regional seas programme for 14
regions with nine conventions and three action plans, as well as their 27
protocols.
UNEP plays a significant role for administering five MEAs as the sec-
retariat of the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the 1979 Bonn Convention
on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS), the
Vienna Convention, the Montreal Protocol, the Basel Convention, and
the CBD.
It is noteworthy that there is a remarkable recent trend of ‘‘greening’’
of the existing UN organs, the creation of new environmental organs
within the UN system such as the CSD, and development of environ-
mental treaty organs (to be discussed later) on the one hand,18 but on the
other hand they have contributed to dilution of UNEP’s mandate and
authority.19
CSD
The CSD was created by the UN General Assembly as a functional sub-
sidiary organ of ECOSOC,20 and is composed of 53 members elected for
terms of three years’ office from the member states of the UN and its
specialized agencies. It receives substantive and technical services from
the UN Secretariat’s Department for Policy Coordination and Sustain-
able Development.
Its mandate is to receive and consider reports (national, regional, and
international) or periodic communications on the progress of implemen-
tation of UNCED final documents, including Agenda 21, the Rio Decla-
ration on Environment and Development, and the Non-Legally Binding
Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the
Management, Conservation, and Sustainable Development of All Types
of Forests, and to elaborate policy guidance and options for future activ-
ities to follow up UNCED and to recommend them to the UN General
Assembly through ECOSOC.
There is a criticism that no clear distinction has been made with regard
to the allocation of responsibilities and mandates between the CSD and
UNEP as the main institutions within the UN system.21 It can be pointed
out that the creation of the CSD has indirectly contributed to diluting the
authority of UNEP in the area of international environmental coopera-
tion in the UN system.22
Others
Other subsidiary organs such as the United Nations Development Pro-
gramme (UNDP), the United Nations University (UNU), the United
Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), and the five
regional Economic Commissions23 also perform environment-related
functions.
Related agencies and others
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is not a specialized
agency but is associated with the United Nations as an independent
intergovernmental organization. After the 1986 Chernobyl incident, the
IAEA sponsored two international conventions of environmental signifi-
cance and has been extending environmental considerations regarding
the use of nuclear energy.
In 1991 the Global Environment Facility (GEF) became operational
on a three-year trial basis, and was restructured in 1994 on a permanent
basis. It is implemented by the World Bank (IBRD), UNEP, and the
UNDP. The World Bank functions to administer GEF, a trust fund, and
responsibility for investment projects. Its purpose is to give additional
funding to projects in developing countries in four designated areas:
reduction of global warming gas emissions, protection of the biosphere,
protection of international waters, and protection of the ozone layer.
WTO
In 1994 the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in the

final act of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations under the Gen-
eral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT used to be a
development-oriented organization, with the exceptional clause of Arti-
cle 25. However, the Marrakesh Agreement establishing the WTO rec-
ognizes, in its preamble, sustainable development as the overarching
objective of the WTO, and it has responded to criticisms of being in-
sufficiently responsive to environmental consequences of world trade by
setting up in 1995 the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE).24
Treaty organs
Since the early 1970s a large number of MEAs in the area of oceans,
atmosphere, nature, waste, and fisheries have been concluded, with in-
stitutional arrangements setting up a conference or a meeting of the
parties (COP/MOP) with decision-making powers, a secretariat, and
specialist subsidiary bodies.25 These institutions are called ‘‘autonomous
institutions’’ in the sense that they do not constitute traditional inter-
governmental organizations (IGOs) but are distinct both from the state
parties to a particular agreement and from the existing IGOs on the one
hand, and they have their own law-making powers and compliance
22 IWAMA
mechanisms on the other hand.26 These treaty organs, comprising the

COP/MOP, a secretariat, and specialist subsidiary bodies, are included
here as multilateral environmental institutions.
MEAs establishing such institutional arrangements include the 1971
Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Wa-
terfowl Habitat (the Ramsar Convention), the London Dumping Con-
vention, CITES, the CMS, the Basel Convention and its 1999 Protocol on
Liability and Compensation, the UNFCCC and its 1997 Kyoto Protocol,
the CBD and its 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, the Desertifi-
cation Convention, the 1994 International Tropical Timber Agreement
(ITTA), and the Rotterdam Convention.
The secretariat of each agreement is either newly established or affili-
ated with existing UN organs such as the IMO, UNESCO, the FAO, and
UNEP, or an international NGO such as the International Union for
Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN, now often called
the World Conservation Union).
Coordinating institutions/bodies and mechanisms
Since the 1972 UNCHE there has arisen a need for coordination of poli-
cies within respective international institutions and among different ones
in order to implement environmental goals. This chapter reviews the ex-
isting coordinating institutions, bodies, and mechanisms.
Intra-institutional coordination
A newly emerging need for coordination of policies between environ-

ment and development has been satisfied within respective international
institutions, particularly development-oriented ones, by setting up a new
subdivision. For example, the World Bank has recognized the adverse
effect of development loans and increasingly structured and conditioned
loans in such a way that the development it funds is ecologically sound.27
It has made major reforms by establishing in 1973 an Office of Environ-
mental Affairs to provide studies of the environmental impacts of the
development projects it funds. In 1989 it adopted its Operational Direc-
tive on Environmental Assessment, which was revised in 1991. In 1973
the former IMCO Assembly established the Marine Environment Pro-
tection Committee. The WTO established the CTE to discuss the envi-
ronmental aspects of trade and trade-related aspects of environmental
measures.
Inter-institutional coordination
Inter-UN organs
In the UN system, the Administrative Committee on Coordination
(ACC) consists of the executive heads of the specialized agencies, related
agencies, and subsidiary organs, including UNEP. It meets several times
a year, chaired by the UN Secretary-General, and coordinates UN poli-
cies at the secretariat level. It considers and makes recommendations
on coordination of environment-related programmes and projects falling
within the purview of more than one of the participating entities. With
regard to UNEP-related programmes and projects, it makes a report,
drafted by the UNEP Executive Director, to the UNEP Governing
Council. Designated Officials for Environmental Matters (DOEM), one
of UNEP’s organs, help the UNEP Executive Director to draft these
reports.
The Inter-Agency Committee on Sustainable Development (IACSD)
was established in 1993 as a standing committee of the ACC to advise the
ACC on ways and means of addressing issues relating to the follow-up
to UNCED by the UN system in order to ensure effective system-wide
cooperation and coordination in the implementation of Agenda 21 and
other outcomes of UNCED.
There are other organs whose mandates are to coordinate between/
among different UN organs: CIDIE (the Committee on International De-
velopment Institutions on the Environment) which is a joint organ of
multilateral development and financial institutions; GESAMP (the Group
of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution), which is a joint
organ of the United Nations, UNEP, the FAO, UNESCO, the WHO,
WMO, IMO, and IAEA; the UNEP/WMO joint-sponsored IPCC; and
the GEF which is jointly administered by UNEP, the UNDP, and the
World Bank, etc.
Inter-treaty organs
Recently COP/MOPs of MEAs have realized the importance of and need
for coordination between/among treaty organs since they are dealing with
closely related matters, and adopted resolutions to exchange information
between/among secretariats and accept observers from each other to
participate in COP/MOP meetings. Examples are agreements between
the CBD and the Ramsar Convention on the question of biological di-
versity, and between the UNFCCC and the CBD on the question of cli-
mate change.28
The 1997 exchange of a memorandum of cooperation between the
24 IWAMA
CBD’s secretariat and that of the Protocol Concerning Specially Pro-

tected Areas and Wildlife for the Wider Caribbean Sea Region is a good
example, in which both agreed to send their staffs to the other’s meet-
ings, exchange information and experience, coordinate their work plans,
cooperate in their preparation process, work out joint conservation plans,
integrate and unite programmes for domestic implementation of each
other’s legal instruments, and review other necessary guidelines.
Between UN organs and treaty organs
The same trend can be witnessed in the coordination between UN organs
and treaty organs, for example among the UNFCCC, CBD, UNEP, and
GEF on climate change issues, between the WTO and MEAs on issues
of trade and environment, and among the CBD, FAO, and UNESCO on
natural heritage issues.
Proposals for restructuring and revitalizing multilateral

institutions and establishing new institutions
The multilateral institutions discussed above are fulfilling a range of in-
terrelated functions, including awareness-raising and agenda-setting; col-
lecting, processing, and disseminating information; setting international
standards and regulations; capacity-building and providing financial and
technical assistance; and avoiding and settling disputes.29
It is fair to say that they have fulfilled their functions successfully within
their own given mandates to protect the environment, but existing multi-
lateral institutions and structures are inadequate to meet the global en-
vironmental challenges which international society is now facing. Chapter
38 of Agenda 21 calls for a need for the restructuring and revitaliza-
tion of the UN system to implement Agenda 21 and other conclusions
of UNCED. There have been many suggestions and proposals made for
that purpose, including those for establishing new institutions and struc-
tures and those addressing the four problems cited in the introduction.30
Such suggestions and proposals are categorized into two approaches:
a vertical approach and a horizontal approach. The former emphasizes
the need to centralize functions of different institutions to one institution,
either through the creation of a new institution or the strengthening of
an existing one. It seeks to generate vertical, ‘‘top-down’’ integration and
an overarching authority which either assumes the responsibilities of ex-
isting institutions or directs their coordination from above.31 The latter
approach emphasizes the strengthening of an existing institution on the
one hand and horizontal system-wide coordination between/among re-
lated institutions on the other hand. It is based on the revitalization of
institutions, a clear division of their responsibilities, and the avoidance of

duplication of their functions.
Vertical approach
Establishing a new UN principal organ

In order for international environmental governance to have a high-
profile presence in the UN system, it would seem suitable to establish
a principal organ with either environmental legislation or enforcement
powers,32 since no present principal organs can address such a need. The
present General Assembly is not suitable as far as its mandate and pow-
ers are concerned.33 The Security Council is not suitable, either, because
there are legal and political difficulties to be solved if environmental
threats are to be interpreted to mean threats to international security and
the Council could enforce the violation of environmental rules, and nei-
ther the composition nor the voting system appears suitable for assigning
environmental tasks to the Council.34
There remain many questions to be answered regarding a new organ’s
powers, particularly its legislative or norm-making power and its en-
forcement power, and its composition and voting system. In answering
these questions, the following comment should be taken into account:
. . . any legislative organ must be large enough to be considered reasonably rep-

resentative of the world community – even if it is provided . . . that any proposed
legislation must also be approved by the General Assembly. On the other hand,
an organ charged with enforcement should, by analogy with the Security Council,
be small enough to be able to act effectively.35
It has been suggested that the Trusteeship Council which has completed
its original task should be restructured into a new one with environmen-
tal tasks. A proposed new Trusteeship Council can be categorized into
two types: an environmental watchdog for the UN system;36 and the
council entrusted with the task of overall supervision of global environ-
mental protection as well as global common areas.37 With regard to the
latter type of a new council, the Secretary-General’s remark should be
taken into account – that it could exercise a collective trusteeship for
the integrity of the global environment and common areas, such as the
oceans, atmosphere, and outer space.38
Establishing a new UN specialized agency

In 1991 Sir Geoffrey Palmer proposed the creation of ‘‘a proper inter-
national environmental agency within the United Nations system that
has real power and authority’’, a new specialized UN agency called the
26 IWAMA
International Environment Organization (IEO).39 The structural basis

of his proposal is modelled on that of the ILO, where tripartite repre-
sentatives from government, industry, and employers and employees
can participate in decision-making, including standard-setting and rule-
making.40
According to Palmer, the IEO shall be composed of a general con-
ference comprising all members and a governing council comprising 40
people – 20 representing governments, 10 representing business organi-
zations, and 10 representing environmental organizations and the secre-
tariat.41 Each member state sends to the conference two government
delegates and two others from business and environmental organizations,
respectively. The IEO can perform both a legislative and an implemen-
tation function. It can take decisions by a two-thirds majority, demand
reports from member states, and take measures to secure compliance
with its provisions.42 UNEP may be strengthened and transformed into
this type of international intergovernmental organization, a specialized
agency which is required to conclude a relationship agreement with the
United Nations when being established.
Horizontal approach
Revitalized UN organs
General Assembly
Regarding the General Assembly, it could be recommended that the
Fourth Committee in charge of decolonization be restructured into a
Committee for Sustainable Development, or that the current load of the
Second Committee be redistributed between it and the Fourth Commit-
tee, with one of them handling all environment-development-related is-
sues and the other undertaking all other economic and financial ones.43
ECOSOC
As Chapter 38.10 of Agenda 21 suggests, the functions of ECOSOC
could be revitalized in such a way that it would assist the General As-
sembly through overseeing system-wide coordination, overviewing the
implementation of Agenda 21 and making recommendations in this
regard, and undertaking the task of directing system-wide coordination
and integration of environmental and developmental aspects in the UN’s
policies and programmes. ECOSOC could also make appropriate rec-
ommendations to the General Assembly, relevant specialized agencies,
and member states.
However, at the extreme side of the debate, there is a suggestion that
ECOSOC be entirely abolished and its tasks be taken over by the present
Second and Third Committees of the General Assembly.44
Security Council
A suggestion that the Security Council could be assigned functions of
environmental protection is based on the recognition that major or criti-
cal environmental destruction may present threats to international secu-
rity and that the Council has powers to enforce states to comply with its
decisions. However, because of its present composition and voting sys-
tem, and the need for a UN Charter amendment if responsibilities in
respect of the enforcement of environmental rules or the prevention of
environmental violation are given to the Council, it is more suitable and
feasible to create a new principal organ as discussed above.45
Secretariat
As Chapter 38.15 of Agenda 21 suggests, strong and effective leadership
on the part of the Secretary-General is crucial for global environmental
governance, since he/she would be the focal point of the institutional ar-
rangements within the UN system. The Secretary-General plays a key
role in the interagency mechanism for coordination and supervision of
environmental programme planning and review among the UN organs.
In this sense, a supportive system should be established within the Sec-
retariat, including an environmental secretariat to be created under the
Secretariat as a unit of the central secretariat of the United Nations.46
Specialized agencies
It is recommended that relevant specialized agencies should strengthen
their functions of environmental protection in the future, and there needs
to be an adjustment and coordination among different agencies initiated
by a newly created specialized agency, such as the IEO or a strengthened
UNEP.
Strengthened UNEP
UNEP has been criticized for its insufficient clout because it has been
unable to fulfil fully its original mandate as a ‘‘catalyst’’ to promote inter-
national cooperation in the UN system in the face of growing complex-
ities of environmental problems, owing to the size of its secretariat, its
insufficient budget, the impractical location of its headquarters, the lack
of weight for the voice of its Executive Director in the UN Secretary-
General’s Cabinet, the low status of environmental matters in the over-
crowded schedule of the Second Committee of the UN General Assem-
bly, and duplication of its functions with other UN organs.47 UNEP can
function as a coordinator of environmental policies in the UN system if
some conditions are met.
There are three recommendations addressed to UNEP. The first is
to provide ‘‘stable, adequate, and predictable financial resources’’48 to
UNEP in order to keep its existing mandate as a ‘‘catalyst’’ working. The
28 IWAMA
need should be identified for direct financial support from the UN regu-
lar budget to pay for the administration of the UNEP Secretariat. With
regard to DOEM (Designated Officials for Environmental Matters), an
interagency subsidiary of the ACC created by UNEP, this should be re-
vitalized to ensure it can carry out its coordinating mandate in the ACC.
The second recommendation is to strengthen the existing mandate
of UNEP as a ‘‘catalyst’’ with adequate funding. UNEP in particular is
called upon to:
0 coordinate and promote relevant scientific research
0 facilitate information dissemination and exchange
0 promote the use of environmental means such as environmental impact
assessments
0 promote regional and subregional cooperation and coordination
0 help governments to meet legal and institutional requirements
0 promote closer working relations with development organs such as the
UNDP and the World Bank to integrate environmental considerations
into development projects
0 support negotiations leading to adoption of either treaty laws or soft
laws.49
Regarding UNEP’s role of coordinating functions among convention sec-
retariats, it is to be strengthened in such a way that UNEP functions as
a secretariat for each treaty organ, which includes co-location of secre-
tariats established in UNEP.50
The third recommendation is to transform UNEP with the present
narrow mandate of a ‘‘catalyst’’ into a new full-fledged institution: a UN
principal organ, a UN specialized agency, or an operational UN Envi-
ronment Agency.51
Revitalized UNDP
The UNDP round tables and World Bank consultative groups may be
used as vehicles for regular national planning and review. The UNDP is
the lead agency in the UN system for capacity-building for sustainable
development at local, national, and regional levels. It is therefore imper-
ative that the UNDP should keep close working relations with UNEP
and that the UNDP resident representatives should be strengthened to
coordinate field-level UN technical cooperation activities.52
Renewed CSD
The creation of the CSD contributed to diluting the mandate and au-
thority of UNEP. The function of the CSD is questionable. It seems that
there was no need to set up a new organ, the CSD, in the UN system
when its mandates and functions were covered by the existing organ,
UNEP. It also seems that the Commission is unlikely to fulfil any more
visionary ambitions for an overarching international environmental or-

ganization.53 Therefore, it is recommended that the CSD be merged into
UNEP. If it is not practicable, the mandate and activities of the CSD
should be better defined to build on potential strengths which are to be
identified in concrete terms.
Revitalized ACC
The role of the ACC should be revitalized as the interagency mechanism
for coordination and supervision of environmental programme planning
and review among the UN organs and for provision of a vital interface
with the multilateral financial institutions. A special board or taskforce
may be set up for that purpose by the ACC.54 In this regard, the direct
and strong leadership of the Secretary-General is expected, and all heads
of organs and agencies of the UN system are expected to cooperate with
the Secretary-General fully in order to make the ACC work effectively.
Due consideration should be given to the creation of a high-level dep-
uty on sustainable development to assist the Secretary-General so that
the ACC can exercise its function to the full extent. Relevant UN pro-
grammes on environment and development should be reported from all
relevant UN organs and agencies to the deputy, which will ensure that
those programmes are coordinated and reinforce each other under the
chairmanship of the Secretary-General at the ACC.
The recently proposed EMG (Environmental Management Group)
headed by the UNEP Executive Director, replacing the Inter-Agency
Environmental Coordination Group (IAECG) to achieve better coordi-
nation and joint action, should be further elaborated. It is to comprise
at its core all the leading UN organs in the field of the environment
and human settlements, as well as other UN organs, financial institutions,
and organizations outside the UN system, including MEAs’ secretariats
whenever required.55
Coordinated treaty organs

In order to exploit synergies, capture linkages, and avoid duplicating
or conflicting decisions among MEAs and to achieve coherence and ef-
fectiveness in international environmental governance, a clustering ap-
proach to MEAs should be adopted.56 Clustering could group MEAs
either into issue clusters such as atmosphere, oceans, fresh water, biologi-
cal diversity, and waste, or into functional issue clusters such as capacity-
building, environmental assessment, scientific assessment, monitoring,
administrative management, reporting, and so on. Clustering should
be administered by UNEP based on clear criteria, and the result should
be disseminated to secretariats of institutions responsible for initiating
or sponsoring negotiations of MEAs. And to enhance interlinkages,
30 IWAMA
coordination, and administrative streamlining, it is recommended that a

number of treaty organs operating in related fields be combined into a
single one, by co-locating the secretariats of MEAs to UNEP, for example.
Links between policies and funding
International policies to promote sustainable development, particularly
in developing countries, are implemented successfully with adequate in-
ternational financial and technological support. UN development agen-
cies, such as the UNDP, should ensure, in full cooperation with recipient
countries and in full coordination with UNEP, that the projects they
support be consistent with the recipient country’s international environ-
mental requirements, whether they are legally binding or not.
A current international treaty practice of linking the implementation
of treaty obligations of developed countries with their funding commit-
ments, which is witnessed in the areas of the ozone layer, climate change,
and biological diversity, is highly recommended. In this regard, the role
of the GEF, which operates such a funding mechanism, should be further
developed.
Conclusions: Options to take
It is often suggested that international environmental governance could

be achieved by establishing the interlinkages of multilateral institutions;
this requires structural change of existing institutions and/or the creation
of new institutions. Proponents suggest that a world environmental orga-
nization (WEO) or a world environment and development organization
(WEDO) should be established.
This chapter has discussed proposals for restructuring and revitalizing
multilateral institutions and establishing new institutions. Among them, a
new UN principal organ (the ESC, the Trusteeship Council), a new UN
specialized agency (the IEO, UNEPO), or a strengthened UNEP might
be equivalent to a WEO or WEDO.
It seems unlikely for a new UN principal organ to be created, because
of the limited UN budget, an unwillingness of member states to bear the
expense of creating new institutions, their resistance to the expansion of
the UN organs, and a foreseeable difficulty of amending the UN Charter.
On the other hand, the creation of a new specialized agency seems feasi-
ble if the political climate is ripe enough. Technically it does not require
the amendment of the Charter, but only needs a relationship agreement
with the United Nations. It is expected that a WEO or WEDO as a spe-
cialized agency could function to fulfil the interlinkages of multilateral
institutions. However, what is crucial is that a WEO or WEDO should
take an initiative to coordinate different specialized agencies and other

UN organs as far as sustainable development is concerned as a policy is-
sue. A strengthened-UNEP type of WEO or WEDO could also function
in full for the interlinkages.
The international community of today is composed of sovereign states
– there is no central government and a unitary form of global gover-
nance is not feasible. Therefore, coordination and integration can only
take place horizontally between/among existing institutions.57 The WEO
or WEDO discussed above is expected to fulfil such a function.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Jo-
hannesburg in 2002 was supposed to discuss and agree upon an effective
international institutional framework for sustainable development, but
could not succeed in producing visible results. It only agreed as one of its
objectives to increase effectiveness and efficiency through limiting over-
lap and duplication of activities of international organizations, within and
outside the UN system, based on their mandates and comparative ad-
vantages.58 It also agreed to enhance the roles of the existing UN system
– the General Assembly, ECOSOC, the CSD, the UNDP, UNEP, and
others – but did not agree to create a WEO or WEDO type of institu-
tion.59 The WSSD reminded academics of the need to elaborate further
the effective international institutional framework for environmental gov-
ernance so that the policy-makers can be persuaded to adopt and imple-
ment such governance in order to achieve the common objective of
sustainable development in our global society.
Notes
1. See detailed discussion in Caldwell, Lynton K. 1996. International Environmental Pol-
icy. Durham and London: Duke University Press, pp. 127–139; Morrison, Fred L. and
Rüdiger Wolfrum (eds). 2000. International, Regional and National Environmental Law.
The Hague, London, and Boston: Kluwer Law International, pp. 71–110; Szasz, Paul
C. 1992. ‘‘Restructuring the international organizational framework’’, in Edith B. Weiss
(ed.) Environmental Change and International Law: New Challenges and Dimensions.
Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp. 340–351.
2. Agenda 21, adopted at UNCED in 1992, recognizes the General Assembly as ‘‘the su-
preme policy-making forum’’ in Chapter 38.1. See UN Doc.A/Conf.151/26/Rev.1 (1993).
3. Szasz, note 1 above, p. 345.
4. GA Res. 47/191 (1992).
5. The diversion case of the Jordan River waters was a good example, where Syria ap-
pealed to the Security Council in 1953 to stop Israel from diverting the water. See
Caldwell, note 1 above, p. 128.
6. Article 36(1) of the Statute of the International Court of Justice.
7. See examples in Kiss, Alexandre-Charles. 1998. ‘‘The International Court of Justice and
the protection of the environment’’, in Hague Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 11,
pp. 1–2.
32 IWAMA
8. The Nuclear Tests Case, Order of 22 June 1973; Legality of the Use by a State of
Nuclear Weapons in Armed Conflict, Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996; Legality of the
Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion of 8 July 1996.
9. The Case of Certain Phosphate Lands in Nauru (Nauru v. Australia), Judgment of 26
June 1992; The Gabcı́kovo-Nagymaros Case (Hungary v. Slovakia), Judgment of 25
September 1997.
10. Caldwell, note 1 above, p. 128.
11. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Bank
for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), International Civil Aviation Organi-
zation (ICAO), International Development Association (IDA), International Finance
Corporation (IFC), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), Interna-
tional Labour Organization (ILO), International Monetary Fund (IMF), International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), International Maritime Organization (IMO), United
Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations
Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Universal Postal Union (UPU), World
Health Organization (WHO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and
World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
12. Caldwell, note 1 above, p. 134.
13. See details of their respective functions and activities in Szasz, note 1 above, pp. 347–
350; Caldwell, ibid., pp. 133–139.
14. General Assembly Resolution 2997 (XXVII) of 15 December 1972.
15. Birnie, Patricia W. and Alan E. Boyle. 1992. International Law and the Environment.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 42.
16. The Executive Director is elected by the General Assembly on the nomination of the
Secretary-General.
17. Szasz, note 1 above, p. 342.
18. See detailed discussions in Werksman, Jacob (ed.). 1996. Greening International In-
stitutions. London: Earthscan.
19. See Desai, Bharat H. 2000. ‘‘Revitalizing international environmental institutions: The
UN Task Force Report and beyond’’, Indian Journal of International Law, Vol. 40,
pp. 468–471.
20. Council (ECOSOC) Decision 1993/207.
21. Morrison and Wolfrum, note 1 above, p. 78.
22. Desai, note 19 above, p. 473.
23. ESCAP, ECWA, ECA, ECE, and ECLA.
24. See Tarasofsky, Richard G. 1996. ‘‘Ensuring compatibility between multilateral envi-
ronmental agreements and the GATT/ WTO’’, in Yearbook of International Environ-
mental Law, Vol. 7, p. 52.
25. See detailed discussions about these institutional arrangements in Churchill, Robin R.
and Geir Ulfstein. 2000. ‘‘Autonomous institutional arrangements in multilateral envi-
ronmental agreements: A little-noticed phenomenon in international law’’, American
Journal of International Law, Vol. 94, No. 4, pp. 623–659; Röben, Volker. 2000. ‘‘In-
stitutional developments under modern international environmental agreements’’, Max
Plank Yearbook of the United Nations, Vol. 4, pp. 363–443.
26. Churchill and Ulfstein, ibid., p. 623.
27. Birnie and Boyle, note 15 above, p. 62.
28. See Kimball, Lee A. 1997. ‘‘Institutional linkages between the Convention on Biological
Diversity and other international conventions’’, Review of European Community and
International Environmental Law, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 239–248.
29. Werksman, note 18 above, pp. xiii–xvii.
30. See in particular Desai, note 19 above, pp. 471–504; Kimball, Lee A. and William C.
Boyd. 1992. ‘‘International institutional arrangements for environment and develop-

ment: A post-Rio assessment’’, Review of European Community and International En-
vironmental Law, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 300–304; Palmer, Geoffrey. 1992. ‘‘New ways to
make international environmental law’’, American Journal of International Law, Vol.
86, No. 2, pp. 278–282; Szasz, note 1 above, pp. 353–384. Palmer (p. 279) analyses the
present situation as follows: ‘‘There are basically four policy options in the institutional
arena. First, things could be left as they are. Second, UNEP could be strengthened and
given formal responsibilities. Third, the secretariat approach of the Vienna Convention
could be embroidered upon and developed so that a series of secretariats operate for
separate environmental issues. At present, that is the way things are heading. The
fourth broad option is to create a new international institution.’’
31. Werksman, note 18 above, p. xxi.
32. The Commission on Global Governance recommended the establishment of an Eco-
nomic Security Council (ESC) which provides leadership in economic, social, and envi-
ronmental fields. See Commission on Global Governance. 1995. Our Global Neigh-
bourhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 153–162.
33. Szasz, note 1 above, pp. 358–359, suggests a ‘‘bicameral world parliament’’ whereby the
General Assembly acts in tandem with the new principal organ, so that effective law-
making decisions would require adoption by both organs: by the General Assembly
representing classic sovereign equality and by a specially balanced organ whose deci-
sions reflect in some realistic way genuine power and interest relationships.
34. Ibid., p. 361.
35. Ibid., p. 365.
36. Ibid., pp. 361–362. Szasz criticizes this idea and instead proposes the establishment of an
entirely new principal organ, as stated above.
37. Commission on Global Governance, note 32 above, p. 252; Desai, note 19 above, pp.
498–503.
38. See Note by the Secretary-General, ‘‘A New Concept of Trusteeship’’, UN Doc. A/52/
849, 31 March 1998.
39. Palmer, note 30 above, pp. 262, 280–282. Desai, note 19 above, pp. 495–498, proposes
the creation of a specialized agency called the United Nations Environment Protection
Organization (UNEPO) wherein the existing UNEP could merge.
40. Farr proposes the creation of a global environmental organization (GEO) modelled
on the WHO. See Farr, Karen T. 2000. ‘‘A new global environmental organization’’,
Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 510–525.
41. Palmer, note 28 above, p. 281.
42. Ibid.
43. See Szasz, note 1 above, pp. 357–358.
44. Ibid., p. 363.
45. See ibid., p. 361.
46. Ibid., p. 366.
47. See ibid., pp. 351–353; Farr, note 40 above, pp. 501–507.
48. See the Secretary-General’s Report of the UN Task Force on Environment and Human
Settlements (A/53/463).
49. Chapter 38.22–23 of Agenda 21.
50. Chapter 38.22 (h) of Agenda 21.
51. French, Hilary F. 1995. Partnership for the Planet: An Environmental Agenda for the
United Nations, Worldwatch Paper No. 126. Washington, DC: Worldwatch Institure,
p. 39.
52. See Chapter 38.23–25 of Agenda 21.
34 IWAMA
53. Werksman, note 18 above, p. xxiii.

54. Kimball and Boyd, note 30 above, p. 301.
55. Desai, note 19 above, p. 481.
56. See Chairman’s Summary: Expert Consultations on International Environmental Gov-
ernance, Cambridge, 28–29 May 2001 (on file with the author).
57. Werksman, note 18 above, p. xxiii.
58. UN Doc.A/CONF.199/ L.1, p. 61.
59. Ibid., pp. 64–68.
2
Consolidating global
environmental governance:
New lessons from the GEF?
Jake Werksman
Introduction and overview
This chapter seeks to draw preliminary lessons from nearly eight years
of operation of the Global Environment Facility (GEF). It assesses the
GEF’s role in consolidating the governance of project finance in areas
of global environmental concern. The GEF, in its present ‘‘restructured’’
form, was established in 1994.1 It was viewed then as a novel experiment
in institutional design. It sought to draw upon the capacities of more than
one international development agency – the United Nations Develop-
ment Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP), and the World Bank – and to serve the needs of more than one
multilateral environmental agreement (MEA). Faced with the complex-
ity of these arrangements, the GEF’s designers opted to construct the
GEF through a loose set of institutional links, rather than to create a new
international institution underpinned by a treaty instrument.
The arguments made in favour of this institutional experiment pointed
to the need to avoid the duplication or proliferation of institutions, to tap
into the comparative advantages of existing institutions, and to promote
partnerships, cooperation, and healthy competition amongst development
agencies. On the basis of a common set of institutional functions that cut
across a number of global environmental challenges, the GEF was asked
to consolidate aspects of international environmental governance. The
GEF thus represented a significant effort by the international community
35
36 WERKSMAN
to engage in what is now fashionably referred to within the context of

discussions on international environmental governance as ‘‘functional
clustering’’.2
The GEF’s role and structure were, however, controversial. The history
of its negotiation and the concerns raised by its design were reviewed by
this author shortly after the GEF Instrument was adopted.3 That history
shows that the concept of a single financial mechanism to serve more
than one MEA was promoted by industrialized ‘‘donor’’ countries. De-
veloping countries favoured an approach that would have established
separate MEA-specific financial mechanisms operating under the direct
authority and control of each MEA conference of parties (COP). The
GEF’s consolidation of financial functions was seen by some as an effort
to limit the amount of overall funding that might otherwise have been
available to MEAs. Some were also concerned that functional consolida-
tion would lead to a consolidation of power in the hands of the donors.
This concern was heightened by the role that the World Bank would play
as the largest of the GEF’s three implementing agencies. The implement-
ing agencies were also involved in the negotiations on GEF restructuring
and tended to back the positions of their natural constituencies, with UN
agencies lining up behind developing countries and the World Bank sup-
porting positions taken by donors. At the time, bodies within the UN
system, and those within the so-called ‘‘Bretton Woods’’ system, did not
have a track record of close cooperation. Competition for scarce financial
resources also raised doubts as to whether this approach to functional
clustering could work. Finally, legal ambiguities surrounding the GEF’s
loose institutional arrangements raised questions as to whether it could
be held directly accountable by the COPs for funding MEA imple-
mentation and, in turn, whether the GEF could hold the implementing
agencies directly accountable for performing their assigned functions.
In an effort to test whether these doubts were justified, this analysis
looks for clues in GEF operations at both the level of international gov-
ernance and the level of project design and implementation. At the level
of international governance, the analysis has a dual focus. It assesses
whether differences between the governance structures in the MEAs’
COPs and the GEF Council have produced divergent or conflicting deci-
sions. It also assesses whether the GEF’s lack of a formal institutional
status, and its consequent dependence on the World Bank, have adversely
affected its ability to act as a strong and objective hub between the com-
peting interests of the MEAs, the GEF’s implementing agencies, and the
governments and constituencies the GEF was established to serve.
At the project design level, analysis is directed at whether the GEF’s
consolidation of the financial mechanisms of multiple MEAs with differ-
ent environmental objectives has led to projects that reap more than
CONSOLIDATING GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE 37
one global environmental benefit. It assesses whether, in performing this

function, the GEF has helped ensure that projects funded under one
MEA do not undermine the objectives of another MEA.
This modest chapter does not draw upon original research, but instead
bases its conclusions primarily on two recent documents. The first is the
‘‘Second Overall Performance Study of the GEF: Final Draft’’4 (OPS-2),
carried out by the GEF’s monitoring and evaluation unit at the request
of the GEF Council. This study was ‘‘designed to assess the extent to
which GEF has achieved, or is on its way towards achieving, its main
objectives’’ and produced a wide range of conclusions and recommenda-
tions aimed at all aspects of GEF operations.
The second document that provides the basis for this analysis is the
‘‘Overall Structure, Process and Procedures of the GEF’’5 (OSPP). This
document was prepared by the GEF Secretariat in response to requests
of the GEF Council and in consultation with the GEF’s implementing
agencies, and contains recommendations on how the GEF structure might
be reformed to take into account the lessons from OPS-2.
This chapter is therefore by no means comprehensive. It is intended,
instead, to highlight that the GEF continues to be an instructive case
study for efforts at improving global environmental governance.
The GEF’s nuts and bolts
The GEF’s primary responsibility is to operate the financial mechanisms

of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and
the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). It is tasked with pro-
viding grants and concessional funding to assist developing countries in
meeting the ‘‘incremental costs’’ of implementing their commitments un-
der the UNFCCC and the CBD. The GEF receives most of its funds from
those donor (industrialized) countries that are required under these con-
ventions to provide financial assistance to developing countries. The GEF
then serves to channel these funds towards eligible projects in developing
countries that support the conventions’ objectives. The GEF also funds
projects in developing countries and countries with economies in transi-
tion to protect international waters, and to prevent ozone layer depletion.
The UNDP, UNEP, and the World Bank act as the GEF’s ‘‘implementing
agencies’’, helping developing countries to design and implement eligible
projects.
The GEF’s legal underpinning is a trust fund, established by a resolu-
tion of the World Bank’s board of executive directors, with the World
Bank serving as the trustee. Responsibility for dispersing the assets of
the fund are delegated through the ‘‘Instrument for the Establishment
38 WERKSMAN
of the Global Environment Facility’’ (the GEF Instrument) to the GEF

Council. The council is composed of representatives of those countries
that have agreed to participate in the GEF (GEF ‘‘participants’’). Coun-
tries join the GEF by submitting a notification of participation, and, if
they wish to contribute to the trust fund, an instrument of commitment.
The GEF’s legal framework is further bolstered by the adoption, by the
governing bodies of each of the implementing agencies, of a resolution
approving its participation in accordance with the GEF Instrument. Fi-
nally, the MEA COPs are brought into the legal framework through ref-
erences to the GEF in their treaty instruments, through COP decisions
that assign functions and provide guidance to the GEF, and by memo-
randa of understanding running between the COPs and the GEF Council
that set out the COPs’ and the GEF’s mutual expectations.
In accordance with the GEF Instrument, the participants operate
through an assembly and a council. The assembly consists of all the GEF
participants, and meets once every three years to review GEF perfor-
mance and negotiate the replenishment of the GEF trust fund. The
GEF’s operations are overseen by the GEF Council, which consists of 32
members representing constituency groups formed by the participants.
The GEF Council meets at least twice a year to review and approve the
GEF’s operational policies and programmes and to approve tranches of
projects proposed for funding. The day-to-day operations of the GEF are
carried out by a secretariat under the direction of a chief executive officer
(CEO). The secretariat is based at but is functionally independent from
the World Bank.
The GEF Council is made up of 16 constituencies representing devel-
oping countries, 14 constituencies from industrialized countries, and two
constituencies from economies in transition. It takes decisions by con-
sensus, but if consensus fails, decisions can be taken by a form of de-
mocracy through a double-weighted majority system that combines the
one-country-one-vote approach of many UN bodies with the one-dollar-
one-vote approach of the Bretton Woods institutions: an affirmative vote
must gain a 60 per cent majority of the total number of participating
countries as well as a 60 per cent majority of total contributions.
Managing conflicts and promoting synergies in international

governance
In order to perform effectively its role in consolidating functional aspects
of the MEAs and of the implementing agencies, the GEF needs sufficient
autonomy and authority both to promote synergies and to avoid conflicts
amongst competing interests and objectives. The GEF Council, supported
by the GEF Secretariat, is required to hold the ring between potentially

conflicting demands of the different MEAs that it serves, and between the
different international institutions that serve as its implementing agencies.
This would appear to require that the GEF have the ability to establish a
transparent and accountable relationship with each of these entities, and
to manage the relationships between these entities.
With regard to its relationship with MEA COPs the GEF Instrument
provides that the GEF Council shall ‘‘function under the guidance of,
and be accountable to, the [COPs] which shall decide on policies, pro-
gramme priorities and eligibility criteria for the purposes of the conven-
tions’’.6 With regard to the GEF Council’s relationship to the implement-
ing agencies, the GEF Instrument indicates that these agencies ‘‘shall be
accountable to the Council for their GEF-financed activities, including
the preparation and cost-effectiveness of GEF projects, and for the im-
plementation of the operational policies, strategies and decisions of the
Council within their respective areas of competence’’.7
However, when the GEF Instrument was adopted, aspects of the
GEF’s institutional design appeared to place at risk its ability to perform
these functions effectively. Particular problems are highlighted below.
0 The GEF’s governance and decision-making structures are different to
the structures that govern the MEAs that the GEF is tasked to serve. The
GEF Council’s constituency and voting system is in sharp contrast to
the universal membership and consensus-based decision-making pro-
cedures employed by the MEA COPs, and is also different from the
governance structures of each of the three implementing agencies. Al-
though each of these institutions strives for ‘‘universal membership’’
and enjoys a substantial overlap in parties, it is possible that interna-
tional institutions with similar memberships but different governance
structures can generate inconsistent policies. Donor industrialized-
country council members in the GEF enjoy a disproportionately higher
number of seats and more heavily weighted votes than developing
country council members. Because the GEF Council operates on a con-
stituency basis, while the MEAs do not, there is a potential for gaps to
open up between the two governance systems.
0 The GEF is not an autonomous institution, and does not have the ca-
pacity to enter into formal legal relationships with other autonomous
institutions. One way of avoiding or managing potential conflicts be-
tween the COPs, the implementing agencies, and the GEF would be
formalize through an international agreement the respective roles and
expectations of each body. The mode of GEF establishment and the
text of the GEF Instrument do not appear to give the GEF and its
council legal autonomy. For example, while the GEF Council may con-
sider and approve arrangements with other international institutions, it
40 WERKSMAN
will be the World Bank as trustee that retains the power to ‘‘formalize’’
them.8 The GEF Instrument therefore left unresolved the issue of what
legal form, if any, the links between the GEF and the COPs might
take.
0 There is no clearly identified procedure for resolving ‘‘disputes’’ that
might arise between the GEF and the COPs, or between GEF and the
implementing agencies. Although the convention texts, the GEF In-
strument, and the MOUs set out the respective roles and functions
of the COPs, the GEF, and the implementing agencies, no clear and
determinative procedure is established to resolve conflicts that might
arise between them.
Many in the donor community suggested that informal arrangements,
such as observer status for convention representatives at meetings of the
GEF Council, could answer concerns about accountability and transpar-
ency. Others, more sceptical about the GEF’s ability to fulfil the con-
ventions’ requirements, sought the advice of the UN Legal Counsel for
suggestions on how best to structure this institutional experiment. After
reviewing the GEF Instrument and the requirements of the UNFCCC,
the Legal Counsel issued an opinion which suggested that the complexity
of the relationship anticipated between the GEF and the conventions
demanded that this relationship be set out in a ‘‘legally binding treaty
instrument’’.9
In the end, each COP and the GEF opted to establish links through a
memorandum of understanding (MOU) approved by each body.10 These
MOUs have since been interpreted to be non-binding in character.11
The MOU between the GEF and the UNFCCC COP does anticipate the
possibility that
[i]n the event that the COP considers that this specific project decision does not
comply with the policies, programme priorities and eligibility criteria established
by the COP, it may ask the Council of the GEF for further clarification on the
specific project decision and in due time may ask for a reconsideration of that
decision.12
But this provision does not clarify what procedure should apply if a dis-
agreement between the COP and the GEF Council persists.
With regard to the GEF Council’s relationship to the implementing
agencies, the respective roles of each agency and its relationship to the
GEF Council are sketched out in the GEF Instrument and in the parallel
resolutions each implementing agency adopted when endorsing the GEF
Instrument. These roles are provided a bit more detail in the ‘‘Principles
of Cooperation Among the Implementing Agencies’’ contained in Annex
D of the GEF Instrument, and were supposed to be elaborated further in
an ‘‘interagency agreement’’ to be concluded on the basis of these prin-

ciples. That interagency agreement was never negotiated. However, since
the GEF’s establishment, the GEF Council requested and received from
each agency further confirmation that it would assume full accountability
to the GEF Council for all GEF projects executed under its sponsor-
ship.13
Thus the institutional arrangements that link the GEF Council to the
MEA COPs and to the implementing agencies remain legally ill-defined.
After eight years of operation, has the looseness of these arrangements
undermined the GEF’s effectiveness?
The GEF Council and the COPs
Is there any evidence of the GEF Council either failing to abide by the
guidance provided to it by the COPs, or of it failing to manage any po-
tential competition for resources between the COPs?
It has often been observed that tensions which arise between interna-
tional institutions with overlapping memberships may have their roots
in policy incoherence within the governments participating in these in-
stitutions. Divergence in policies between an environmental institution
and an economic institution could be attributable to differences in poli-
cies between the environment and treasury ministries that represent that
government at each institution. A quick review of the representation at
the GEF Council and at MEA COPs suggests that, for many countries,
the same ministry does not take the lead at both institutions. Temporary
difficulties could also arise from the operation of the GEF’s constituency
system. Not all parties to the UNFCCC and the CBD have found a place
on a GEF constituency. At present 14 are effectively without representa-
tion on the GEF Council until they can find a group which allows them
to join.14 This raises the risk that GEF Council would produce decisions
that were incompatible with the COP decisions, or that were incompati-
ble with the policies of any of the implementing agencies.
Nonetheless, no specific dispute has, as of yet, arisen between a COP
and the GEF Council with regard to the GEF’s conformity with COP
guidance. This may in part be attributable to political developments since
the conventions and the GEF came into force. The north–south tensions
that characterized the negotiations on the GEF Instrument have become
less apparent as the conventions and the GEF have fallen into routine
operation. Thus far, all GEF Council decisions have been taken by con-
sensus, avoiding any potential political fall-out from the application of
the GEF’s controversial double-weighted majority voting system.
It may also be possible to attribute the absence of conflict between the
GEF Council and the COPs to the overlap in individuals who play a
42 WERKSMAN
prominent role in decision-making in both bodies. A comparison of the

individuals currently members and alternates sitting on the GEF Council
with attendees at the most recent UNFCCC COP reveals that only 10 of
a possible 74 members and alternates also attended the COP.15 None-
theless, the overlapping participation in the COPs and the GEF Council
of a number of key delegates, particularly those from developing coun-
tries, has undoubtedly helped to bring the two sets of institutions to-
gether. Council members have helped to explain and build acceptance for
the operations of the GEF with colleagues in the COPs, and vice versa.
There is, however, evidence of developing countries, acting through
the COPs, registering their continued disapproval of the GEF. This dis-
satisfaction is reflected, for example, in the continued reluctance of the
majority of developing country delegations formally to acknowledge, by
COP decision, the GEF’s role as the operating entity of the conventions’
financial mechanisms. At present the UNFCCC COP continues to refer
the GEF as ‘‘an operating entity’’ of its financial mechanism,16 while the
CBD COP refers to the GEF as ‘‘the institutional structure operating the
financial mechanism’’.17 This language implies that the GEF’s relation-
ship with the COPs will remain under review. Specific criticism of the
GEF, when it is expressed, is aimed at the inadequacy of available finan-
cial resources and the slow pace at which those resources are converted
into projects, and not at the GEF’s governance structure.
Potential controversies have arisen in the course of the GEF’s early
operation that could have led to serious conflicts between the COPs and
the GEF Council. One arose from differences in the interpretation of
the concept of ‘‘incremental costs’’. The UNFCCC, CBD, and the GEF
Instrument all indicate that funding for the bulk of the implementation
activities to be provided to developing countries under the conventions
is to be limited to the ‘‘incremental costs’’ associated with that activity.
Early analytical work carried out for the GEF Council began to construct
a methodology for determining incremental costs that some developing
countries felt was unduly restrictive. The GEF approach was to limit
funding only to the costs of those activities that could be shown to im-
plement the convention and to achieve ‘‘global environmental benefits’’.
This raised concerns that funding for activities under the UNFCCC
aimed at helping countries to adapt to the impacts of global warming, or
activities under CBD aimed at conserving domestic biodiversity, could be
excluded from the GEF portfolio.
The response of the UNFCCC COP was to express its concern over
‘‘difficulties encountered by developing country Parties in receiving the
necessary financial assistance from the [GEF] due to, inter alia, the ap-
plication of the [GEF] operational policies on . . . the application of its
concept of incremental costs’’. The COP called on the GEF to ‘‘take
steps to facilitate [the] provision of financial resources, including the en-

hancement of transparency and the flexible and pragmatic application of
its concept of incremental costs on a case-by-case basis’’.18
It would appear from the review undertaken by OPS-2 that the GEF
Council and the implementing agencies have responded to this guidance.
Serious conflicts appear to have been avoided through a flexible and case-
by-case application of the concept of incremental costs in the context of
negotiations on cost-sharing between host countries and implementing
agencies. Its flexible application has been particularly apparent in the
context of biodiversity. It should be noted, however, that OPS-2 has
described it as ‘‘imperative’’ that the GEF develop clearer and more
consistent guidance on the application of the incremental cost concept,
including methodology for measuring ‘‘global environmental benefits’’.19
If future conflicts are to be avoided, any effort to tighten the definition
or application of the incremental cost methodology may need to be
tracked carefully to avoid excluding projects that are supported by COP
guidance.
OPS-2 also noted criticism from certain parties to the CBD that the
GEF project portfolio was ‘‘relatively weak in supporting activities lead-
ing to sustainable use and benefit sharing’’ of biodiversity.20 This has
been one of the more controversial aspects of the biodiversity debate,
as it implies the need for the intervention of international law and in-
stitutions into what might otherwise be a largely commercial relationship
in order to ensure the ‘‘fair and equitable’’ sharing of benefits. OPS-2
concluded that the lack of GEF funding in this area ‘‘may be a reflection
of the fact that the [CBD-COP] has not yet been able to provide clear
and precise guidance on these matters to the GEF’’.21
Thus it can be suggested that potential conflicts were resolved or at
least avoided through the iterative exchanges between a COP’s guidance
and the GEF Council, without, as of yet, creating the need for more for-
mal arrangements or procedures. OPS-2 found that while the GEF has
been responsive to convention guidance, this guidance has tended to be
extremely general in nature. The level of generality found in COP guid-
ance to the GEF does diminish the likelihood of a conflict. But it also
makes it more difficult for the GEF to demonstrate its responsiveness to
convention priorities.
In the next stage of its development the GEF will face an increasing
number of MEA bodies with which it will need to build cooperative re-
lationships. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
(Stockholm Convention) will use the GEF as its financial mechanism, as
will the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Kyoto Protocol to the
UNFCCC. Each of these bodies will be an autonomous institutional ar-
rangement capable of producing guidance to the GEF as to how to direct
44 WERKSMAN
its resources. OPS-2 has noted that increased competition for resources,
in the context of a growing diversity of GEF focal areas, may increase the
strain on the GEF’s institutional arrangements.
The GEF Council and the implementing agencies
Perhaps the GEF’s greatest potential for promoting synergies through its
system of governance is by bringing together the implementing agencies,
which are often institutional rivals, through a common institutional frame-
work. During a period when the roles and budgets of each of these three
institutions have been under heightened scrutiny, the GEF has had the
potential to become a forum for fierce competition for credibility and
resources.
Each of the agencies was intended to fulfil its role in accordance with
its respective ‘‘comparative advantage’’, set out in Annex D of the GEF
Instrument. The UNDP is to play the primary role in capacity-building
and technical assistance, UNEP in scientific and technical analysis, and
the World Bank in managing investment projects. While these roles
would appear to be reasonably well defined, developments since the
adoption of the GEF Instrument have helped to blur distinctions and
increase the potential for competition. In their early years, both conven-
tion COPs have instructed the GEF to focus its funding on so-called
‘‘enabling activities’’ – those projects designed to help developing coun-
tries prepare for the implementation of their commitments under the
treaties. Under both climate change and biodiversity conventions, en-
abling activities include the preparation of national inventories, planning
exercises, and reports, and thus entail a mixture of technical assistance
and capacity-building. Each of the implementing agencies has been able
to justify its involvement in a share of this kind of project.
While far smaller than the World Bank, the GEF’s available resources
approach the combined budgets of the UNDP and UNEP. For the UNDP
and UNEP, this has meant that participation in the GEF experiment has
proved extremely influential on their internal operations. The influence
can be positive, by mainstreaming global environmental concerns into
general developmental and environmental objectives. GEF participation
has also proved beneficial by providing collateral financial and technical
benefits to aspects of UNDP and UNEP operations that may not have
survived in the absence of GEF funding. There is, for example, anecdotal
evidence that some UNDP country offices have benefited from support
staff and equipment that could not have been maintained without funding
from GEF projects.
It is possible, however, that access to the GEF’s resources may have
distorted priorities within these agencies. The GEF’s focus on global en-
vironmental issues is necessarily narrow and top-down, and may have

diverted attention away from higher environment and development pri-
orities of developing countries, such as access to potable water and urban
air quality. What OPS-2 refers to as the GEF’s strength in leveraging co-
financing from implementing agencies and other sources of development
assistance can also be characterized as a distortion of resource flows that
might have otherwise gone to domestic environmental or developmental
priorities without the requisite ‘‘global environmental benefits’’.
OPS-2 noted both the benefits of mainstreaming of global environ-
mental concerns into the work of the three implementing agencies and
the risks posed by competition amongst them. It suggests that, after an
initial difficult period, the competition has proved increasingly positive.
OPS-2 also notes, however, that the challenge of managing these rela-
tionships is likely to increase over the next stage in the GEF’s develop-
ment. The GEF has begun to expand the range of agencies that are
authorized to implement GEF-funded projects. Seven new ‘‘executing
agencies’’, including regional development banks and UN specialized
agencies, are now eligible to carry out projects in cooperation with the
three original implementing agencies.
Conflicts and synergies at the project level
By funding projects that support the implementation of more than one

MEA the GEF could be expected to face challenges, in the context of the
design of specific projects, where the MEAs’ objectives conflict, and to
be presented with opportunities for synergies where MEAs’ objectives
coincide.
With regard to avoiding projects with conflicting objectives, the GEF
Instrument prevents the funding of projects that ‘‘do not fully conform
to the guidance from the relevant Conference of the Parties’’ of the
UNFCCC and the CBD. Projects in the GEF’s ozone portfolio ‘‘will be
consistent with those of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that De-
plete the Ozone Layer and its amendments’’.22 While these directives do
not expressly prohibit the GEF from funding a project in one focal area
that might be inconsistent with the objectives of another focal area, the
obligation to avoid such conflicts is implicit.
Specific conflicts could have arisen between climate and biodiversity, as
well as between climate and ozone. Fast-growing monoculture trees can
help manage greenhouse gas emissions by fixing carbon, but they can also
contribute to the loss of biodiversity. The GEF’s climate change portfolio
has, however, avoided investments in such carbon ‘‘sinks’’ projects, focus-
ing instead on technologies and practices aimed at limiting emissions at
46 WERKSMAN
source. Some chemicals promoted as replacements for ozone-depleting

substances in the course of the implementation of the Montreal Protocol
are powerful greenhouse gases, and their widespread use could under-
mine efforts to combat global warming. To avoid such conflicts, the GEF
operational policy on ozone provides ‘‘the GEF will fund the conversion
to the technology with the least impact on global warming that is techni-
cally feasible, environmentally sound, and economically acceptable’’.23
With regard to promoting synergies across focal areas, the GEF has
developed an operational programme specifically directed at ‘‘bringing
synergy between three of the GEF focal areas (i.e. Biological Diversity,
Climate Change, and International Waters) and land degradation to op-
timize multiple benefits’’.24 The GEF Secretariat has also been involved
in efforts amongst convention experts and delegations to try to identify
and exploit potential synergies between biodiversity and climate change,
including with regard to project implementation.25
Having reviewed the GEF’s initial efforts to exploit synergies through
a multi-convention operational programme, OPS-2 concluded that the
GEF should ‘‘exercise some caution’’.
While having some appeal in the sense of being provided opportunities for a
more holistic approach, it should be kept in mind that specific convention-related
objectives should be kept firmly in mind when setting project objectives. The long
history of implementation experience from various types of integrated and multi-
purpose projects clearly show very high ‘‘mortality rates’’. GEF would be well
advised to avoid falling into the trap of many current international organizations
which seem to unable to focus on operational priorities and appear to succumb to
the ill-advised temptations to support project designs which serve many objectives
indiscriminately and ineffectually.26
This word of caution may be increasingly relevant as the GEF is asked

to expand the number of MEAs it will serve and the number of focal
areas towards which to direct its resources. The addition of the Stock-
holm Convention to the list of GEF-serviced MEAs, and the eventual
entry into force of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the Kyoto
Protocol, will increase the challenge of this balancing act. While Kyoto is
unlikely to result in a shift in the GEF’s climate change funding, sup-
porting developing countries in the regulation of POPs and in biosafety
will be a new venture for the GEF.
Reforming the GEF’s overall structure
In light of the many complexities raised in this chapter, the GEF Secre-
tariat has proposed that the loose institutional arrangements that have
characterized the past eight years of the GEF’s operations be strength-

ened and clarified. It has identified a number of areas in which the GEF’s
reliance on other agencies to carry out its functions has constrained its
ability to operate effectively. Because the GEF Council sits at the end of
a project cycle that originates in each of its eligible countries and passes
through three or more separate agencies, it cannot ensure the country-
driven nature of the projects it funds, nor the balance of projects across
geographical regions. Short of developing its own institutional presence
within recipient countries, to address this challenge, the GEF would need
to increase its leverage with the implementing agencies.27
Supported in part by the recommendations of OPS-2, the GEF Secre-
tariat has flagged the need to ‘‘specify the autonomous institutional au-
thority of the GEF’’. The main reason given for the change is to provide
the GEF Secretariat with the authority necessary to enter into arrange-
ments and agreements with a growing number of partners. The GEF
Secretariat has proposed two means by which this greater clarity could
be achieved: through ‘‘instruments of delegation of authority’’ from the
World Bank, as trustee, to the GEF Secretariat, or through an amend-
ment of the GEF Instrument.
The response thus far of the implementing agencies to this call for a
greater formal independence of the GEF Secretariat has been sceptical.
The UNDP, UNEP, and the World Bank seem to have set aside any in-
stitutional rivalries to arrive at a common agreement that transforming
the GEF into a formally autonomous institution is not necessary. This
consensus may in part derive from a concern that the GEF should not
overwhelm the institutions that created it. Furthermore, amending the
GEF Instrument for this narrow purpose might invite an unravelling of
the delicate package that has functioned reasonably well over the past
decade.
Conclusions
Ambivalence in the MEA/GEF relationship
MEA COPs, primarily through developing country delegations, continue

to express some dissatisfaction with the GEF. This dissatisfaction is
reflected, for example, in the continued reluctance of the majority of
developing country delegations formally to acknowledge, by COP deci-
sion, the GEF’s role as the operating entity of the conventions’ financial
mechanisms. However, specific criticism, when it is expressed, is aimed
at the inadequacy of available financial resources and the slow pace at
which those resources are converted into projects, and not at the GEF’s
governance structure. It is not clear whether this dissatisfaction is in
48 WERKSMAN
any way grounded in continuing concerns about the GEF’s governance

structure (perceived dominance by donors, dependence on the World
Bank, and a lack of direct accountability to the COPs) that formed the
basis of earlier criticisms of the GEF.
No specific disputes have arisen involving a divergence of policy at the
COPs and at the GEF Council levels. OPS-2 found that while the GEF
has been responsive to convention guidance, this guidance has tended to
be extremely general in nature, diminishing the likelihood of a conflict
but also making it more difficult for the GEF to demonstrate its re-
sponsiveness to convention priorities. Any apparent coherence can be
attributed only in part to a small degree of overlap in the individuals who
represent their governments at both the COPs and the GEF Council.
Since Rio the GEF has been invited by MEA negotiators to operate
the financial mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, the Cartagena Bio-
safety Protocol, and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic
Pollutants. The GEF also provides support, through its land degradation
portfolio, to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification. At one level,
this could be taken to reflect a growing confidence in the GEF’s effec-
tiveness as a financial mechanism generally, and as a financial mechanism
with the specific function of consolidating governance of more than one
MEA.
Consolidation and the overall availability of financial resources
Continued calls for the GEF’s involvement in the financial mechanisms

of new MEAs may also reflect, in the context of an overall decline in
ODA, the GEF’s position as the only regularly replenished source of
funding for the global environment. Some concern has been expressed
that the GEF’s growing popularity, and the consequent expansion of its
focal areas, could ‘‘overburden’’ the GEF’s already limited resources.
Consolidation can lead to greater institutional efficiency, but it may
also provide a means for capping and containing developing country de-
mands for increased resources.
Synergies at the project level
There is evidence that the GEF’s position at the centre of more than one
MEA has helped it to avoid funding projects in one focal area that could
have undermined the objectives of another focal area. For example, its
climate change portfolio has not included sequestration projects, which
have been criticized as carrying the risk of promoting forestation projects
with an emphasis on monoculture rather than species diversity. Projects
that hold the potential to interact with more than one focal area are
grouped in a multifocal programme area of their own, which promotes

investments consciously designed to be complementary across MEA ob-
jectives. OPS-2 has cautioned that the ‘‘GEF would be well advised to
avoid falling into the trap of many current international organizations
which seem to unable to focus on operational priorities and appear to
succumb to the ill-advised temptations to support project designs which
serve many objectives indiscriminately and ineffectually’’.28
Consolidation and competition amongst implementing agencies
The consolidation of more than one implementing agency into the GEF’s
operations has led to a degree of competition amongst these agencies,
and competition can be healthy. All three agencies are required to report
regularly to the GEF Council on their GEF-related portfolios, and have
also been called upon to demonstrate, for example, the extent to which
they have ‘‘mainstreamed’’ global environmental concerns into their op-
erations. Participation by the UNDP, UNEP, and the World Bank as
GEF implementing agencies has led each of these institutions to direct
higher levels of resources towards global environmental objectives than
they might otherwise have done.
Efforts are under way to promote greater ‘‘healthy’’ competition
amongst the IAs and other agencies with the capacity to design and im-
plement GEF projects. These include expanding the number of ‘‘execut-
ing agencies’’, including regional development banks and NGOs, as well
as the introduction of a ‘‘fee system’’ that would allow agencies to recoup
the administrative costs of designing and implementing GEF projects.
There appears to be a shift from the United Nations versus Bretton
Woods dynamic that characterized the relationship between the im-
plementing agencies during the GEF restructuring. Recent proposals
from the GEF Secretariat to confer upon the GEF an ‘‘autonomous in-
stitutional authority’’ have drawn criticism from all three implementing
agencies. This suggests that these agencies share a common concern that
the GEF’s consolidating role should not expand to the extent that it be-
comes an institutional rival.
Notes
1. ‘‘Instrument for the Establishment of the Restructured Global Environment Facility’’

(hereinafter GEF Instrument). This and all other GEF documents referred to in this
chapter are available on www.gefweb.org.
2. See, for example, UNEP. 2001. ‘‘Implementing the clustering strategy for multilateral
environmental agreements: A framework’’, background paper by the Secretariat,
50 WERKSMAN
UNEP/IGM/4/4, 16 November; Hyvarinen, Joy and Duncan Brack. 2000. Global Envi-
ronmental Institutions: Analysis and Options for Change. London: RIIA.
3. Werksman, Jacob. 1995. ‘‘Consolidating governance of the global commons: Insights
from the Global Environment Facility’’, in G. Handl (ed.) Yearbook of International
Environmental Law, Vol. 6. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 27.
4. ‘‘Second Overall Performance Study of the GEF: Final Draft’’, GEF/C.18/7, 11 No-
vember 2001 (hereinafter OPS-2).
5. ‘‘Overall Structure, Processes and Procedures of the GEF’’, GEF/C.18/8, 15 November
152001 (hereinafter Overall Structure).
6. GEF Instrument, note 1 above, para 6.
7. Ibid., para 22.
8. Ibid., Annex B, Role and Fiduciary Responsibilities of the Trustee of the GEF Trust
Fund, para 7.
9. Memorandum of 22 June 1994 to the Executive Secretary from Hans Corell, Under-
Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, Legal Counsel, A/AC.237/74, Annex.
10. See, for example, the Memorandum of Understanding Between the Conference of
the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the
Council of the Global Environment Facility, Decision 12/Cp.2, Annex. UN Doc. FCCC/
CP/1996/15/Add.1 (1996) (hereinafter UNFCCC-GEF MOU).
11. Churchill, Robin R. and Geir Ulfstein. 2000. ‘‘Autonomous institutional arrangements
in multilateral environmental agreements: A little-noticed phenomenon in international
law’’, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 94, No. 4, pp. 623–659.
12. UNFCCC-GEF MOU, note 10 above, para 5.
13. Joint Summary of the Chairs, GEF Council Meeting 22–24 February 1995, Decision on
Agenda Item 12: Accountability of implementing agencies for activities of executing
agencies; Joint Summary of the Chairs, GEF Council Meeting 18–20 July 1995, Decision
on Agenda Item 8: World Bank accountability for executing agency activities.
14. According the GEF website, ‘‘the Constituencies for the following new member coun-
tries are yet to be determined: Bosnia Herzigovina, Cambodia, Gabon, Grenada, Israel,
Kazakhstan, Liberia, Libya, Malta, Namibia, Palau, Seychelles, Syria, Yugoslavia’’.
15. Report of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change at its Seventh Session, FCCC/CP/2001/13 (hereinafter Report of COP-7); GEF
website.
16. Report of COP-7, Decision 6/CP.7, ‘‘Additional guidance to an operating entity of the
financial mechanism’’, FCCC/CP/2001/13/Add.1.
17. Report of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity at its
Fifth Meeting, UNEP/CBD/COP/5/23.
18. Report of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate
Change at its Second Session, Decision 11/CP.2, Guidance to the Global Environment
Facility, FCCC/CP/1996/15/Add.1.
19. OPS-2, note 4 above, para 186 and paras 460 et seq.
20. Ibid., para 186.
21. Ibid.
22. Operational Strategy of the Global Environment Facility, Ch. 1.
23. See ibid. for descriptions of principles governing each of the GEF’s focal areas.
24. GEF Operational Program No. 12: Integrated Ecosystem Management, April 2000.
25. Report of the first meeting of the ad hoc Technical Expert Group on Biological Diver-
sity and Climate Change, Helsinki, 21–25 January 2002, UNEP/CBD/COP/6/INF/6.
26. OPS-2, note 4 above.
27. Overall Structure, note 5 above, paras 13(b) and 30.
28. OPS-2, note 4 above.
3
The effectiveness of the WTO and
WIPO: Lessons for environmental
governance?
Laura B. Campbell
Introduction
Globalization – the integration of economies through cross-border trade,

investment, capital flows, transport, technology transfer, and information
exchange – has dramatically changed the context in which environmental
governance takes place. Globalization has also changed the roles played
by non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
civil society, and the private sector in the development and implementa-
tion of international environmental policy. The purposes of this chapter,
to identify gaps and weaknesses in the current environmental governance
regime and evaluate alternative approaches, entail a fundamental reas-
sessment of how environmental institutions should be structured in the
context of globalization.
One institutional change which has been proposed is the creation of
a world environment organization (WEO) which could serve as a coun-
terweight to the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) global governance
over trade. Other reforms being discussed address issues such as institu-
tional transparency and the changing role of non-state actors in environ-
mental governance.
In evaluating proposals for environmental reform, understanding how
the structure and functions of other international organizations have in-
fluenced their effectiveness in achieving their mandates can serve as a
useful tool. The purpose of this chapter is to contribute to the assessment
51
52 CAMPBELL
of environmental reform proposals by identifying which elements of the

structure and function of other international organizations have affected
their success or failure in achieving the goals of their treaty regimes. In
some cases, successful approaches could serve as models for environmen-
tal governance reform.
This chapter focuses on two international organizations, the World
Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO), and provides a qualitative assessment of their effectiveness in
selected areas. The most difficult part of this assessment was the selection
of indicators of success. Differences between organizational mandates,
multiple policy objectives of regimes, and limitations on data collection
and analysis made it extremely difficult to measure the extent to which
the problems a regime was enacted to address have been resolved. There-
fore, indicators related to levels of participation, implementation, and
compliance were used where available as the primary basis for conduct-
ing a qualitative evaluation.
Both the WTO and WIPO were found to be successful in some areas
and failures in others. While world trade has increased significantly since
the creation of the WTO, it has not been successful in raising the stan-
dard of living in many WTO member countries. WIPO has provided a
forum and support which have resulted in the development and adoption
of numerous treaties on intellectual property rights, but these treaties
have not been effective in protecting these rights, particularly as they are
defined in industrialized countries. While industrialized countries tend to
be satisfied with the outcomes of the WTO but not those of WIPO, most
developing countries hold the opposite view and are largely satisfied with
WIPO’s work but highly critical of the WTO.
This chapter takes the position that the long-term success of both the
WTO and WIPO will depend heavily on their ability to manage issues
which are not part of their core mandate. Some of these non-core issues
constitute substantive social concerns such as public health, environmen-
tal protection, labour standards, and human rights, while others involve
procedural matters including institutional transparency and participation
of non-governmental actors in activities.
This chapter examines selected functions of the WTO and WIPO and
discusses whether they have been generally successful in carrying out
these functions. It also presents some conclusions on how the experiences
of the WTO and WIPO would be useful to consider in the future devel-
opment of global environmental governance.
Measuring ‘‘effectiveness’’ and ‘‘success’’

Evaluating the success of an international organization is an inherently
complex task. In addition to analysing implementation and compliance
EFFECTIVENESS OF THE WTO AND WIPO 53
levels, an accurate evaluation requires assessment of other factors which

influenced the process, such as political change, civil society, and non-
governmental actors as well as economic, security, public health, or en-
vironmental crises. Quantifying the interactive effects of these factors on
compliance or achievement of the goals of a regime requires extensive
data collection and sophisticated computer analysis not undertaken dur-
ing this project.
While there has been a great deal of research on regime effectiveness
since 1984, when Robert Keohane first introduced the international re-
gime as the conceptual framework for the study of international relations,1
relatively little attention has been paid to the study of international or-
ganizations. Ernst Haas, a leader in the research on intergovernmental
organizations before and after 1984, has supported the inclusion of the
study of intergovernmental organizations within the international re-
gimes’ framework,2 but others have criticized this approach as having
resulted in a vague and unclear understanding of the functions of inter-
governmental organizations as distinct from regimes. In particular, the
need for research on the role of intergovernmental organizations in pro-
moting multilateral cooperation and contributing to the development of
regimes has been noted in analysing the role of the secretariat for the
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the WTO’s prede-
cessor organization, during the Uruguay Round.3
Defining the criteria to measure the success of an intergovernmental
organization is an inherently complex task which is further complicated
by the need for different approaches for organizations with varying man-
dates to achieve disparate goals.4 Obviously, the best indicator that an
organization has met its mandate is that the problem which its treaty
regime was designed to address has been resolved. Since this is a very
difficult factor to measure, the most commonly used indicators of success
are related to levels of treaty implementation and compliance. Of course,
using implementation and compliance as indicators assumes that the
treaty is the best and primary means of addressing the problem. This
approach also fails to account for factors other than the international or-
ganization which affected the outcome.5
The term ‘‘regime’’ is used in this chapter to refer to the body of trea-
ties and agreements for which the intergovernmental organization is re-
sponsible. Because the WTO and WIPO have different mandates and
regimes, somewhat different criteria were selected to evaluate each or-
ganization’s performance.
The World Trade Organization

The WTO is responsible for administering the trade agreements adopted
in 1994 at the close of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotia-
54 CAMPBELL
tions (the WTO Agreements). The WTO Agreements represent an evo-

lution in the multilateral trade regime from a system of tariff reductions
in 1948 to a much more comprehensive set of agreements which include
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) on trade in goods,
trade in services (the General Agreement on Trade in Services or GATS),
non-tariff trade barriers (the Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement or
TBT), agriculture, food safety (the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agree-
ment or SPS), and intellectual property rights (TRIPs).
While the multilateral trade regime does not include a comprehensive
agreement on investment, two existing agreements cover certain areas
of investment. The Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures
(TRIMs Agreement) prohibits trade-related investment measures such
as local content requirements that are inconsistent with the provisions of
the 1994 GATT. The GATS Agreement addresses foreign investment
in service areas as one of four modes of supply of services. While nego-
tiations to liberalize investment have been stalled, some countries con-
tinue to press for inclusion of investment issues in the Millennium Round
negotiations.
The WTO’s mandate
The WTO’s mandate, as stated in the preamble of the Marrakesh

Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization, is to contribute
to the objectives of ‘‘raising standards of living, ensuring full employment
and a large and steadily growing volume of real income and effective de-
mand, and expanding the production of and trade in goods and services,
while allowing for the optimal use of the world’s resources in accordance
with the objective of sustainable development.’’
In carrying out its mandate, the WTO provides policy advice to gov-
ernments, including the development of a framework for implementation
of trade agreements; organizes and provides a forum for negotiation of
further liberalization in areas already covered by the trade regime and
expansion of coverage to new areas; engages in capacity-building activ-
ities with developing countries; monitors world trade; oversees review of
national trade policies; facilitates consultations among its member coun-
tries on trade disputes; resolves complaints about violations and enforces
the WTO Agreements, including through the application of penalties;
coordinates with other intergovernmental organizations, including the
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, WIPO, and the United
Nations Environment Programme; and engages in outreach activities
with NGOs.
Evaluation of the WTO’s effectiveness
Level of governmental participation in the WTO

As of 1 January 2002, 144 countries are members of the WTO,6 indicat-
ing a very high level of governmental participation in the multilateral
trade regime.
Have problems regime designed to address been resolved or improved?

The WTO’s success in increasing the production of and trade in goods
and services, one of the goals of its mandate, can be assessed by analysing
statistics showing changes in levels of production and trade over time. In
2002 the value of world merchandise exports totalled US$6,272 billion,
reflecting an increase of US$2,601 billion from 1993.
However, the increase in the value of world exports has not been
evenly distributed across countries and regions. For example, between
1995 and 2002 North America’s share of world merchandise exports in-
creased from 15.5 per cent to 16.9 per cent, with a total value in 2002 of
US$946 billion. By comparison, Africa’s share of world merchandise ex-
ports increased slightly from 1995 to 2002, from 2.2 to 2.3 per cent, and
equalled US$140 billion in 2002. East Asian countries’ (excluding Japan
and China) share of world merchandise exports rose from 10.3 to 10.4
per cent from 1995 to 2002, and were valued at US$603 billion in 2002.7
With respect to the WTO’s mandate to raise living standards, world
leaders at the Conference on Finance and Development held in 2002 in
Monterrey recognized the failure of the global trading system to improve
socio-economic conditions in many developing countries, particularly the
least developed ones. Data compiled by the United Nations Develop-
ment Programme (UNDP) illustrate the continuing, and in some cases
worsening, differences in economic and human development among
countries. The UNDP’s Human Development Report 2003 ranks coun-
tries based on life expectancies, literacy rates, levels of education and in-
come per unit of gross domestic product (GDP). In the table showing
human and income poverty in developing countries, 35 countries were
classified as having a ‘‘low human development’’ level based on factors
such as life expectancy, literacy rates, access to clean water, and the per-
centage of the population living below the national poverty line, defined
as earning less than $1 per day.8
The report also lists countries on a Human Development Index, ac-
cording to a ranking system based on life expectancy, literacy rates, edu-
cational enrolment, GDP per capita, and other factors. The ranking re-
sults show that almost 10 years after the creation of the WTO and
adoption of a liberalized trading regime, there is still wide disparity in
56 CAMPBELL
standards of living among countries and regions, with many countries

from the African region near the bottom of the index.9
Even though the data show that a huge percentage of the world popu-
lation still have a very low standard of living a number of years after trade
liberalization under the WTO, there is tremendous controversy over how
to interpret the economic data. It is not clear, for example, when an in-
come of a few dollars a day may actually represent significant economic
progress and a relatively high purchasing power in local markets.
Disputes among WTO member states
By mid-2001, 234 complaints had been filed with the WTO Dispute Set-
tlement Body (DSB) since the entry into force of the Uruguay Round
Final Act on 1 January 1995. Of these complaints, developed countries
filed two-thirds and developing countries initiated the rest.10 The highest
number of these complaints concern trade defence measures such as anti-
dumping, countervailing, and safeguard measures. Other cases involve
issues such as intellectual property, product regulations, and subsidies.
About 75 per cent of the complaints are resolved during the consulta-
tion stage and the remainder are decided by WTO panel and appellate
body decisions. With some notable exceptions, compliance with the rul-
ings of the DSB has been prompt.
While the WTO has been efficient in resolving disputes and compliance
with its rulings has been good, the number of complaints filed is an indi-
cation of the high use of trade defence measures by WTO members.
Management of social issues
The WTO’s management of social issues – such as the impacts of intellec-
tual property rights protection under TRIPs on public health in develop-
ing countries, the relationship between trade and environment, and food
safety – has been rocky and subject to intense controversy. Beginning with
demonstrations at the 1999 Seattle ministerial meeting, anti-globalization
protestors have brought international attention to the threats to social
issues posed by liberalization. Demands by developing countries for
changes in the TRIPs Agreement to relax IPR rules on pharmaceutical
manufacture also highlight the importance of social concerns in the in-
ternational trade arena.
Impact in shaping future legal and policy regime

The WTO has been very effective in shaping the future trade policy re-
gime before and during the Uruguay Round and in advancing the need
for and agenda of the newly launched Millennium Round. However, the
WTO’s ability to deal effectively with social issues such as environment
and public health in the future will have a critical impact on acceptance
and advancement of the global trade regime.
General acceptance of the WTO’s work by governments and

non-state actors
The level of acceptance of the WTO’s work and the multilateral trade
regime is mixed. In general, most OECD countries are satisfied with the
WTO’s performance and the regime, but many developing countries have
indicated their inability to meet implementation commitments. Many de-
veloping countries are very dissatisfied with the TRIPs Agreement as
well as the failure to improve market access for agricultural products and
textiles.
There is a lack of acceptance of the WTO’s work by a significant num-
ber of NGOs and members of civil society due to their view that trade
liberalization has compromised social and cultural values, such as those
concerning the environment, labour, and human rights.
The World Intellectual Property Organization
International cooperation to protect intellectual property began in 1873

around the time of the International Exhibition of Inventions in Vienna,
when foreign exhibitors declined to participate due to fears about theft of
their ideas. By 1883, the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial
Property,11 the first major treaty to provide international protection for
industrial intellectual property – patents on inventions, trademarks, and
industrial designs – had been adopted by 14 countries. Under the Paris
Convention, an international bureau was created to carry out the admin-
istration of the treaty, including organizing meetings of the parties.12
By 1886, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Ar-
tistic Works13 had been adopted, with the purpose of protecting copy-
righted materials including written materials such as novels, poems, short
stories, and plays; musical compositions such as songs, operas, and musi-
cals; and works of art such as paintings, drawings, sculpture, and archi-
tectural works. As had been done with the Paris Convention, a bureau
was created to administer the Berne Convention.
In 1893, the bureaus of the Paris and Berne Conventions were com-
bined to create an international organization known as the UN Interna-
tional Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI). BIRPI,
first located in Berne and moved to Geneva in 1960 to be closer to other
UN organizations, was the predecessor of the present-day WIPO.
Along with the expansion of trade after the Second World War, intel-
lectual property rights protection became an increasingly important is-
sue on the international agenda. In 1967 the Convention Establishing the
World Intellectual Property Organization14 was adopted, authorizing the
creation of WIPO. WIPO was established in 1970 and became a special-
58 CAMPBELL
ized agency of the United Nations in 1974. As of 15 March 2004, 180

countries are members of WIPO.15
WIPO currently administers 23 treaties concerning intellectual prop-
erty rights, two of which are administered jointly with other organiza-
tions. While the Paris and Berne Conventions still constitute the ‘‘cor-
nerstone’’ of the treaty regime managed by WIPO, a number of other
agreements have expanded its scope of coverage. In addition to the core
treaties which set international standards for intellectual property rights
protection, WIPO is also responsible for implementing treaties governing
the registration of trademarks and patents and the classification of pro-
tected properties.
The treaties making up the international intellectual property rights
regime16 can be divided into three categories: agreements which set stan-
dards for intellectual property rights protection, agreements governing
the registration of properties, and agreements concerning the classifica-
tion of patents and trademarks.
Treaties setting standards for intellectual property rights protection
During the early negotiation of the Berne Convention for the Protection
of Literary and Artistic Works, some countries favoured the development
of a unified international law of copyright protection while others pre-
ferred more national independence and cooperation based on reciprocity
of rights. The Berne Convention of 1886 reflects a compromise of these
two positions, creating some international rights to protection of copy-
righted works but reserving for national governments the authority to
set most of the terms of these rights, such as the terms of protection.
The basic concept was to set some minimum standards and to expand
these protections over time, progressively creating a more comprehensive
international scheme.17
The 1886 Berne Convention was based primarily on the principle of
national treatment – the requirement that each party afford the same
copyright protection to foreigners as it does to its own citizens. The con-
vention also included minimum international standards of protection for
authors which countries were required to recognize. While the Berne
Convention has been revised five times and amended twice, its basic
structure remains the same as the 1886 version. In each of the subsequent
versions, however, authors’ rights have been expanded.
The main drawback to utilizing national treatment as the core prin-
ciple for international intellectual property rights is that an author from a
country with very low or no copyright protection would be accorded
greater rights in a foreign country with high standards. Likewise, an au-
thor from a country with high standards would receive the same low level
of protection in a foreign country as that nation’s own citizens.
Until the time of the Stockholm Revision Conference in 1967, interna-

tional copyright protection in the Berne Convention basically reflected
the perspective of authors’ countries, especially those of Europe. By the
time of the Stockholm Conference, many of the convention’s 59 mem-
bers were developing countries whose views on the appropriate extent
of copyright protection differed greatly from those of the industrialized
countries. Developing countries asserted that access to literary and artis-
tic works created in industrialized countries was essential to their socio-
economic development, and that they could not afford to pay for this ac-
cess under existing copyright treaty law.18
In response to demands by the developing countries for concessions,
the parties drafted a protocol to the Stockholm Convention. The protocol
shortened the terms of protection for copyrighted works and granted
compulsory licensing authority to developing countries. Under a com-
pulsory licensing scheme, a developing country could require an author
to grant a licence to use his/her work but had to pay ‘‘reasonable’’ com-
pensation for this right. Opposition to the protocol was very high in in-
dustrialized countries; the conflicts highlighted at the Stockholm Confer-
ence continue to underlie north-south relations on intellectual property
rights protection today.19
Prior to adoption of the 1883 Paris Convention for the Protection of
Industrial Property, differences in both substantive and procedural na-
tional patent rules created obstacles to the international assertion of pa-
tent rights. For example, in countries where national laws conditioned
patentability of an invention on its worldwide novelty, an invention
already patented in another country was no longer being considered
‘‘novel’’ and was therefore ineligible for registration. The Paris Conven-
tion established an international patent system which gave a patentee
IPR protection in all member countries by filing an application in one
country. This right was limited by so-called ‘‘national working require-
ments’’ which allowed importing countries to impose conditions on the
sale of patented articles and did not prohibit compulsory licensing. The
Paris Convention is also based on the principle of national treatment.20
In addition to the Berne and Paris Conventions, WIPO administers
eight other treaties which set standards for protection of IPRs, including
treaties governing protection of performers, producers, and broadcasters
of phonograms, trademarks, and satellite programmes.
Registration treaties
A third set of treaties administered by WIPO are related to the registra-

tion of intellectual property rights. Many types of IPR, including patents,
trademarks, and industrial designs, must be established through formal
registration. The multiplicity of registration procedures in different coun-
60 CAMPBELL
tries can be a serious barrier for foreign holders to assert their IPR rights.
Early efforts to reduce these procedural impediments in the case of trade-
marks resulted in the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International
Registration of Marks21 in 1891, which provided for international regis-
tration effective in all member countries designated by the filer. In 1989
the system established in the Madrid Agreement was amended by the
adoption of the Madrid Protocol, which gave greater protection to the
holders of internationally registered marks by limiting the impact of chal-
lenges to the mark.
Other agreements dealing with registration of intellectual property
rights are the Patent Cooperation Treaty, the Budapest Treaty (covering
micro-organisms), the Lisbon Agreement (covering appellations of ori-
gin), and the Hague Agreement (governing deposit of industrial designs).
Classification treaties
Before registering a trademark or patent, property owners must deter-

mine if their creation has already been claimed by someone else. To
make searching more feasible, several treaties have been adopted which
organize information about registrations into categories. Four treaties
cover classification of registered intellectual property rights: the Stras-
bourg Agreement, the Nice Agreement, the Vienna Agreement, and the
Locarno Agreement. The importance of classification of registration in-
formation is well illustrated by patents for biotechnology and medicine.
From 1980 to 2000 the number of categories for biotechnology rose from
297 to 718, while those for medicine increased from 839 to 1,966. Overall,
about 70,000 classifications now exist in the field of technology.22
Societal values and intellectual property rights
There is a wide divergence of views over what constitutes intellectual

‘‘property’’, as well as whether and to what extent these private rights
should be protected. It is clear that giving an inventor a monopoly over
his/her creation provides a strong incentive for innovation. This private
benefit, however, also has costs, including underutilization of ideas be-
cause they are only available at a price. In poorer countries, the social
costs of strong IPR protection are seen as unacceptably high, especially
in areas such as public health where IPRs can result in pharmaceutical
prices that render medication unattainable by most of the population.
Debates over . . . issues regarding the protection of intellectual property rights are
no longer merely debates over the ownership of private property rights. Instead
IPR has become an integral part of the debates over some of the most critical
issues facing the international community today, including environmental pro-

tection, wealth transfer, sustainable economic development and the protection of
indigenous culture against the ravages of consumerism.23
While in industrialized countries the idea of property rights is so in-

grained that IPR infringement is automatically equated with stealing,
the legal concept of property is a human construct to serve social and
economic goals.24 Even in developed countries, the legal definition of
property is constantly changing in response to technological and societal
changes.25 In fact, IPR protection laws are ‘‘large-scale intrusions into
the free market economy’’ that involve ‘‘manipulating social costs and
benefits’’.26 The rationale for IPR protection is that the higher prices
imposed on consumers are more than offset by the benefits of greater in-
novation.
Within industrialized countries there is growing disagreement over the
benefits of IPR laws for consumers, with a number of experts arguing
in favour of reducing levels of protection. On the purely domestic level,
however, the social costs and benefits are generally linked – that is, the
costs of granting IPR rights are balanced against national social benefits.
International patenting, on the other hand, provides the domestic in-
ventor and by extension the inventor’s country with economic benefits
while transferring the costs associated with higher prices to the foreign
country consumers.27 It is this ‘‘decoupling’’ and resulting transfer of
wealth to the richer countries which own intellectual property rights from
the poorer countries which are net importers of protected materials and
goods that are at the heart of the international controversy over IPRs.28
WIPO’s mandate and functions
The WIPO Convention states the objectives of the organization in

Article 3:
(i) to promote the protection of intellectual property29 throughout the world

through cooperation among States and, where appropriate, in collaboration
with any other international organization,
(ii) to ensure administrative cooperation among the [Paris and Berne] Unions.
Article 4 of the WIPO Convention sets out the activities which WIPO
should carry out in order to meet its objectives, stating that WIPO:
(i) shall promote the development of measures designed to facilitate the effi-
cient protection of intellectual property rights throughout the world and to
harmonize national legislation in this field . . . ;
62 CAMPBELL
(iv) shall encourage the conclusion of international agreements designed to

promote the protection of intellectual property;
(v) shall offer its cooperation to States requesting legal-technical assistance in
the field of intellectual property;
(vi) shall assemble and disseminate information concerning the protection of
intellectual property, carry out and promote studies in the field, and publish
the results of such studies;
(vii) shall maintain services facilitating the international protection of intellectual
property and, where appropriate, provide for registration in the field and
the publication of the data concerning the registrations.
WIPO’s effectiveness
Evaluating the effectiveness of WIPO is a complex task not only because

of difficulties inherent in setting benchmarks and obtaining data, but
because of controversy over the nature of intellectual property and ap-
propriate levels of protection, as discussed above. Different political,
economic, cultural, scientific, and technological values are reflected in
each nation’s views on intellectual property rights. Determining what
constitutes success, therefore, is not value neutral.
The basic mandate of WIPO is to promote protection of intellectual
property rights by fostering international cooperation. In the past few
years the relationship between this goal and social issues such as human
health, the environment, and equity has grown increasingly contentious,
especially between industrialized and developing countries. In evaluating
WIPO’s effectiveness in meeting its mandate as set forth in the WIPO
Convention, one must take into account the divergence of views on how
this mandate is best achieved.
In accord with its mandate, WIPO has provided a forum for the de-
velopment of rules governing the international treatment of intellectual
property rights, and a number of agreements have been completed suc-
cessfully. WIPO has largely met its mandate to provide for international
cooperation and technical assistance to developing countries. However,
adoption of IPR treaties developed within WIPO has not been effective
in protecting copyrighted and trademarked materials due to weaknesses
in both the agreements and enforcement measures. The clearest indicator
of WIPO’s failure to protect IPRs to the satisfaction of developed coun-
tries is the inclusion of these issues within the WTO during the Uruguay
Round and the adoption of the Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPs).
Discussed below are some possible indicators for measuring WIPO’s
success in achieving its mandate and influencing further development
of the international intellectual property regime. Further research and
analysis which would provide a clearer picture of WIPO’s success from

different perspectives are also proposed.
Level of governmental participation in intellectual property rights treaties

As noted above, 177 countries are members of WIPO. In contrast to the
WTO, however, participation in the treaties administered by WIPO is not
required as a condition of membership in the organization. Membership
of WIPO is open to any country which is a party to any treaty ad-
ministered by WIPO, a member of the United Nations, or invited by the
General Assembly of WIPO to join.
Participation in WIPO’s ‘‘core’’ treaties is high: the Paris Convention
has 162 parties, the Berne Convention 148 parties, and the Patent Coop-
eration Treaty 115 parties. In addition, with the major exception of US
participation in the Patent Cooperation Treaty, treaty membership in-
cludes most developing and developed countries. Since the core treaties
have been revised a number of times, more detailed research is needed to
determine which versions have been adopted by each country, whether
there is a pattern of acceptance that differs among countries with differ-
ent socio-economic and other conditions, and how these factors reflect on
WIPO’s effectiveness.
Level of compliance with intellectual property rights treaties

While the WIPO-administered treaties contain some international stan-
dards for IPR protection, for the most part national treatment is the
underlying principle on which protection is based. In other words, com-
pliance with WIPO treaties does not generally require a country to accord
a high level of protection to foreign IPRs, only the same level of protec-
tion as is available to domestic IPRs. One of the key goals of WIPO, as
set out in the WIPO Convention, is to promote harmonization of national
legislation on IPR protection. Therefore, in order to analyse WIPO’s ef-
fectiveness in promoting IPR protection, national legislation of the par-
ties to each treaty should be examined to determine the terms of protec-
tion, procedures for filing and prosecution of rights, available remedies
for infringement, including compensation, and level of enforcement.
Dispute resolution
Over the past 20 years, piracy of copyrighted and trademarked goods
has increased dramatically due to technological advancements and glob-
alization of trade. Industrialized countries, the owners of most IPRs for
these goods, became increasingly frustrated over the failure of WIPO to
enforce effectively IPR treaty protections and to develop stronger mini-
mum standards at the international level. At the same time, developing
64 CAMPBELL
countries’ dominance in political negotiations made strengthening stan-

dards and enforcement virtually impossible within the WIPO forum.
Although parties to WIPO treaties have recourse to the International
Court of Justice to resolve disputes over compliance with treaty provi-
sions, no case has ever been brought to the ICJ. Three possible explana-
tions for the lack of utilization of the ICJ to resolve disputes are the
nature of remedies available, the time-consuming and inefficient nature
of the process, and the fact that IPRs are basically private property rights
and the ICJ is designed to handle state-to-state disputes.
Lack of enforcement of existing standards has been widely perceived
as a major failure of WIPO. The objective of strengthening enforcement
was one of the key reasons that industrialized countries, led by the USA,
moved the issue of IPR protection to a different forum, the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
WIPO recently set up an Advisory Committee on Enforcement of In-
dustrial Property Rights to respond to the need for more effective en-
forcement of IPR treaties in connection with trade across borders. The
approach to enforcement adopted by the advisory committee is to coor-
dinate collective action by all WIPO members to focus on the adminis-
trative and procedural problems faced by developing countries and those
in transition and to develop best practices for enforcement activities which
minimize their cost burdens.30
WIPO has also developed rules of procedure for private settlement of
disputes, and maintains an extensive list of arbitrators and mediators with
expertise in IPR issues and knowledge of the rules of procedure which it
makes available to all parties.
In the exploding area of disputes over internet domain names, WIPO
has created an online service for dispute resolution. In 2000, 1,850 dis-
putes were settled through this system. Trademark owners can also file
complaints online using model documents available for downloading. The
online dispute resolution process generates an enforceable decision within
two months and appears to be a good example of WIPO’s utilization of
new technology to improve enforcement. At the same time, the process
reduces the time and cost involved in more traditional dispute settlement.
Fees paid for this service are expected to increase and become an im-
portant income stream for WIPO, which is largely self-financing.
Knowledge management
From looking at its mandate, it is clear that many of WIPO’s functions
are in the area of knowledge management. Coordinating the development
of measures to facilitate the ‘‘efficient’’ protection of intellectual prop-
erty, performing administrative tasks related to implementation of IPR
treaties, assembling and disseminating information, providing legal and
technical assistance, and maintaining other services such as registration

of IPRs are all related to knowledge management.
In many areas of knowledge management WIPO appears to be quite
effective, though it is difficult to assess this accurately without further re-
search into WIPO’s activities and their impact on governments and other
participants in the IPR regime. Of critical importance to effective knowl-
edge management in the future is WIPO’s use of information and com-
munications technology. Several recent initiatives have been undertaken
to enhance WIPO’s capacity to organize, process, and disseminate infor-
mation to various actors in the field of international IPR protection.
One recently created programme is WIPOnet, designed to promote
international information sharing and the progressive development and
application of global standards. If successful, WIPOnet will both facilitate
digital exchange between countries of IPR-related information and also
promote integration of developing countries into the global digital envi-
ronment.31
Under the auspices of the WIPO Worldwide Academy, WIPO provides
an internet-based distance learning centre and develops training materials
on a client-specific basis.
A four-year effort aimed at automating the activities related to admin-
istration of the Patent Cooperation Treaty – the so-called IMPACT
project (Information Management for the Patent Cooperation Treaty) –
was recently undertaken by WIPO and is expected to be completed by
2006. When completed, this system would allow for electronic filing for
patent and trademark registration as well as improved services for regis-
trants. This computerization will be critical to WIPO’s ability to manage
an international patent system in the future, as the number of applica-
tions increased by 25 times between 1979 and 2000. In 2000 there were
already 23,000 registrations of trademarks and 7,300 filings related to
patent registration, and a great deal of growth is expected in the future.32
The goals of WIPOnet, the WIPO Worldwide Academy, and the IM-
PACT Project are ambitious and still in early stages of development. To
evaluate their effectiveness would require much more detailed data on
the success of the programmes in meeting their stated goals.
General acceptance of WIPO’s work by governmental stakeholders
For industrialized countries, WIPO is viewed as having failed to promote
IPR protection successfully by not brokering treaties which guarantee
high levels of protection as well as not obtaining compliance with existing
IPR treaties. Industrialized countries also criticize WIPO for not dealing
effectively with emerging issues related to technological developments
such as biotechnology, digitalization of information and communications,
and internet commerce.
66 CAMPBELL
For developing countries, obtaining relief from high IPR protection

would be an indication of WIPO’s success. In certain respects these coun-
tries have been satisfied with WIPO’s approach, but they are unhappy
about its record in addressing issues such as indigenous knowledge, bio-
technology, and access to pharmaceuticals.
In evaluating the effectiveness of WIPO in promoting the protection
of IPRs, an important indicator of its success is the general acceptance
of the purpose and substance of its work by various international stake-
holders. As noted above, acceptance of WIPO’s work is high among
developing countries, but industrialized countries have been far less sat-
isfied. Industrialized countries’ dissatisfaction was manifest in their insis-
tence on the inclusion of intellectual property issues in the multilateral
trade regime during the Uruguay Round.
Lessons for global environmental governance
From this analysis of the WTO and WIPO, several factors appear to be
important in developing effective environmental governance structures:
the capacity to link the environment with other issue areas, particularly
trade and investment; binding dispute resolution and enforcement mech-
anisms; and economic incentives to participate in and comply with envi-
ronmental agreements.
In an increasingly globalized economy, an international organization’s
ability to adapt to change and address social and economic issues not
included in its core mandate will be a key determinant of its success in
implementing and advancing its policy agenda.
Notes
1. Keohane, Robert O. 1984. After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World
Political Economy.
2. Haas, Ernest. 1983. ‘‘Words can hurt you; or who said what to whom about regimes’’,
in Stephen D. Krasner (ed.) International Regimes. Cornell University Press.
3. Ryan, Michael P. 1998. ‘‘The function-specific and linkage-bargain diplomacy of inter-
national intellectual property lawmaking’’, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Inter-
national Economic Law, Vol. 19, p. 535.
4. See Young, Oran. 1998. ‘‘The effectiveness of international environmental regimes’’,
International Environmental Affairs Journal, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 99–121.
5. Ibid.
6. www.wto.org
7. WTO. 2003. International Trade Statistics 2003. Geneva: WTO, p. 39.
8. UNDP. 2003. Human Development Report 2003. New York: Oxford University Press,
pp. 157–159.
9. Ibid., pp. 149–152.

10. WTO. 2001. Annual Report 2001. Geneva: WTO, p. 24.
11. Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, signed in Paris on 20 March
1883. The Paris Convention has been revised or amended seven times since its adoption,
in 1900, 1911, 1925, 1934, 1958, 1967, and 1979. There are 162 parties to the convention
as of 15 January 2002, but most countries have not ratified the 1979 amendments and 12
had agreed to an earlier version going back to 1925.
12. Unless otherwise noted, the background information and data on WIPO’s structure and
origin are from the WIPO website, www.wipo.org.
13. Berne Paris Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, completed in
Paris on 9 September 1896. The Berne Convention has been revised or amended seven
times since its adoption, in 1908, 1914, 1928, 1948, 1967, 1971, and 1979. There are 148
parties to the convention as of 15 January 2002, with most countries having agreed to
the 1971 version.
14. Signed at Stockholm on 14 July 1967. The convention was amended on 28 September
1979.
15. A list of WIPO member countries can be found on the WIPO website, www.wipo.org/
members/members/index.html.
16. In this chapter, the term ‘‘international intellectual property rights treaties (or regime)’’
is used to refer to multilateral treaties. While there are also regional and bilateral
agreements on intellectual property rights, they are not covered in this chapter.
17. This discussion of the development and structure of the Berne Convention is taken from
Burger, Peter. 2000. ‘‘The Bern Convention: Its history and its key role in the future’’,
in Doris E. Long and Anthony D’Amato (eds) International Intellectual Property. St
Paul, MN: West Group Publishing.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. See Moy, R. Carl. 2000. ‘‘The history of the Patent Harmonization Treaty: Economic
self-interest as an influence’’, in Doris E. Long and Anthony D’Amato (eds) Interna-
tional Intellectual Property. St Paul, MN: West Group Publishing.
21. Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks, adopted in
1891 and revised in 1900, 1911, 1925, 1934, 1957, 1967, and 1979. As of 18 January 2002
there are 48 parties to the protocol.
22. WIPO website, as of 1 March 2002.
23. Long, Doris E. and Anthony D’Amato (eds). 2000. International Intellectual Property.
St Paul, MN: West Group Publishing.
24. The Economist. 2001. ‘‘Markets for ideas’’, The Economist, 14 April, p. 72.
25. Ibid.
26. Moy, note 20 above.
27. This discussion is largely based on Moy, ibid.
28. See ibid.
29. Article 2 (viii) of the WIPO Convention defines ‘‘intellectual property’’ to include rights
related to literary, artistic, and scientific works; performances of performing artists,
phonograms, and broadcasts; inventions in all fields of endeavour; scientific discoveries;
industrial designs; trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations;
and protection against unfair competition.
30. See WIPO website.
31. See WIPO website.
32. WIPO website, 1 March 2002.
Multilevel governance
4
The case for regional
environmental organizations
Jonathan R. Strand
Introduction1
The Bush administration’s 2001 decision to withdraw support for legally

binding provisions in the Kyoto Protocol is viewed by many observers
as a failure of American leadership in the issue area of climate change.
Critics in the USA and elsewhere claimed that President Bush, like
President Clinton before him, succumbed to domestic political pressures,
namely pressure from both labour and business groups.2 It is perhaps
somewhat surprising that the Clinton administration even agreed to the
Kyoto Protocol given the known domestic opposition ratification of any
such agreement faced in the Senate and even amongst Clinton’s own set
of advisers and supporters.3
The case of the Kyoto Protocol raises a myriad of concerns about
global collective action in the absence of strong leadership by the world’s
only superpower. Moreover, this failure by the USA to contribute to a
global collective good and political letdowns in other issue areas such as
biodiversity, whaling, and forests have in part led many scholars to call for
a global international organization to provide global environmental gov-
ernance.4 While the specifics of such an organization are contested, there
has been a growing interest in the creation of a world environmental
organization (WEO).5 Proponents of a WEO assert that extant interna-
tional law, organizations, institutions, and regimes do not have adequate
mandates and lack sufficient means to address global environmental
71
72 STRAND
problems.6 Others argue that a WEO could initiate the internalization of

transnational environmental externalities.7 The obvious solution, these
and other observers argue, is to create an effective, broad-based, global
organization.
Exactly how this new institution would be structured and how it would
mesh with existing international organizations is unclear. Will the WEO
be akin to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank in
being formally under the United Nations but in reality autonomous from
UN control? Could a WEO effectively govern environmental problems
without having its decisions being legally binding on members? Further-
more, what internal decision rules will a WEO employ? Will it operate
on the principle of one country, one vote, or will votes be weighted based
on criteria such as population, GDP, or a measure of economic open-
ness? How will a global institution like the WEO interlink with domestic
governmental environmental agencies, non-governmental organizations,
and the private sector? Furthermore, what will be the relationship be-
tween WEO decisions (public law) and privately established regulations,
rules, and standards between corporations (private law)? Additionally,
will this new institution address only global environmental problems8
or will it also tackle regional, national, and local problems?9 These and
countless other questions regarding function, scale, scope, and institu-
tional design loom large, and have been the subject of an ongoing debate
in the literature.10
Most of the arguments for a multilateral organization to manage trans-
national environmental problems focus primarily on the formation of a
global institution.11 Despite the compelling case that can be made for a
WEO, this chapter argues that an even stronger argument can be made
for the regional management of many supranational environmental chal-
lenges. The chapter examines the possibility that regional institutions
can serve as stepping-stones to regional and global environmental gover-
nance. The next section of the chapter reviews the arguments for and
against the formation of a WEO. The third section presents a general
discussion of international cooperation on transnational environmental
issues. It is shown that regional-level environmental management has
several advantages over a global environmental organization. Next, the
chapter discusses the role regional organizations can play and assesses
the prospects for them to take up environmental governance tasks, high-
lighting the interlinkage of regional institutions to both domestic and
global environmental governance. It argues that regional environmental
governance, nested between domestic and global governance, is one of
the ‘‘missing links’’ at the international level. Regional identification and
management of environmental problems can be part of a larger, decen-
tralized system of global environmental governance.
REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS 73
Is a world environmental organization the answer?
Compared to other issue areas such as trade, institutional density in the

environmental area is low. Global and regional organizations and re-
gimes have been established across a variety of issue areas. Since the end
of the Cold War a rising tide of trade integration has swept across most
of the world political economy. The evolution of the General Agreement
on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) system into the institutionalized World
Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, deepening economic, political, and
social integration in Western Europe, the advent of NAFTA (North
American Free Trade Area), regional trade integration in East Asia
(such as Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the East Asian
Economic Caucus (EAEC) proposal), and other institutional develop-
ments suggest that both global and regional international organizations
are now central features of the post-Cold War international system. It
has also been noted that there is no global equivalent to a global trade
organization such as the WTO in the issue area of the environment. To
be sure, almost every international organization has some environmental
function and many have environmental agencies, departments, or offices.
However, a single mechanism to coordinate and/or manage governance
activities is absent.
There is no shortage of tenable answers to explain why there has been
little global organization building in the environmental issue area. The
environment is a diverse issue area that interfaces with other concerns,
such as trade, migration, security, poverty, and health. Hence, a myriad
of international organizations and regimes play a role in the management
of environmental problems. Another answer rests on the lack of political
leadership by the world’s largest economy. The fact that the USA has not
been actively pursuing institutional alternatives for environmental gov-
ernance means that it is not providing international leadership, which
is important in the creation and maintenance of collective goods. Re-
gardless of the explanation for why there is low institutional density, the
multiple shortcomings and outright failings of the current system (per-
haps better thought of as a non-system) in the age of globalization are
prime factors motivating the arguments of WEO advocates.12
Biermann13 states that supporters of a WEO identify three limits to
the current management of environmental problems. First, there is in-
sufficient coordination of efforts to deal with environmental problems.
Environmental governance is scattered across many organizations and
regimes, and there is a severe lack of synchronization in policy-making
and implementation. Furthermore, UN agencies charged with environ-
mental responsibilities often compete with one another over finite re-
sources.14 Many institutions that deal with environmental problems
74 STRAND
actually have mandates in other issue areas their leaders see as distinct
from the environment. This is perhaps one impetus for the call by the
former executive director of the WTO, Renato Ruggiero, for the creation
of a WEO. In the view of Ruggiero and others, organizations such as the
WTO are not equipped to provide governance outside of their primary
mandates, and the apparent solution is to create an issue-specific institu-
tion to take over management and thereby provide coordination of envi-
ronmental problems.15
The list of international organizations that have some environmental
role is long.16 Table 4.117 displays a non-exhaustive list of international
organizations that serve some function in environmental governance.
Note that there is much overlap and little coordination even among and
across the UN-related organizations listed. The view by many proponents
of a WEO is that it would subsume many of the activities of these
organizations, or at least act to orchestrate problem identification and
policy implementation. In short, ‘‘global environmental policies could be
made stronger through an independent [WEO] that helps to contain the
special interests of individual programs and organizations and to limit
double work, overlap, and inconsistencies’’.18
Second, there is a recognized need for capacity building. Developing
countries lack the requisite material resources for independent resolution
of environmental problems. The dearth of environmental funding is often
cited as a primary reason for a new institution; one that can serve as an
advocate for an environmental component to the UN’s goal that 0.7 per
cent of GDP is dedicated to official development assistance (ODA). Ex-
actly what percentage of ODA should be specifically earmarked for envi-
ronmental funding will be a matter for debate, but clearly there is a need
for increased spending by developed countries to enhance the capabilities
of developing countries to implement green technologies and undertake
environmental education endeavours. Just as the World Bank provides
capacity in creating needed infrastructure within developing countries, a
WEO could offer developing countries significant resources such as fi-
nancial assistance, technical advice, and information dissemination.
Often lost in this argument is a clear vision of exactly what capacity-
building functions a WEO could provide. Capacity building has a variety
of meanings and can be applied to almost any institution and organiza-
tion (intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations,
unions, public schools, private actors, etc.).19 One of the more problem-
atic aspects of capacity building is identifying when there is incapacity.20
Furthermore, there is a divergence between what developed countries
are prepared to provide and the needs of developing countries, contri-
buting to a sense of limited legitimacy for contemporary environmental
governance.21 As Esty and Ivanova22 put it:
Table 4.1 Select list of international organizations with environmental functions

Organization Environmental role
African Development Bank capacity building, environmental
impact, water resource management
Asian Development Bank capacity building, environmental
impact, sustainable development
European Bank for Reconstruction capacity building, sustainable
and Development development
Food and Agricultural Organization forestry and sustainable agriculture
Global Environment Facility capacity building
Inter-American Development Bank capacity building, sustainable
development
International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear safety
Inter-Government Authority on food security and environmental
Development (formerly IGADD) protection
International Labor Organization sustainable agriculture
International Maritime Organization marine pollution (ICPPS)
International Whaling Commission conduct of whaling
Helsinki Commission maintain and improve Baltic marine
environment
North American Commission for surveillance of environmental law in
Environmental Cooperation NAFTA members
UN Center for Science and capacity building (technology transfer)
Technology development
UNICEF poverty and the environment
UN Commission for Human environmental refugees
Settlements
UNDP sustainable development
UNEP policy coordination
UN Commission for Sustainable implementation of Agenda 21
Development
UN Population Fund population management
UN Sudano-Sahelian Office (UNDP) desertification
UN University capacity building
World Bank capacity building, sustainable
development
World Health Organization water quality
World Meteorological Organization climate change (remote sensing)
World Tourism Organization ecotourism
World Trade Organization trade and environmental issues (CTE)
The inadequacy and dispersion of the existing financial mechanisms – scattered

across the Global Environmental Facility, UN Development Programme, World
Bank, and separate funds such as the Montreal Protocol Finance Mechanism –
reinforces the perception of a lack of seriousness in the North about the plight of
the South. Furthermore, fundamental principles of good governance such as rep-
resentativeness, transparency, and accountability are still at issue in many of the
76 STRAND
institutions with environmental responsibilities. These procedural shortcomings

undermine the legitimacy of the system as a whole.
There are several proposals to strengthen the Global Environment Fa-

cility (GEF) as a capacity-building framework.23 One concern of many
developing countries, however, is that capacity-building efforts by devel-
oped countries will come at a political cost. For instance, one fear is that
just as the IMF ties assistance to specific conditions, a stronger GEF
might provide only ‘‘tied’’ capacity building. Given the highly contro-
versial nature of IMF conditionality, a WEO that tied capacity-building
efforts to domestic policy change by developing countries would prob-
ably meet substantial political resistance. This concern could be (par-
tially) surmounted if developing countries had a significant voice in the
decision-making mechanisms of a WEO. Nevertheless, there is a real
need for capacity building of some sort, and its advocates claim an inde-
pendent WEO would be able to perform this function.
Third, it is suggested that a WEO could serve to centralize global en-
vironmental policy-making. A WEO could be a source of legitimacy and
coordinator of organizations and regimes in environmental issue areas. In
other words, advocates of a WEO assert that it could serve as an over-
arching means of synchronizing structural integration. Biermann24 points
to several extant organizations (such as the World Health Organization)
that can serve as models for a WEO. In short, a WEO would serve as the
overseer and coordinator of information dissemination, environmental
standards and rules, and norms regarding environmental policy. The
WEO can fill the role that UNEP, NGOs, and other actors have been
attempting to fulfil. UNEP was intended to serve as a coordinating body
at the international level. But insufficient funding and ‘‘deficient au-
thority’’ result in it ‘‘limping from one fiscal crisis to the next’’.25 Cur-
rently there are at least 20 UN programmes that have core environmental
duties, mostly in the area of surveillance and information dissemination.
Other international organizations also have environment organs or of-
fices (see Table 4.1). This fragmentation is a serious shortcoming in the
environmental governance regime.
Arguably the case in favour of the creation of a WEO is strong. The
argument, however, rests on several assumptions.26 First, it assumes that
existing mechanisms for environmental governance cannot be adequately
improved. An alternative to a WEO would be to strengthen UNEP or
some other existing organization rather than add another organization to
the global environmental governance landscape.27 A second assumption
is that a new institution would surmount current shortcomings of global
environmental governance. Lack of coordination is perhaps the most se-
rious problem facing the present environmental governance system. But
creating a new organization does not necessarily or automatically over-

come this and other governance problems. If states resist giving it ade-
quate authority, plentiful resources, and a clear mandate, a WEO may
well become another UNEP. Alternatively, Von Moltke28 suggests that
instead of a single mega-organization, it may be the case that a handful of
smaller environmental organizations could fill the environmental gover-
nance breach. Finally, there is no a priori reason to assume a global
institution is the paramount institutional form for environmental man-
agement, especially for environmental problems that are not global in
scale.29 In other words, the level of organizational aggregation may not
need to be global. As this chapter argues, there is a case to be made that
regional organizations can serve as reasonable alternatives to a global
organization. The next section provides several reasons why regional
organizations may in many cases be advantageous vis-à-vis a global en-
vironmental organization. There still may be a need for a global organi-
zation to address truly global problems, but a single mega-organization
may not be the most effective means of dealing with local, national, or
regional environmental problems.
Regional stepping-stones to global environmental

governance
Substantial empirical and theoretical attention has been paid to the pro-
cesses of regionalism and globalization. Some authors question whether
regionalism and globalism are compatible, part of the same general pro-
cess of integration, or – at the extreme – diametrically opposed.30 This
issue is often discussed with regard to the proliferation of regional trade
areas. Trade integration on a regional scale, along with the metamor-
phosis of the GATT system into the WTO, has raised a myriad of ques-
tions about how issues related to trade are to be grappled with. Quickly
any discussion of trade turns into a conversation about the environment.
The literature on the intersection of trade issues and environmental is-
sues is extensive.31 It is not the intention here to discuss the debates
in this literature fully, but rather to construct an argument that envi-
ronmental governance can mirror regional trade integration. Indeed, for
many issues (but not all) a regional environmental organization (REO)
may have several advantages over a WEO. For several global environ-
mental problems, such as climate change, a global solution may well be
the only long-term alternative. Nevertheless, the prospects for a regional
alternative to a WEO for local, national, and regional problems need to
be explored.
A regional organization would be able to specialize in problems fac-
78 STRAND
ing member states. As noted by Sandler,32 environmental problems have

differential impacts on states. It seems reasonable that states with shared
interests in other issue areas, such as a free trade area or monetary zone,
might well be able to address their common environmental concerns.
A problem facing members of the EU, for example, might best be re-
solved in a regional organization comprised of EU members, exclusive of
American or other states’ influence and interference. Since environmen-
tal problems can impact on states differently, an REO may better account
for variations across states within the region. Put differently, states that
share similar geographic attributes often share similar concerns.33 An
REO would be better equipped to specialize in the concerns of states
with shared interests that are based on a shared geography. Interest ho-
mogeneity across states in environmental issue areas is more likely when
the affected states already share a common purpose in an established
organization.
Second, states that cooperate on one issue area, such as trade, may be
better equipped to work together on other issues. This type of spillover
effect has been noted in the history of the EU, moving from cooperation
and integration in relatively technical, apolitical issues areas (like coal
and steel) to highly sensitive economic and political issue areas (such as
self-defence forces, the euro, etc.). Moreover, the scale of environmental
governance may need to mirror the scale of the problem. In other words,
regional integration in one area may lead to integration, or at least
cooperation, in another. This process may result from simple spillover
effects or could be the result of domestic pressures on national govern-
ments for management of issues related to the core mandate of the re-
gional organization. For instance, during the domestic debate in the USA
concerning the formation of NAFTA, domestic forces and NGOs pres-
sured the Clinton administration to support the establishment of an en-
vironmental agency as part of a side agreement. Where economic inte-
gration is occurring on a regional basis there is the potential for regional
cooperation in related issues. Economic regionalization driven by state
actors must be distinguished from economic regionalization that results
from decisions made by private actors (such as firms).34 These related
processes are not always coterminous and the impact of variation be-
tween the two processes for environmental governance needs to be fur-
ther explored.
Following Newell’s35 suggestion that the proposed WEO is too large
in terms of scope and scale, an additional reason why an REO may serve
as a good alternative (or addition) to a WEO is that, simply put, there
would be fewer actors involved in cooperation. If environmental gov-
ernance is considered a collective good, then as long as the minimum
number of states needed for provision of the collective good are involved
in an REO, effective cooperation may occur. Stated differently, if an
REO constitutes a ‘‘k-group’’ then a collective good can be possible.36

Where trade or other regional organizations exist and are effective there
is a higher chance of a k-group being formed for environmental cooper-
ation. For instance, an REO for North America is more likely because of
the presence of NAFTA. Moreover, a North American REO that is built
on NAFTA would have only three members. Of course there are power
differentials within NAFTA, and all three members may have the poten-
tial to be veto players. Nevertheless, regional cooperation by a handful
of states may very well be easier because of the fact that there will
be fewer members and hence a higher probability of consensus about
burden sharing in the provision of a collective good. In other words, this
‘‘size principle’’ suggests REOs may be more effective because they
would have fewer actors involved in decision-making, thus facilitating
consensus formation or at least majoritarianism.
In addition to the three reasons discussed above, regionalism can serve
as a basis of shared interests of governments, NGOs, and subnational
actors within a region. Some form of ‘‘bioregionalism’’ might arise as
state and non-state actors seek solutions to transborder environmental
problems.37 Bioregionalism can be an activity of NGOs and firms with
or without state involvement. To Lipschutz and others, bioregionalism
is tied to both transnational and local social structures. Environmental
problems that are thought to be clearly global and presumably have
only global solutions (such as climate change) do have local and regional
causes and consequences.38 In other words, most global issues are also
regional, national, and local issues because the solutions to global prob-
lems rest in local, national, or regional responses. Most studies of bio-
regionalism focus on subnational regionalism.39 But in many instances
transnational cooperation by subnational actors is required to define and
address environmental problems. An REO could be a mechanism to pro-
vide capacity to subnational responses to environmental problems, such
as climate change or acid rain. In addition to capacity building, a regional
coordinator of bioregionalism could establish and report on a set of en-
vironmental standards that state and non-state actors within each country
must meet. This function for an REO could help integrate NGOs, firms,
and private citizens into a regional environmental governance regime.40
The next section outlines how and where REOs can fit into a larger sys-
tem of global environmental governance.
Regional governance and the global environmental

metaregime
The purpose of this chapter is to sketch the role for REOs in environ-
mental governance, and it does not rule out a possible role for a WEO.
80 STRAND
This section briefly presents how REOs can fit into an environmental

governance system and serve as important links between global cooper-
ation and domestic actors. This idealized model assumes that political
obstacles to establishing such a system of multilateral environmental gov-
ernance are surmountable.
In general, we can think of international organizations as manifes-
tations of legal accords among states. The agreements entered into by
governments lay the foundation for governance, as well as broad policy
mandates such as development. By ‘‘governance’’ is meant how institu-
tions comprised of sovereign states arrive at decisions concerning what
actions will be taken and the means to implement such actions. But the
documents outlining governance are the result of political negotiations
and therefore reflect bargaining and compromise among members. Fur-
thermore, the agreements are not static, in that negotiations that take
place after the original compact was established can change internal gov-
ernance. The institutions themselves have also evolved unique governing
styles whereby the formal, constitutional governing mechanism may be
circumvented for the sake of expediency or under the influence of par-
ticular members. External events also have impacted on the internal
governing arrangements, and especially the policy goals and mandates of
the institutions. In short, international organizations can be viewed as
relatively organic entities that exist within a larger global society. The
national interests of their members impact on international organi-
zations, yet international organizations also affect the policy goals and
negotiation strategies their members employ. Put differently, there is a
reflexive relationship between states and global social structures. States
may pursue one set of goals in a particular formal organization, and these
goals can be linked to efforts in other organizations. There is in effect a
nesting of states within multiple organizations. Negotiators are not play-
ing a simple ‘‘two-level game’’ but instead are involved in layered bar-
gaining games where the strategies in one setting are linked to strategies
in another.41
Figure 4.1 depicts what the author refers to as an idealized view of
multilateral environmental governance, taking into account the institu-
tional nesting of governance. It is a model that highlights the pathways
of bargaining among states and non-state actors. While there is clearly a
hierarchy within the model, there is also a place for lateral pressures on
organizations. The model is meant to clarify where REOs would fit into
a larger environmental metaregime. As defined by Aggarwal,42 ‘‘meta-
regimes represent the principles and norms underlying international
arrangements, international regimes refer specifically to rules and pro-
cedures’’. Domestic political contexts are linked to international regimes
through governmental accords. In this model, two sub-games are dis-
played. State action can involve unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral
Environmental governance
metaregime
(norms and principles)
NGOs
Environmental regime: UNEP, WEO, GEO
REO REO REO
state other states
society National environmental rules and society
ad hoc accords
Interactions
Figure 4.1 Idealized bargaining model of environmental governance
interactions. Regional organizations would fit into a larger system of

environmental governance headed by a revamped UNEP or some variant
of the proposed WEO/GEO. REOs would serve important roles in the
international environmental regime and, as argued above, would have
several advantages over a global organization. Moreover, although not
displayed in this model, the overlap of regional environmental organiza-
tions with governance in other issues areas (such as trade) will potentially
lead to synergies, enhancing cooperation in multiple areas.
Conclusion
This chapter has examined the question of how regional integration may
serve as a stepping-stone to environmental governance. The next step
82 STRAND
is to examine the environmental policies and roles of existing regional

organizations and forums (for example APEC, NAFTA, and the FTAA –
Free Trade Area of the Americas). While it has argued there is a para-
mount role for regional-level coordination of environmental governance,
there is still probably a role for some sort of WEO. While there is a role
for a WEO in the management of truly global issues, REOs could fill an
important position in multilateral environmental governance. Regional
governance organizations, however, will have advantages over a global
organization.
Just as the regional development banks cater to concerns of regional
members more so than the World Bank, REOs will be able to specialize
in issues facing their regional members. REOs will be positioned to ac-
commodate local, national, and regional interests. Moreover, regional
organizations may encourage spillover effects from integration in trade
and other issue areas. In fact, REOs may themselves be the outcome of
spillover, driven by domestic demands on states, such as in the case of
the North American Council on Environmental Cooperation. REOs are
more likely in regions where cooperation in other issue areas is deep-
ening. In this sense REOs can be built on existing forms of regional in-
tegration. The simple fact the regional organizations would have fewer
actors involved in decision-making suggests that REOs may prove to be
efficient and effective organizations.43 Finally, the prospects for transna-
tional bioregionalism could possibly be improved by the presence of an
REO that provides specialized and locally sentient capacity building.
Notes
1. An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the 2002 meeting of the International
Studies Association, New Orleans. Shona E. H. Dodds, Peter M. Haas, and Norichika
Kanie have provided helpful comments. Jessica A. McArthur provided able research
assistance.
2. Vrolijk suggests that the rejection of Kyoto by Bush was potentially a positive develop-
ment because it made the American position clear and Bush unwittingly made Kyoto
a domestic political issue in the USA. See Vrolijk, Christiaan. 2001. ‘‘President Bush
might have done Kyoto a favour’’, Energy and Environment Programme of the Royal
Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London.
3. Agrawala, Shardul and Steinar Andresen. 1996. ‘‘Indispensability and indefensibility?
The United States in the climate treaty negotiations’’, Global Governance, Vol. 5, No. 4.
4. Esty, Daniel C. 1994. ‘‘The case for a global environmental organization’’, in Peter Ke-
nen (ed.) Managing the World Economy: Fifty Years After Bretton Woods. Washington,
DC: Institute for International Economics; Biermann, Frank. 2000. ‘‘The case for a
world environment organization’’, Environment, Vol. 42, No. 9, pp. 23–31.
5. There is debate amongst proponents about whether or not this new organization should
have a role in only global environmental problems or if it should play a role in envi-
ronmental management at all levels, even local.
6. Biermann, Frank. 2001. ‘‘The emerging debate on the need for a world environmental
organization’’, Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 45–55.
7. Whalley, John and Ben Zissimos. 2001. ‘‘What could a world environmental organiza-
tion do?’’, Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 29–34; Newell, Peter. 2001.
‘‘New environmental architectures and the search for effectiveness’’, Global Environ-
mental Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 35–44.
8. Esty, Daniel C. and Maria H. Ivanova. 2001. ‘‘Making international environmental ef-
forts work: The case for a global environmental organization’’, Yale Center for Envi-
ronmental Law and Policy, Working Paper 2/01, May.
9. Biermann, note 4 above.
10. Ibid.; Biermann, note 6 above; Esty and Ivanova, note 8 above; Von Moltke, Konrad.
2001. ‘‘The organization of the impossible’’, Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 1, No.
1, pp. 23–28; Runge, C. Ford. 2001. ‘‘A global environment organization (GEO) and the
world trading system’’, Journal of World Trade, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 399–426; Runge, C.
Ford, François Ortalo-Magné, and Philip Vande Kamp. 1994. Freer Trade, Protected
Environment: Balancing Trade Liberalization and Environmental Interests. New York:
Council on Foreign Relations Press; Juma, Calestous. 2000. ‘‘The perils of centralizing
global environmental governance’’, Environment, Vol. 42, No. 9; Esty, note 4 above;
Kennan, George. 1970. ‘‘To prevent a world wasteland: A proposal’’, Foreign Affairs,
Vol. 48, No. 3.
11. Some observers call instead for major restructuring of existing international institutions
(see Juma, ibid.). Esty and Ivanova, note 8 above, suggest a new organization that only
addresses global, as opposed to regional or national, environmental problems such as
climate change.
12. As Esty and Ivanova (note 8 above, p. 19) argue, ‘‘a globalizing world requires
thoughtful ways to manage ecological interdependence’’.
13. Biermann, note 4 above, p. 24.
14. Esty and Ivanova, note 8 above, pp. 7–8.
15. Von Moltke (note 10 above, p. 23) rightly points out that the ‘‘debate about the creation
of a WEO mirrors the uncertainties that have surrounded the creation of environmental
ministries at the national level’’. He claims that national governments have been careful
not to create environment ministries that have too much (enough) authority. Moreover,
domestic environment governing is fragmented because, in his words, ‘‘[t]he environ-
ment is too important to be left to a single agency’’ (p. 24).
16. Iwama (this volume) provides a useful overview of existing multilateral environmental
organizations.
17. Adapted and expanded from Hempel, Garret. 1996. Environmental Governance: The
Global Challenge. Washington, DC: Island Press, p. 145.
19. VanDeever and Dabelko discuss the problems of how the term ‘‘capacity building’’ is
used in the environment literature – see VanDeever, Stacy and Geoffrey D. Dabelko.
2001. ‘‘It’s capacity stupid: International assistance and national implementation’’,
Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 18–29. For a statement of capacity
building as being more than a financial matter see the collection of papers in James,
Valentine Udoh (ed.). 1998. Capacity Building in Developing Countries: Human and
Environmental Dimensions. Westport, CT: Praeger. Janicke and Weidner present a
collection of essays that demonstrate capacity building is also needed within developed
countries – see Janicke, M. and H. Weidner (eds). 1997. National Environmental Poli-
cies: A Comparative Study of Capacity-Building. Berlin: Springer.
20. VanDeever and Dabelko, ibid.
21. On the concept of good governance in international organizations see Woods, Ngaire.
84 STRAND
1999. ‘‘Good governance in international organizations’’, Global Governance, Vol. 5,

pp. 39–61. For applications of the core ideas of good governance to existing organiza-
tions see Woods, Ngaire. 2000. ‘‘The challenge of good governance for the IMF and
World Bank themselves’’, World Development, Vol. 28, pp. 823–841; Woods, Ngaire.
2001. ‘‘Making the IMF and the World Bank more accountable’’, International Affairs,
Vol. 77, pp. 83–100. For a statement on good environmental governance, see Hassan,
Parvez. 2001. ‘‘Elements of good environmental governance’’, Asia Pacific Journal of
Environmental Law, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1–11.
22. Esty and Ivanova, note 8 above, p. 9.
23. For an assessment of the GEF see Werksman (this volume). For an assessment of how
the GEF’s decision-making structure impacts on its ability to operate in the interests of
developed and developing countries see Streck, Charlotte. 2001. ‘‘The Global Environ-
ment Facility: A role model for international governance?’’, Global Environmental
Politics, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 71–94.
25. Esty and Ivanova, note 8 above, p. 8.
26. See Biermann, note 6 above, pp. 51–54 for a response to some of the critics cited here.
27. Najam argues that instead of a WEO, UNEP should be revitalized and given a true
coordinating mandate and authority – see Najam, Adil. 2001. ‘‘Why we don’t need a
new international environmental organization’’, Center for Energy and Environmental
Studies, Working Paper 0104; also see Banuri, Tariq and Erika Spanger-Siegfried. 2000.
UNEP and Civil Society: Recommendations for a Coherent Framework of Engagement,
prepared for the United Nations Environment Programme. Boston: Stockholm Envi-
ronmental Institute. For a useful discussion and proposed solution to the difficulties
in accommodating and reconciling differences in trade and environmental laws and in-
terests within the context of the WTO see Biermann, Frank. 2001. ‘‘The rising tide of
green unilateralism in world trade law: Options for reconciling the emerging North-
South conflict’’, Journal of World Trade, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 421–448.
28. Like Najam, ibid., Von Moltke, note 10 above, p. 17 suggests a key role for UNEP.
29. Esty and Ivanova, note 8 above, make a distinction between their proposal for a global
environmental organization and Biermann’s proposal for a WEO. For Esty and Ivanova
a GEO would only address failures in global environmental collective action and not
local, national, or regional problems.
30. Lawrence, Robert Z. 1991. ‘‘Emerging regional arrangements: Building blocs or stum-
bling blocs?’’, in Richard O’Brien (ed.) Finance and the International Economy 5. The
AMEX Bank Review Prize Essays. New York: Oxford University Press; Schott, Jeffrey
J. 1991 ‘‘Trading blocs and the world trading system’’, World Economy, Vol. 14, No. 1,
pp. 1–17.
31. Neumayer, Eric. 2001. ‘‘Greening the WTO agreements: Can the treaty establishing the
European Community be of guidance?’’, Journal of World Trade, Vol. 35, No. 1;
Sampson, Gary and W. Bradnee Chambers (eds). 1999. Trade, Environmental, and the
Millennium. Tokyo: United Nations University Press; Esty, Daniel C. 1994. Greening
the GATT: Trade, Environment, and the Future. Washington, DC: Institute for Interna-
tional Economics; Esty, Daniel C. 1996. ‘‘Stepping up to the global environmental chal-
lenge’’, Fordham Environmental Law Review, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 103–113.
32. Sandler, Todd. 1992. Collective Action: Theory and Applications. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, pp. 169–177; Sandler, Todd. 1997. Global Challenges: An Approach
to Environmental, Political, and Economic Problems. New York: Cambridge University
Press. For more on environmental public goods see Heal, Geoffrey. 1999. ‘‘New strat-
egies for the provision of global public goods: Learning from international environ-
mental challenges’’, in Kaul Inge, Isabelle Grunberg, and Marc A. Stern (eds) Global
Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
33. Even in a context of cooperation, however, states with similar interests can come into
conflict if there is discord resulting from concern over relative capabilities. See Krasner,
Stephen. 1991. ‘‘Global communications and national power: Life on the Pareto fron-
tier’’, World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 2.
34. On this point see Higgott, Richard. 1997. ‘‘De facto and de jure regionalism: The double
discourse of regionalism in the Asia Pacific’’, Global Society, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 165–
183.
35. Newell, note 7 above.
36. Using ‘‘k-group’’ as defined by Schelling, Thomas C. 1978. Micromotives and Macro-
behavior. New York: Norton.
37. Lipschutz, Ronnie D. 1999. ‘‘Bioregionalism, civil society and global environmental
governance’’, in Michael Vincent McGinnis (ed.) Bioregionalism. London and New
York: Routledge.
38. Ibid.; Feldman, David and Catherine Wilt. 1999. ‘‘Climate change policy from a bio-
regional perspective: Reconciling spatial scale with human and ecological impact’’, in
Michael Vincent McGinnis (ed.) Bioregionalism. London and New York: Routledge,
pp. 134–135.
39. One hesitates to call it ‘‘regional bioregionalism’’. The selections in McGinnis focus
on subnational bioregionalism, but it seems possible that transnational cooperation be-
tween subnational groups (including state environmental agencies) could emerge – see
McGinnis, Michael Vincent (ed.) Bioregionalism. London and New York: Routledge.
40. Another advantage an REO might have over a WEO is it may be less likely to suffer
from the attacks by civil society that have occurred with other global institutions. One
can only imagine the reaction by protesters to a global environmental organization run
by states for states’ interests. Without full inclusion of NGO and other civil groups (such
as unions), a WEO will be subject to the same kind of demonstrations as the WTO,
IMF, and IBRD. For an excellent assessment of global social movements see Fisher
(this volume).
41. Kanie (this volume) provides a useful perspective on the linkage between domestic
politics and global governance.
42. Aggarwal, Vinod. 1998. ‘‘Analyzing institutional transformation in the Asia-Pacific’’,
in Vinod Aggarwal and Charles E. Morrison (eds) Asia-Pacific Crossroads: Regime
Creation and the Future of APEC. New York: St Martin’s Press.
43. On assessing effectiveness in environmental governance see Young, Oran. 1998. ‘‘The
effectiveness of international environmental regimes: A mid-term report’’, International
Environmental Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 267–289; Young, Oran. 1994. International
Governance: Protecting the Environment in a Stateless Society. Ithaca: Cornell Univer-
sity Press, pp. 142–160.
5
Global environmental governance
in terms of vertical linkages
Norichika Kanie
Introduction
In recent years a growing amount of scholarship in the field of inter-

national relations has emphasized the importance of the interaction be-
tween domestic and international affairs. In short, these scholars argue
that what happens in the domestic arena matters in the management of
international order, and vice versa. Those two arenas, domestic and in-
ternational, had long been thought of as distinct in state-centric West-
phalian international relations, but they have gradually been considered
as closely interconnected by much of the recent scholarship, especially in
the field of the political economy and global environment.1
In practice, after 10 years of international efforts in struggling with
implementing Agenda 21, the domestic-international linkage has be-
come even more important in global environmental governance.2 This
is even truer when many global environmental issues such as climate
change and conservation of biodiversity are shifting their focus from the
mere agenda-setting phase to the implementation phase. After all, unless
measures are sufficiently addressed, coordinated, and implemented do-
mestically in a concrete manner, it would be impossible to solve a com-
plex environmental problem whatever efforts are made to address the
problem internationally. One result of the development of an interna-
tional agreement on tropical timber, for example, has been consequences
in the dynamics of small-scale activities and the local community. There-
86
VERTICAL LINKAGES IN ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE 87
fore, international efforts need to keep the domestic arena within their
scope. Put differently, if the international community lacks the tools –
either financial or educational – to recruit support from the key social,
economic, and industrial actors, cooperation that entails concrete results
in practice is unlikely.3
In the context of this collective research project, which is designed to
improve insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the existing global
environmental institutional structure, it is the institutional dimension of
domestic-international linkage that should be given the greatest atten-
tion. Of course, this is not the only reason why institutions should be paid
most attention here. Institutions are important because they can structure
the relationships among actors in society, influence their preferences, and
channel how ideas are brought into decision-making processes. Domestic
institutions are able to mitigate the effectiveness of international efforts
to alter domestic policy priorities and regulations. International institu-
tions can influence and stimulate changes in domestic institutions.4 Simi-
larly, institutional change at the international level may lead to the alter-
ation of the arrangement of institutional settings and/or the political
power balance of established agencies at the domestic level. Thus, there
are good reasons why institutions should be focused on.
Similarly important are other modes of domestic-international interac-
tion and linkage. Those modes are policy interaction, interaction through
non-governmental organizations (NGOs, including business/industry or-
ganizations), and interaction through the scientific community, as they
have been chosen as important international players throughout this
research project. Although no generally accepted taxonomy on vertical
linkage exists at this stage, as Oran Young points out, at least these four
modes of vertical linkages can be chosen as important modes.5 From time
to time interactions of these modes have taken place in an indirect man-
ner, and sometimes even unconsciously or implicitly.
The purpose of this chapter is to illustrate the general character of
the vertical linkages of environmental governance, and to provide ideas
about what emerging forces are influencing vertical linkages. The chapter
also provides consideration on what are the gaps and barriers lying be-
tween the needs and the reality of vertical linkages in order to create
better global environmental governance institutions. The sections that
follow first provide a brief summary of recent international relations
scholarship on political interaction between domestic and international
arenas. Then the chapter discusses national and international forces in
environmental governance taking into account the four mechanisms of
domestic-international linkage, namely policy, NGO, scientific, and insti-
tutional modes of linkages. Policy and institutional modes will be dealt
with in the same subsection, because they both take a clear form at a first
88 KANIE
glance, rather than a vague and fuzzy form. The following section looks
at international to national forces. The conclusion draws the implications
for international environmental governance emerging from the forces
and barriers narrowing the gap between domestic and international
arenas.
Political interaction – International relations and the

domestic arena
Until recently, most mainstream international relations scholarship has
either disregarded the domestic arena as a ‘‘black box’’ or perceived do-
mestic factors as a dependent variable. As represented by the arguments
of Kenneth Waltz, the nature of the international system is perceived as
anarchy, consisting of nation-states as units, and the nature of the anar-
chical international system determines the dynamics of international re-
lations, whatever kind of domestic factors are involved.6
Since the late 1980s, however, growing attention has been paid to
the causal relations between domestic factors and international rela-
tions, along with internationalization and globalization in many issues.7
Broadly speaking, two modes of theoretical observation are seen in
this field: ‘‘second image reversed’’ and ‘‘two-level games’’. In short, the
‘‘second image reversed’’ mode focuses on domestic consequences of in-
ternational phenomena. Therefore, it is argued that internationalization
of, for example, environmental politics affects the policy preferences of
domestic economic and political actors, and then this in turn influences
national policy formation and shapes the domestic institutions.8 In this
mode the impact of globalization on domestic politics is the primary
concern, and therefore the main focus is on the domestic arena. Never-
theless, the linkage between domestic and international arenas is within
its scope.
The ‘‘two-level games’’ mode, on the other hand, looks at the interplay
between domestic and international arenas and deals with the interna-
tional consequences of domestic institutions and the domestic political
process. It challenges the conventional neo-realist view of international
relations, and see domestic factors as a determinant of international
relations. It is a framework that illustrates how national political leaders
conduct foreign policy by simultaneously managing contending politi-
cal pressures and constraints in the international (level 1) and domestic
(level 2) arenas. At the international level, pressures are imposed on
leaders in many different forms, such as economic considerations and
commitments to international organizations. At the domestic level,
leaders constantly build coalitions of support for their foreign policy ini-
tiatives. Leaders try to maximize their own ability to satisfy domestic

pressures, while minimizing the consequences of foreign development.
Thus, basically, the success or failure of international negotiations de-
pends on the size of the level 2 win-set, which is defined as the ‘‘set of
all possible level 1 agreements that would win, that is, gain the necessary
majority among the constituents when simply voted up or down’’.9
More than a decade of development of scholarship in both of these two
modes of accounts for the interaction between domestic and international
arenas has shown that domestic politics and institutions do matter in
international affairs, and international affairs do matter in domestic poli-
tics and institutional arrangements in a growing number of issue areas.10
Environmental problems, which often do not respect national borders,
are obviously among those issue areas. Although cooperation is neces-
sary for dealing with global environmental problems, sometimes it is the
domestic conditions of sovereign states, which continue to be the primary
actors in the world politics, that do not always allow a situation where
cooperation can take place. Therefore, it is necessary for us to look at the
dynamics of ‘‘vertical’’ linkage, which means the linkage between local
and the global policy-making and implementation processes, including
cross-border interactions, when discussing environmental governance.
Recently Young illustrated that there are two emerging ways for what
he calls ‘‘vertical interplay’’: one involves adjacent institutional interplay
and another involves remote interplay.11 The former is about institu-
tional interplay located at adjoining levels of social organization, such
as interaction between provincial and local governments. This type of
interplay is rather obvious in the hierarchical architecture of a national
government, although sometimes functional problems might exist within
a bureaucratic complex. The latter kind of remote interplay needs more
attention for understanding the environmental governance structure, es-
pecially when it comes to the implementation stage of global environ-
mental policies, as globalization and international agreements have often
had consequences at the operational level in small-scale local commu-
nities. Although remote at a glance, the global and the local arenas are
substantially interconnected, and therefore diplomatic negotiations in the
international regime-building process and the international regimes es-
tablished as a result need to accommodate these emerging new dynamics.
As will be seen later in this chapter and other chapters in this volume,
one such attempt in the international community to create interactions
among various social actors, be they international or purely domestic,
is the multi-stakeholder dialogue (MSD) process of the Commission on
Sustainable Development (CSD) and other international forums.
Diplomacy itself is also moving from the traditional concept of deals
between states’ delegates. Andrew Cooper has proposed conceptualizing
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Table 5.1 Conceptualizing interactive diplomacy

Style of diplomacy Public diplomacy (rather than quiet diplomacy)
The form of diplomatic Interaction between like-minded countries and NGO,
approach business, and industry communities
Multiple roles State – international organs – NGO/business and
industry corresponding/complementary roles
create new type of coalitions
Scope Trade, environmental, labour standards, and new
concept of security
a new model of diplomacy which is drawn from observation of the diplo-

matic behaviour of so-called middle-power countries or like-minded
countries, extending it to a more general concept of diplomacy in the era
of globalization without hegemony.12 This new mode of diplomacy is led
by ‘‘interactive leadership’’, at the core of which is the interaction be-
tween like-minded countries and the NGO community. As Mikoto Usui
argues in Chapter 11 in this volume, business/industry communities will
also be a part of this interaction in the issue of environment and sustain-
able development. Rather than traditional, slow-speed, quiet diplomacy
behind closed doors, the new diplomacy is conducted via public diplo-
macy to make it more open and operational. The basic elements of this
interactive diplomacy are shown in Table 5.1.13
Forces from national to international arenas

Forces through NGOs
As has been recognized by many, NGOs link the local and the global.
NGOs ‘‘simultaneously reach up to the states and their international
institutions and down to the local communities’’, and there are several
ways in which NGOs can link them.14 They operate beyond borders, no
matter whether they are business-interested or policy-interested organi-
zations. Throughout the world they deal with micro problems in local
society as well as having a voice in global negotiation settings. Further-
more, within a company there emerges a growing number of partnerships
with civil society, which even have a potential to create a new type of
grass-roots standards for sustainable development. Examples are given
in Chapter 11 by Usui – the Unilever-led Marine Stewardship Council
(since 1995) and Tea Sourcing Partnership (since 1997) as well as the
Royal Dutch Shell-assigned GRI (Global Reporting Initiative, since
1997) promote standards of cross-border significance.15 They constitute
global business strategies and therefore may eventually reach the global
standard platform for more official international recognition such as
the ISO (International Organization for Standardization). In developing
countries particularly, NGOs play the role of educators and promoters
of sustainable development ideas ‘‘to a much greater extent than else-
where’’, and therefore the NGO community (a large number of whose
leaders are often academics in developing countries) ‘‘becomes the main
initiator of sustainable development initiatives’’.16
Looking at international negotiation processes, NGOs participate in
international negotiations through direct involvement in international
negotiation processes and international institutions. In many of the MEA
negotiations it is a common phenomenon that the number of NGO
members registered to the conference secretariat is greater than the
number of governmental delegates to the conference. Except for a few
exceptional cases (such as the UNECE Regional Convention on Access
to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making, and Access to
Justice in Environmental Matters – the Aarhus Convention – and the
Habitat II conference in Istanbul, in which NGOs were deeply involved
in the official conference process and were even allowed to submit pro-
posals for textual amendment in the case of the latter), NGOs cannot
intervene from the floor on draft text.17 For example, in the UNFCCC
NGOs cannot intervene in negotiations from the floor. NGO interven-
tion depends very much upon the character of the issues at stake, be-
cause the legitimacy of NGO intervention is not yet very clear and still
controversial.
Still, NGOs can comment, suggest amendments, and give ideas, based
on their concrete experience and expertise at grass-roots level. In this
way, the negotiated text can be better informed and more rooted in
reality, so that implementation can be handled more smoothly. In this
regard, notable is the CSD multi-stakeholder dialogue sessions. Created
in 1993, the number of representatives from the major groups of Agenda
21 increased from 200–300 to 700–800 by 2000.18
The government representatives are supposed to negotiate on behalf
of their governments, ideally taking into account the total balance of na-
tional interests, under the current form of multilateralism. Accordingly,
current institutional settings are based upon this system. However, this
style of multilateral negotiation does not necessarily lead to sufficient
implementation of the agreement in reality. Therefore, partnership is
necessary in both negotiation and implementation.
More direct NGO/CSO participation in the international policy-
making process is through government delegations – as members of a
government delegation to international negotiations, or close interaction
with government officials. In this way the idea and comments of NGOs
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may be more directly reflected in the negotiations. As part of a govern-

ment delegation, they may have a chance to intervene in intergovern-
mental negotiations. It is not unusual in Scandinavian and some Western
European states to have people from NGOs in the national delegation
team to MEA negotiations. This tendency accelerated in the preparation
process leading up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(WSSD), when a growing number of countries started to recognize the
importance of involvement of NGOs in order to achieve their sustain-
able development goals. After the Prepcom 4, even Japan, which has
long neglected to include CSO delegates in its official delegation, decided
to include them. Little is known, however, about the legitimacy, effec-
tiveness, and influence of this kind of NGO participation, and more re-
search effort is necessary to understand further the dynamics of NGO
participation.
Although NGOs can represent grass-roots voices in multilateral nego-
tiations, and such domestic to international force is beneficial to multi-
lateral negotiations and the international regime-building process as well,
one major problem is that the funding available for CSOs for them to
attend is limited. Also, for NGOs in non-English-speaking countries lan-
guage may be a barrier to speaking effectively in international negotia-
tion processes.
The power of knowledge
The outcome of scientific research, no matter whether it is produced by

a national laboratory or an international project, is by its nature easily
disseminated beyond national borders. On the way to producing an out-
come, a scientist based in a domestic research organization interacts
internationally and domestically with other scientists and with policy-
makers either individually or through networks. Science and scientists do
not respect national borders, and therefore they may also link domestic
and global forces.
The first path for science and scientists to interact with global environ-
mental politics is through domestic institutions. Research outcomes from
a domestic laboratory that could influence the domestic policy-making
process may be elaborated in the form of a proposal for international
environmental negotiation by national delegations. This sometimes takes
the form of intellectual leadership. The case of the Netherlands’ triptych
approach to the European burden-sharing negotiation in climate change
before the Kyoto Conference in 1997 is a good example of this. Based
on the domestic climate change policy network and knowledge base in
the Netherlands, the approach was formulated by a group of researchers
at Utrecht University, and after scientific elaboration it was further ela-
borated for the Netherlands’ proposal to the European GHG burden-

sharing negotiations.19
The research team providing a basis for intellectual leadership may
even not be limited to one country. It has sometimes happened, as in the
case of the Club of Rome, that a like-minded international research team
(of eminent people) can produce the basis for such leadership. When
such a team collaborates with like-minded countries and makes a soft
coalition in the given negotiation settings, it may even lead to what An-
drew Cooper calls ‘‘interactive leadership’’ for enhanced global problem-
solving.20
Another path for science and scientists to interact with global envi-
ronmental politics is a scientist’s direct involvement in a research team
associated with an international institution or epistemic community. A
researcher based in a certain country may bring knowledge to the inter-
national arena and influence and facilitate the international policy-
making process. This path has been common in environmental policy-
making since the preparation leading up to the Stockholm Conference
in 1972, when the so-called ‘‘MIT group’’ was establised in order to find a
way by which both developing and developed countries could get to-
gether to Stockholm, and when the ‘‘Founex group’’ was convened to
create politically acceptable consensual knowledge on the environment
and development.21
In this sense, enhancing domestic knowledge capacity and establishing
solid knowledge bases at the national level in terms of problem-solving
from various disciplines can enhance the forces from domestic to inter-
national arenas through the creation of well-informed and knowledge-
able scientists. This may be regarded as the enhancement of ‘‘soft
power’’. Issue-oriented strategic research programmes are important in
this regard, especially when a government supports them. This can, ac-
cordingly, narrow the knowledge gap between national and international
arenas. Furthermore, it should be remembered that the basis of this is
capacity building through education.
Policy and institutional linkages
Forces that narrow the gap between domestic and international that
come from the domestic arena are found less frequently than forces from
international to domestic with regard to environmental policies. In terms
of solutions, of course, implementation is primarily a local activity, so it
may be ideal if bottom-up solutions can lead to the international regime.
However, accumulation of de facto standards does not yet seem to create
global regimes in the field of the environment. In the first place, once an
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international regime is created, the forces from international to domestic

may become stronger for most countries.
The top-down characteristics of global environmental issues and poli-
cies may also be related to stronger forces from international to na-
tional arenas rather than national to international arenas. Although there
still exist purely local environmental policies, and thus international
cooperation is needed to solve common problems existing in each coun-
try, many environmental policies are now regarded as part of global
or transboundary environmental problems such as climate change and
ozone depletion which have to be dealt with and addressed internation-
ally at one point. Even problems that were traditionally regarded as local
environmental problems now have international aspects, due to a new
understanding of local environmental problems. Economy and Schreurs
pointed out that, for example, coal-fired power plants in China are now
understood to contribute to local air pollution as well as acid rain in
Japan and global climate change.22 Another example is that a loss in
species in one region is now viewed in terms of global loss of biodiversity.
Local problems at first glance are now viewed, or should be viewed, from
a global perspective as well in order to solve the problems fundamen-
tally. Therefore, many environmental policies at a national, or subna-
tional, level are now also perceived as ‘‘the consequence of international
ideational and institutional forces, at times mediated by domestic politics
and structures’’.23
In addition, environmental policies in a nation-state are, of course,
created in domestic political and institutional contexts, and affected by
international forces as the case may be. Therefore, one may argue that it
is difficult to decide whether it is a policy or it is the other political factors
that link the domestic and international arenas. Taking this argument
into account, we can still see the policies and policy measures that can be
regarded as a facilitative device linking domestic and international are-
nas, and these can be regarded as forces from domestic to international in
order to link the two arenas.
One case of such a policy is a so-called big power’s policy. Because
of the amount of resources that a major country possesses, its policy
(change) influences international effort in one way or another, as he-
gemonic theory argues. A good example is the policy change of the USA
on the Kyoto Protocol. Although it was a negative change and influence
in terms of the multilateral effort to combat with climate change, we have
witnessed that the US domestic policy change in withdrawing its support
for the Kyoto Protocol influenced the Kyoto Protocol negotiation process
from COP6 through the Bonn Agreement to the Marrakesh Accord. It
also changed the dynamics of the negotiation game among players. In the
field of environmental policy, which is closely related to economic policy,
the policy of a ‘‘big power’’, although it may not be called hegemony
any more, is still a force that can influence the international negotiation
process.
There are also kinds of policies by which domestic forces are brought
into international arenas, no matter what the size or the power of coun-
tries may be. Two examples from the experience of the Netherlands are
discussed below. Of course they do not provide a comprehensive picture,
but what is important here is that they do illustrate that, although some-
times implicit, vertical linkage and forces that narrow the gap between
different arenas do exist and do matter in some situations, and therefore
need more attention when looking at the dynamics of environmental
governance.
The case of the target group approach and international negotiation
The ‘‘target group approach’’ of Dutch environmental policy has helped
to accommodate domestic consensus in a given policy area, and accord-
ingly helped to have a certain basis of solid domestic consensus among
stakeholders in preparation for international negotiation as compared
with many other countries without a solid domestic consensus basis.
Therefore, the policy approach can be seen as a source of position-
making for multilateral negotiation – in other words, the position would
have been weaker if there had not been this policy approach. In this
sense, the policy approach was successful in bringing the domestic forces
into multilateral negotiation.
The target group approach internalizes national policy targets into the
targets of domestic stakeholders, who are simultaneously the sources of
environmental problems and the ones responsible for policy implemen-
tation. Representatives of a target group participate in the process of
‘‘internalization’’, where negotiations with government on the policy tar-
get of each target group take place. At the same time, constituents of the
target group participate in the policy-making process within the target
group. This consultative approach is time-consuming, but ‘‘sustainability’’
of the policy may be better secured because the policy is a product of
long-lasting negotiation. Taking into account that consensus by the im-
plementing parties is vital for the sustainability of policies, this approach
is very effective when it works.
An example of the target group approach influence on international
negotiation can be found in a policy for the industry target group. By
introducing a covenant policy between the government and industry for
improving energy efficiency, the Netherlands could eliminate a potential
negative influence of the industry sector on its international negotiating
posture in climate change negotiation before the Kyoto Conference.24
The target group approach has the effect of internalizing a national
policy target into the targets of domestic stakeholders. In terms of
national-international linkage, the effect of the approach is to be able
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to create a certain level of domestic consensus basis in a given environ-

mental issue area, so that a solid standpoint is established in international
negotiation settings. Accommodating various interests in this manner is
more important when it comes to negotiations in which many domestic
stakeholders are supposed to have different interests, such as the case
of climate change. Having a solid domestic consensus basis while other
countries have internal struggles to accommodate the interests of various
stakeholders may even create a situation in which the country can exert
leadership in tackling the issue.
Needless to say, the success of this policy approach also depends on the
political culture of a country, public opinion, and other national-specific
situations as well. Therefore, this exact same approach may be possible
only in the Netherlands, and may not be emulated by other countries.
Yet the important point here is not whether the policy approach can
be emulated or not, but learning that there is a policy approach that
can bring domestic forces into multilateral negotiation, and that such an
approach should be applied based on each particular situation where the
country stands.
Policy integration and international negotiation
Integration of environmental policy is the characteristic of the Nether-
lands’ environmental policy after the 1980s. Due to the policy differenti-
ation that took place in the 1970s, the environmental policy field was
divided into several small sectors, each governed by their own laws and
regulations. Environmental policy was falling apart at the end of the
1970s, and it seemed that there was hardly any coordination between
sectors and with other policy fields such as physical planning, water
management, or agricultural policy.25 Thus, fundamental change in pol-
icy management was urged, and in the 1980s a new integrated environ-
mental policy was introduced. The new policy programme introduced
an ‘‘effect-oriented approach’’, rather than dividing issues into detailed
sectors such as waste and chemical waste, and therefore policies were in-
tegrated and formulated under six themes: acidification, eutrophication,
diffusion of substances, disposal of waste, disturbance (including noise,
odour, local air pollution, etc.), and climate change.
This policy integration made it easier to be effective in tackling
environmental issues, since many environmental issues, by their charac-
ter, need an overarching holistic approach rather than a fragmented
approach. Accordingly, this effective approach helped in producing an
innovative policy and measures in some areas such as climate change and
acidification that are recognized as a frontrunner or model for policies of
other countries, and thus influenced the policies of other countries.
It also helps in initiating international negotiation by showing that
particular policy measures are in fact possible and feasible. It has been
argued that a certain kind of leadership in multilateral negotiation is
exerted by introducing an ambitious policy domestically. This mode of
leadership operates as a form of social persuasion to show ‘‘that a certain
cure is indeed feasible or does work, or to set a good example for others
to follow’’.26 It is also argued that ‘‘the mechanism of setting an exam-
ple is advocated by some groups of environmentalists who claim that
by unilaterally imposing on one’s own society strict standards of pollu-
tion control a government may help strengthen public demand in other
countries for equally strict measures’’, and that ‘‘by imposing or threat-
ening to impose unilateral environmental protection measures, a govern-
ment can strengthen demand within its own society for international
regulations’’.27
In fact in the eyes of many the integrated and comprehensive approach
of the Netherlands’ sustainable development policy is seen as one of the
most successful in environmental governance.28
Domestic forces to narrow the gap
As seen in the Netherlands’ case above, national policies can indirectly
bring domestic forces into international arenas. Also, as presented in
Chapter 11 by Mikoto Usui in this volume, there is some evidence in
practice to show that policies within a company are able to be a source
for creating a bottom-up governance structure, sometimes without notic-
ing it. Usui points out that business and community partnerships involv-
ing civil society organizations can alter the power balance locally towards
better adapted innovation and competition, thus providing a real-time
policy forum raising social expectations for better than the legal mini-
mum in practice and accountability, and then even lead to bottom-up
pathways up towards regional or international standards, such as in the
case of the Pan-European Certification Initiative (1999) and the African
Timber Organization.
Elizabeth DeSombre also arrived at similar conclusions after the ex-
amination of various cases in American environmental policy and their
impact on international relations: one way that international standards
improve is ‘‘when one state takes the initiative to regulate domestically
to address a problem that has international dimensions’’.29 Interestingly,
DeSombre has found that the cases which the USA decides to push for-
ward internationally are ‘‘those for which there is a coalition of environ-
mentalist and industry actors’’ both of whom benefit from increasing the
number of actors bound by the regulation.30
In addition to these implicit linkages, more important mechanisms
in terms of environmental governance are institutions, because they can
structure the formal relationships among actors in society, influence their
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preferences, and channel how ideas are brought into the decision-making
process. If domestic-level environmental governance is important for
global environmental governance, as Agenda 21 stressed, there has to
be an effective institutional linkage between domestic and international
governance structures.
What we call multi-stakeholder processes now function to bring
domestic forces into international arenas. Minu Hemmati has shown
20 examples of multi-stakeholder processes.31 Among those processes
the most notable and universal participation is obtained in the multi-
stakeholder dialogues (MSD) of the UN Commission on Sustainable
Development (CSD).32 Started informally in 1997 and formally in 1998,
CSD-MSD currently provides the most interesting institutionalized space
within the United Nations to bring domestic forces into the multilateral
process.33 CSD-MSD is participated in by both NGOs and governmental
organizations that are closest to their constituency (local government),
thus bridging the gap between local and global.
Apart from multi-stakeholder processes, however, so far institutional,
as well as implicit, vertical linkage has not been sufficiently addressed
in multilateral negotiation forums, particularly in the intergovernmental
negotiation process leading up to the WSSD. Issues related to gover-
nance structure have been addressed, and the discussion and sub-
sequently negotiation have taken place since the Prepcom 2. In the
Prepcom 4 finally a chapter dealing with governance was built into
the ‘‘Draft Plan of Implementation for the WSSD’’, although the title
was changed from ‘‘sustainable development governance’’ to ‘‘institu-
tion’’. However, discussion has been divided into subnational, national,
regional, and global-level governance, and how to enhance the linkage
between those levels was not sufficiently addressed. Implementation of
the results of international negotiation cannot be realized unless vertical
linkage is sufficiently addressed.34
Forces from international to national arenas
Forces through NGOs
NGOs participating in international negotiations have a mission to bring

their experience, ideas, and expertise to the international arena. At the
same time, they have a role to disseminate the information obtained in
the international arena to their national or local communities. They may
also be involved in national or local-level policy-making processes and
provide ideas and opinions from a broader (global) perspective; thus they
can bring international norms and principles into domestic policies.
There are difficulties for them in doing this. Elias35 points out, among
other things, that the information barrier and the language barrier are
two of the most important barriers that hinder implementation of
Agenda 21 issues. On the information barrier she sees that there is much
difference in information flow between developed countries and devel-
oping countries. There are a number of success stories from developed
countries where Agenda 21 principles are implemented at national and
local levels, while Agenda 21 itself is not well known in many parts of the
rest of the world. The low access to information and low awareness of the
issues are not only a problem among the general public, but are some-
times also the case among governmental officials. Even farmers following
sustainability principles in their daily activities and developing organic
agriculture have never heard about Agenda 21 and its principles. Taking
into account that access to the internet is still a problem in many regions,
Elias argues, information provided by NGOs is often the only source that
can inform people about what is happening at the global level, although
funding is an urgent problem for NGOs. Such information might, in turn,
bring benefits to the local society.
Related to the information barrier is the language barrier. Since offi-
cial translation is usually slow in production, this is a big issue for peo-
ple in non-English-speaking countries. Especially, people working with
NGOs at grass-roots level can often command only their native language.
The language barrier is a problem even to those who have access to the
internet.
The UN’s websites provide only a small number of translated docu-
ments and usually not the more recent ones. Those regions where En-
glish is not a common language are effectively cut off from accessing
recent publications and documents.36 In cases such as these, international
forces cannot be brought into domestic arenas through NGOs.
The power of knowledge
Scientists directly involved in a research team attached to international

institutions may be able to bring the research outcome into domestic
policies. This has been common practice, and sometimes even used
intentionally by a conference secretariat, in order to bring and inform
international norms or international scientific consensus to national ac-
tors. In the preparation for the Stockholm Conference in 1972, Maurice
Strong invited researchers from developing countries to his office as con-
sultants to accommodate scientific consensus on the relations between
environment and economic development, with the intention that they
would influence national policy-makers’ perspective on environment and
development when they were participating in the conference.37 Inter-
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nationally recognized scientists may function to disseminate international

norms to domestic decision-makers.
Internationally recognized research organizations, although not in-
ternational organizations per se, can also bring their knowledge and
expertise into national strategy-making processes. The London-based
International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) par-
ticipated in the development process for national strategies on sustain-
able development (NSSDs) together with the OECD Development
Assistance Committee (DAC), and donor and developing country part-
ners. In order to improve understanding of the key challenges involved in
developing and implementing NSSDs, the IIED was coordinating, pro-
viding guidance and support, and assisting with analysis and synthesis.38
As a result of recent proposals on so-called ‘‘Type 2 outcomes’’ of the
WSSD, which are the collection of partnership initiatives to achieve sus-
tainable development, international research organizations will be able
to have more chance to work with governmental and intergovernmental
organizations. Although it is obvious that the contents of the partnership
and research should be the most important and one has to be careful
in evaluating the intention of such partnerships, the kind of links that
the Type 2 proposals are aiming at have potential to narrow the gap be-
tween domestic and international arenas through research activities.
Policy and institutional linkages
Because ultimately multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have

to be implemented as policies at domestic level in one way or another, it
is obvious that there exist ‘‘vertical’’ linkages in policies and forces from
international to national policies. For example, upon ratification parties
to the Montreal Protocol have to comply with the agreement in the pro-
tocol, and therefore implement policies domestically that could reduce
the emissions of gases identified in the protocol in accordance with the
time line presented in the protocol. Similarly, parties to the Kyoto Pro-
tocol, once it is ratified, are obliged to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs).
As for international non-binding norms, the likelihood of compliance
depends on the capability and willingness of the state as well as on the
cost of compliance.39 After all, national sovereignty exists within a set-
ting of international anarchy, and therefore in principle transboundary,
regional, or global environmental problems cannot be solved unless the
international agreements to tackle them have to be complied with by na-
tional policies, no matter whether they are legally binding or not.
International norms as well as international recommendations such as
the endorsement of the ‘‘sustainable development’’ concept by the Gen-
eral Assembly of the United Nations have often been used as a rationale
for introducing a national environmental policy. Since environmental
ministries are often weak in the hierarchy of governmental power struc-
tures, endorsement by the international community can help introducing
new policy instruments at the national level. In a situation of controversy
over whether or not to introduce a particular policy measure, too, inter-
national forces may be used as (one of the) rationales to introduce the
policy. In the Netherlands the coalition government collapsed in 1989 as
a consequence of controversies over the financial resources to implement
the new comprehensive national environmental policy plan (NEPP). Af-
ter the general election the NEPP was adopted, but the necessity of a
new sustainable development policy plan was described in its preamble
in reference to Our Common Future, a report of the World Commission
on Sustainable Development established by the United Nations.40 Being
able to capture the domestic political momentum, international force
may be used effectively as a rationale to introduce a new policy or polit-
ical agenda into a national arena.
Once international agreement is adopted, well-designed domestic pol-
icy may function as a device for compliance. For example, the ‘‘target
group approach’’ of the Netherlands, as described in the previous section,
can translate international obligation (or objectives) into the target of
domestic stakeholders. In this way policy can link the international and
domestic arenas.
Outcomes of international negotiation can also link the international
and domestic policy arenas. The Kyoto Mechanisms in the Kyoto Proto-
col to mitigate climate change allow a country to conduct international
projects (the Joint Implementation and Clean Development Mechanism)
and international trading in GHG emissions. Therefore, domestic policies
implementing the Kyoto Mechanisms inevitably facilitate cross-border
environmental activities. Although officially the commitment period of
the Kyoto Protocol will not start until 2008, pilot-phase projects (mainly
in European countries) have shown that policies on the Kyoto Mecha-
nisms, along with reduction targets, have great potential to bring the
international agenda on climate change into a national policy arena in a
concrete manner, and facilitate the industry and business sector, for ex-
ample, to consider initiatives to prevent climate change.
Apart from policy mechanisms that bring international forces into
the domestic policy arena, we have, as described in the previous sec-
tion, the multi-stakeholder dialogues of the UN CSD as the only frame-
work at present in the UN functioning commissions that make a direct
link between international and domestic arenas by engaging various
multi-stakeholders.41 MSD-CSD has contributed to legitimizing the in-
volvement of NGOs at national and local-level policy-making in many
102 KANIE
countries. In this sense, the existence of MSD-CSD can by itself be re-

garded as an international force directed to national and subnational
arenas.
Although forces have been recognized to link the domestic and in-
ternational arenas, currently institutional (and non-institutional) vertical
linkage has been neither sufficiently addressed in practice nor stressed
in multilateral negotiation forums such as the WSSD process. Sustainable
development cannot be achieved unless the internationally agreed norm
is translated in the form of policy, and there seems to be an institutional
gap between these two arenas. In a sense this gap is obvious in the cur-
rent sovereign state system in international anarchy, but somehow the
gap should be narrowed in order to achieve the sustainable development
goal.
A study entitled ‘‘Global Change and Local Places: Estimating, Un-
derstanding and Reducing Greenhouse Gases’’ by the Association of
American Geographers (AAG) Global Change and Local Places
(GCLP) Research Group has shown the following results.42 Their argu-
ment, based on their four case studies on US local actions to combat cli-
mate change, showed that many local managers or representatives of
major emitters recognized the benefits of switching fuels and upgrading
technologies to emit less GHGs. And, therefore, there was a ‘‘widespread
preference for state and local regulatory oversight rather than by the
federal government’’, because emissions abatement is recognized as pri-
marily a local activity.43 However, ‘‘decisions about applications of many
of the technological opportunities could not be made by local managers’’,
and most of the political or economic decisions take place within the
context of larger-scale policies.44 More importantly, the current institu-
tional framework of incentives and mandates is not designed to encour-
age local actions so that local actors can act locally on global issues.
Therefore, they argue, government and business leaders at national and
global levels should give local communities more control over their ac-
tivities and provide technology options and other tools suited for local
conditions, and should develop more persuasive rewards for emission-
reduction initiatives at local level in order to make full use of the poten-
tial for GHG emissions reduction.
This kind of lack of authority is one of the reasons why local actors
cannot produce the innovative and locally plausible responses to prob-
lems that lead to a better regime design. Apart from this problem, there
are also other barriers. But before going into details of the barriers, we
should also pay attention to the institutional implication of the gaps. As
a central part of the framework for global environmental governance,
currently more than 200 multilateral environmental agreements exist.45
Dealing with these MEAs is, however, not an easy task at a domestic
level, because each MEA has requirements that cut across several gov-
ernmental agencies. In other words, the responsibility for dealing with
one global environmental MEA falls into more than one ministry and/or
agency at a national level due to the interdisciplinary nature of an envi-
ronmental issue.
This means that, first, domestic horizontal coordination is necessary in
order to accommodate the vertical linkage, because MEA requirements
fall into several agencies at national level (domestic coordination here
includes both national and local-level coordination). The UNU’s study on
how MEAs are dealt with by national agencies has pointed out that in-
stitutional coordination, which includes communication and information
sharing among various bodies related to MEA negotiations and imple-
mentation, is vitally important for better environmental governance. It
recommends that international and regional institutions can help coun-
tries by creating tools, including models of best practice, case studies, and
plans to provide examples and instructions that will guide the design of
harmonized programmes.46 Better coordination between various MEA
negotiating bodies as well as implementing bodies at domestic level has
central importance for creating synergies and eliminating overlap costs
for a better environmental governance structure.
Secondly, non-institutionalized vertical linkage should be enhanced
and facilitated in order to bring the vertical elements into the horizontal
coordination procedures. In this regard, the scientific community and
NGOs hold vitally important roles in realizing sustainable development
governance.
As for global to local forces, there has not yet been a sufficient link
between these two arenas, as the AAG-GCLP study has shown.47 Inter-
nationally decided agreements ought to be implemented at an appropri-
ate level of government policy, as a number of governments have recog-
nized the value of subsidiarity since the UN Conference on Environment
and Development (UNCED).48 The fact that global to local linkages
have not yet been established sufficiently means that we should look at
the barriers to narrowing the gaps between the international arena and
the local level that is ‘‘the sphere of government closest to the people’’.49
The International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI)
sees that ‘‘sufficient, coordinated action has not yet taken place’’ in order
to link local government with the global decision-making process.50 The
authority and resources required to meet the needs of citizens effectively
have not yet been transferred to local authorities. Furthermore, even if
a local authority does provide necessary actions, such as combating air
pollution, so far gains at the local level are being undermined by the loss
of local influence to multilateral bodies that make decisions on macro-
level policies.51 Therefore, there remain many spaces where better-
104 KANIE
informed policies and policies more rooted in the international norms

and agreements can be implemented. The following points may account
for the barriers that hinder the link between local and global policy arenas.
Lack of information network
There is a growing demand in local authorities to learn the practical
experience and knowledge of other local authorities in overcoming envi-
ronmental problems such as air pollution or water pollution. However,
there is a lack of an information network that allows local authorities
from the North and the South to obtain necessary information on pos-
sible international local-to-local cooperation. On the supply side, even
though some authorities know what they can offer out of their experience
and knowledge, there is no effective information network to provide
other authorities with such information. The system that has been used
mostly to find counterparts is the brother/sister city kind of relationship.
The same problem may be said of the demand side.52 Authorities would
like to find the best place to learn the best experience and knowledge.
However, since there is no effective information network, they have
either to visit other places one after another, or use the relationship of
brother/sister city in order to find their partners. Using the connection
of brother/sister city is beneficial in the sense that there is a certain level
of cooperation established between them so it is easier to get on track.
Also, because a brother/sister city relationship is likely to be established
on the similar strategic characteristics of the cities, such as industrial
or cultural position in the country, a cooperation arrangement between
brother/sister cities may easily sit within the overall strategy of the cities,
and thus be supported by constituents. However, this does not guarantee
that authorities can acquire the best experience and knowledge. More-
over, the information tends to be collected in the capital city, which is
sometimes far from the rural people who often need such information
most urgently. For them, participation in international forums such as the
MSD-CSD is often not financially supported.
Furthermore, even in the case that the importance of a network is rec-
ognized, to institutionalize a network between local people and people
beyond the border is difficult, due partly to human resources and lan-
guage. Local people often have difficulty in speaking other languages
than their own, thus even when networking is possible, it is based on
individual capacity and often not institutionalized. Thus, a sustainable
relationship has not been established.
Language barriers
Language can be a barrier for people in non-English-speaking countries
in obtaining information, as was pointed out earlier. Local people, both
officials and the public, often speak only their own mother tongue. Fur-
thermore, in most developing countries and countries in transition there
are usually no funds available for translation at national or local levels.53
Limits to resources
Although decentralization is explicitly pursued in documents such as
Agenda 21 and Local Agenda 21, authority and resources, including
human and financial resources, available to local authorities have in fact
been very limited. When funding is available, it is sometimes the case
that the local authority does not have control over the funding, and sub-
sequently it can only implement short-term or ad hoc projects rather
than projects that have the longer-term perspectives which are necessary
for environmental protection. This limitation inhibits flexibility and in-
novation on the part of local government, and undermines its ability to
provide the increased efficiency and greater equity that are necessary for
the ultimate goal of decentralization. Some domestic and international
funding agencies have started to fund local initiatives, but this policy
has not yet taken root, partly because of the lack of dissemination of
such information, and partly because of the lack of capacity within local
authorities.
In addition to the lack of capacity, in many countries even the very le-
gitimacy of the local government is questioned, and this of course causes
limitation to the reliability of the local authorities. The reasons for this
may be a lack of accountability to constituents, insufficient involve-
ment of citizens in the political process, inadequate representation of all
stakeholder interests, insufficient transparency in the governing process,
and/or corruption.54
Capacity to understand problems beyond the local
A local authority is the government closest to the people. The other side
of the coin is that officials in a local authority may be good at grasping
problems at their own local jurisdiction but may have difficulty in under-
standing what happens beyond their jurisdiction. For example, an official
in a developed country encountering problems with waste disposal may
not only be unable to understand the global context of waste disposal,
but also may not have enough scope for thinking of what happens in local
communities in Tuvalu where local people are affected by the sea level
rising as a consequence of climate change. Generally speaking, local
people in developed countries tend to be conscious of local environmen-
tal problems whose impacts are discernible to them, but tend to be un-
conscious of their international contexts and other global environmental
problems whose impacts tend to come out in the most serious manner in
local communities in the most vulnerable parts of the earth.
106 KANIE
Representatives to international negotiations

Although some local governments are very successful in tackling sus-
tainable development issues, it is quite unusual that a local government
representative is included in a national delegation to a global conference
or an MEA negotiation. Currently they only take part in the multi-
stakeholder dialogue. The inclusion of representatives of local govern-
ments in national delegations may bring international norms and princi-
ples into local policies.
Concluding remarks: Implications for global environmental

governance
Apart from the academic literature, so far little attention has been paid
to the importance of vertical linkage, or what Young calls ‘‘vertical in-
terplay’’.55 However, there are needs for enhancing vertical linkage, and
there are forces emerging recently to facilitate narrowing the vertical
distance, be it adjacent or remote arrangements. The emerging forces are
summarized in Table 5.2. The following six points emerge out of the ex-
amination of this chapter, and may fill in the gap and create more solid
vertical linkage.
0 Although state representatives may continue to be the main actors
in ‘‘international’’ negotiation, non-governmental multi-stakeholder
participation (including researchers and scientists) in international
negotiation should be enhanced and facilitated. This can make the
negotiation text more rooted in reality and more informed, and also
make the commitment to implementation stronger. Given the higher
profile of NGOs and business/industry organizations these days, ‘‘in-
teractive diplomacy’’ has a great potential to enrich negotiation texts
in terms of the wider social backbone. Financial support for their par-
ticipation, especially for those from developing countries, should be
enhanced. In this regard, including them in government delegations,
where relevant, may be one possibility. Their inclusion can also diver-
sify and enhance expertise and ideas, so that they may even have the
capacity for intellectual leadership.56
0 Non-governmental multi-stakeholders participating in international
negotiation should also be involved in domestic or local-level policy
processes. So far, there seems to be a work division between ‘‘interna-
tional people’’ and ‘‘domestic people’’, but integration can bring in-
ternational perspectives and ongoing international ideas into domestic
policies, which is particularly important for policies at a local level.
Local policies are much more segregated into small sections than in-
Table 5.2 Forces and barriers around vertical linkages
International relations
approach NGOs Science Policy and institutions
International 0 Participate in domestic 0 International research 0 MEA (including
decision-making and institutions’ proposals mechanisms)
implementation and partnerships with 0 International pressure
government (norms, international
0 ‘‘Type 2’’ opinion)
0 Participate in national 0 MSD
!
epistemic community
Interaction and 0 Two-level games Barrier
barriers 0 Vertical interplay 0 Information
0 Interactive diplomacy etc. 0 Language
0 Institution (including resources and capacity)
0 Too many MEAs and requirements
0 Participate in international 0 Provide research results 0 Policies with external
decision-making to like-minded states dimensions (big power)
0 Through/as delegation 0 Participate in epistemic 0 Innovative policies/setting
communities an example (small/middle
powers)
0 Regulation led by

business/industry coalition
Local with CSOs
107
108 KANIE
ternational decision-makers would think. Policy segregation may be a

result of the necessity for concrete policy implementation, but some
extent of recognition of linkages with other issues may help improve
further effectiveness in terms of both environmental integrity and eco-
nomic effectiveness. Scientists and other multi-stakeholders’ participa-
tion in domestic policy processes may also facilitate horizontal policy
coordination, which is necessary for effective implementation of the
various MEAs.
0 In order to facilitate grass-roots multi-stakeholder participation in
domestic and international policy processes, language and information
barriers that have hindered their participation should be eliminated. In
this regard, capacity building, education, and technology transfer are
effective, and have great importance in terms of narrowing the ver-
tical gap, too. The emergence of international demands to enhance
environmental education during the WSSD process is welcomed in this
connection.
0 A domestic policy may become innovative by taking into account
international perspectives, and not just taking domestic political situa-
tions into account. An innovative policy may appear to be advanta-
geous in exerting international influence. This will be very important
for developing countries, too, in the years to come. For example, when
climate change negotiations start focusing on the inclusion of develop-
ing countries, what developing countries have by way of a domestic
policy may turn out to have a positive (or negative) influence on the
result of the international negotiation. In other cases, local-level ‘‘tri-
angular’’ initiatives of business-NGO-state partnerships may turn out
to create a ‘‘triangular’’ diplomacy.57
0 Subsidiarity should be seriously and realistically taken into account in
domestic policies, including in terms of financial resources.
0 International agreements need to pay more attention to international
and domestic links. At present most of the discussions deal with inter-
national and domestic arenas separately, and divide the levels into
global, regional, national, and local levels, as is seen in the discussion
leading up to the WSSD. Linkage has been paid less attention. Paying
more attention to vertical linkages will reduce the loss of resources that
is produced through friction between levels. In this connection, a pos-
sibility for improved synergy between levels may exist in enhancing the
regional level as a device that bridges the gap between national and
global levels, as Jonathan Strand argues in this volume.
It has been argued that the current situation around multilateralism is
a contest between the ‘‘old’’ and the ‘‘new’’ forms of multilateralism. The
existing state-centric multilateralim is a top-down affair that ‘‘coordinates
relations among three or more states on the basis of generalized princi-
ples of conduct’’. The new, emerging form of multilateralism is based

upon the participation of global civil society and is built from the bottom
up.58 As has been seen in this chapter, there are forces and practical
actions to converge the ‘‘top’’ and the ‘‘bottom’’. In terms of domestic-
international linkage, the important thing is narrowing the gap between
those two arenas by accommodating the forces from both domestic and
international sides in the institutional design. To date, however, system-
atic policy-oriented research about how vertical linkage can be effectively
created and institutionally accommodated has been rare. Narrowing ver-
tical gaps is as important as narrowing the horizontal gaps. Therefore,
equal attention needs to be paid to vertical linkage as growing attention
has been paid to horizontal interlinkages.
Notes
1. For example, Putnam, R. D. 1988. ‘‘Diplomacy and domestic politics: The logic of two-
level games’’, International Organization, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 427–460; Evans, P. B.,
H. K. Jacobson, and R. D. Putnam (eds). 1993. Double-edged Diplomacy: International
Bargaining and Domestic Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press; Keohane,
R. O. and H. V. Milner. 1996. Internationalization and Domestic Politics. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press; Schreurs, M. A. and E. C. Economy (eds). 1997. The In-
ternationalization of Environmental Protection. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press; Rosenau, James N. 1997. Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Gover-
nance in a Turbulent World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. According to the Commission on Global Governance, governance is defined as ‘‘the
sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their
common affairs’’. See Commission on Global Governance. 1995. Our Global Neigh-
bourhood: The Report of the Commission on Global Governance. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
3. Schreurs and Economy, note 1 above, p. 3.
4. Ibid.
5. Young, Oran R. 2002. The Institutional Dimensions of Environmental Change: Fit,
Interplay, and Scale. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 85.
6. Waltz, Kenneth N. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading, MA: Addison-
Wesley.
7. Of course, there had been challenges to the realist interpretation of international rela-
tions before this. See, for example, Singer, J. D. 1961. ‘‘The level-of-analysis problem
in international relations’’, World Politics, Vol. 14, pp. 77–92; Rosenau, James N. (ed.).
1969. Linkage Politics: Essays on the Convergence of National and International Systems.
New York: Free Press.
8. Keohane and Milner, note 1 above; Economy, E. C. and M. A. Schreurs. 1997. ‘‘Do-
mestic and international linkages in environmental politics’’, in M. A. Schreurs and
E. C. Economy (eds) The Internationalization of Environmental Protection. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
9. Putnam, note 1 above, p. 473.
10. Evans, Jacobson, and Putnam, note 1 above; Schreurs and Economy, note 1 above;
Underdal, A. and K. Hanf (eds). 2000. International Environmental Agreements and
Domestic Politics: The Case of Acid Rain. Hampshire: Ashgate.
110 KANIE
11. Young, note 5 above, pp. 84–85.

12. Cooper, Andrew F. 2002. ‘‘Like-minded nations, NGOs, and the changing pattern of
diplomacy within the UN system: An introductory perspective’’, in Andrew F. Cooper,
John English, and Ramesh Thakur (eds) Enhancing Global Governance: Towards A
New Diplomacy. Tokyo: United Nations University Press. Furthermore, even state del-
egations have begun to include non-state actors in some cases.
13. Based on Cooper, ibid.
14. Princen, T. and M. Finger. 1994. Environmental NGOs in World Politics: Linking the
Local and the Global. London: Routledge.
15. For more details on the account of CSO-business/industry partnerships, see the chapter
by Mikoto Usui in this volume.
16. Elias, V. 2000. ‘‘Who is aware of Agenda 21? Missing conditions: Three major barriers’’,
in F. Dodds (ed.) Earth Summit 2002. London: Earthscan, p. 32.
17. Hemmati, Minu (ed.). 2002. Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustain-
ability: Beyond Deadlock and Conflict. London: Earthscan.
18. Dodds, F. 2002. ‘‘The context: Multi-stakeholder processes and global governance’’,
in Minu Hemmati (ed.) Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability:
Beyond Deadlock and Conflict. London: Earthscan, p. 33. Major groups identified
in Agenda 21 are women, youth, indigenous peoples, NGOs, business and industry,
workers and trade unions, the science and technology industry, farmers, and local au-
thorities. In this chapter the term NGO is more widely defined, and all the major groups
except for local authorities are referred to as NGOs.
19. Ringius, Lasse. 1999. ‘‘Differentiation, leaders, and fairness: Negotiating climate com-
mitments in the European Community’’, International Negotiation, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.
133–166; Kanie, Norichika. 2001. Chikyu Kankyou Gaiko to Kokunaiseisaku: Kyoto
Giteisho wo meguru Ofanda no Gaikou to Seisaku (Global Environmental Diplomacy
and Domestic Policy: The Netherlands at the Kyoto Protocol Negotiation). Tokyo: Keio
University Press; Kanie, Norichika. 2003. ‘‘Leadership in multilateral negotiation and
domestic policy: The Netherlands at the Kyoto Protocol negotiation’’, International
Negotiation, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 339–365.
20. Andrew F. Cooper, John English, and Ramesh Thakur (eds) Enhancing Global Gover-
nance: Towards A New Diplomacy. Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
21. Haas, Peter M. 1990. Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environ-
mental Cooperation. New York: Columbia University Press; Haas, Peter M. (ed.). 1992.
Knowledge, Power, and International Policy Coordination. Columbia: University of
South Carolina Press; Herter, C. A. Jr and J. E. Binder. 1993. ‘‘The role of the secre-
tariat in multilateral negotiation’’, Foreign Policy Institute Case Studies No. 21. Wash-
ington, DC: SAIS, Johns Hopkins University.
22. Economy and Schreurs, note 8 above.
23. Haas, Peter M. 2000. ‘‘Choosing to comply: Theorizing from international relations and
comparative politics’’, in D. Shelton (ed.) Commitment and Compliance: The Role of
Non-binding Norms in the International Legal System. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
p. 43.
24. Kanie 2001, note 19 above; Kanie 2003, note 19 above.
25. Liefferink, Duncan. 1997. ‘‘The Netherlands: A net exporter of environmental policy
concepts’’, in Mikael Skou Andersen and Duncan Liefferink (eds) European Environ-
mental Policy: The Pioneers. Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 214.
26. Underdal, A. 1994. ‘‘Leadership theory: Rediscovering the arts of management’’, in I.
William Zartman (ed.) International Multilateral Negotiation: Approaches to the Man-
agement of Complexity. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 178–197 at p. 185.
27. Ibid.
28. Allenby, Branden R. 1999. Industrial Ecology Policy Framework and Implementation.
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, p. 265; De Jongh, Paul E. and Sean Captain.
1999. Our Common Journey: A Pioneering Approach to Cooperative Environmental
Management. London and New York: Zed Books.
29. DeSombre, Elizabeth R. 2000. Domestic Sources of International Environmental Policy:
Industry, Environmentalists, and US Power. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press,
p. 244.
30. Ibid.
31. Hemmati, note 17 above.
32. The CSD was established in 1993 by ECOSOC Decision 1993/207, and accredits more
than 1,000 NGOs.
33. Dodds, note 18 above.
34. Kanie 2003, note 19 above.
35. Elias, note 16 above.
36. Ibid., p. 36.
37. Haas 1990, note 21 above; Haas 1992, note 21 above; Herter and Binder, note 21 above.
38. Hemmati, note 17 above.
39. Haas, note 23 above.
40. World Commission on Environment and Development. 1997. Our Common Future.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
41. Dodds, note 18 above.
42. Kates, Robert W. and Thomas J. Wilbanks. 2003. ‘‘Making the global local: Responding
to climate change concerns from the ground up’’, Environment, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 12–
23.
43. Ibid., p. 19.
44. Ibid.
45. Royal Institute of International Affairs. 2000. Global Environmental Institutions: Anal-
ysis and Options for Change. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, p. 30.
46. Van Toen, C. 2001. ‘‘Delegates’ perceptions on synergies and the implementation of
MEAs: Views from the ESCAP region’’, UNU Discussion Paper Series 2001–2002.
Tokyo: United Nations University Global Environment Information Centre.
47. Kates and Wilbanks, note 42 above.
48. Subsidiarity means that ‘‘service delivery should be performed by the most imme-
diate sphere of government which can best address constituent needs while maintaining
economic and administrative efficiencies of scale and scope’’. See ICLEI. 2001. ‘‘Local
government dialogue paper for the World Summit on Sustainable Development’’,
E/CN.17/2002/PC.2/6/Add. 5.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. Personal interview with a civil servant attending the Conference on International
Cooperation on Sustainable Development, 18 November 2001, Kitakyushu, Japan.
53. Elias, note 16 above.
54. ICLEI, note 48 above.
55. Young, note 5 above.
56. Little is know in this field, however. The functions and effects of multi-stakeholder par-
ticipation in global decision-making processes in the form of national delegation mem-
bers need to be researched further.
57. Strange, S. 1992. ‘‘States, firms and diplomacy’’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 1,
pp. 1–15; Cooper, note 12 above.
58. Regarding ‘‘new’’ and ‘‘old’’ forms of multilateralism, see Ruggie, J. G. (ed.). 1993.
112 KANIE
Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an Institutional Form. New York
and Chichester: Columbia University Press; Cox, R. W. (ed.). 1997. The New Realism:
Perspectives on Multilateralism and World Order. Hampshire and London: Macmillan/
United Nations University Press; Gill, S. (ed.). 1997. Globalisation, Democratisation and
Multilateralism. Hampshire and London: Macmillan/United Nations University Press;
O’Brien, R., A. M. Goetz, J. A. Scholte, and M. Williams. 2000. Contesting Global
Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements. London
and New York: Cambridge University Press. Quote from Ruggie.
Science-policy interface for
6
Science policy for multilateral
Peter M. Haas1
The need for science policy applied to the management of transboundary

and global environmental threats is now widely recognized. This chapter
looks at lessons about the scientific functions that need to be performed
to achieve effective multilateral environmental governance, and the in-
stitutional design by which such functions may be best performed.
Much of the current context of international environmental gover-
nance, for which policy advice is needed, is one of uncertainty. Global
environmental systems are characterized by non-linear, complex behav-
iour associated with cumulative environmental change with both short-
term and long-term consequences.2 Funtowicz and Ravetz write:
Whereas science was previously understood as steadily advancing the certainty of

our knowledge and control of the natural world, it is now seen as coping with
many uncertainties in urgent technological and environmental decisions on a
global scale. A new role for scientists will involve the management of the crucial
uncertainties: therein lies the task of assuring the quality of the scientific infor-
mation provided for policy decisions. Moreover . . . ‘‘scientific evidence has a long
row to hoe to have a distinctive impact on policy’’.3
Under such circumstances, decision-makers need information about the

nature of threats, how each actor will be affected, and the types of ar-
rangements that can be collectively developed to address such trans-
boundary and global risks.
115
116 HAAS
The relevant body of scientific knowledge that is needed is here termed

‘‘usable knowledge’’.4 Usable knowledge is accurate information that is
of use to politicians and policy-makers. It must be accurate, and politi-
cally tractable for its users. It frequently exceeds the mastery of any tra-
ditional disciplinary approach.
Clark and Majone5 offer four criteria of usable knowledge: its ade-
quacy, value, legitimacy, and effectiveness. Adequacy relates to including
all the relevant knowledge or facts germane to the matter at hand. Value
has to do with contributing to further understanding and meaningful
policy. Legitimacy relates to its acceptance by others outside the com-
munity that developed it. Effectiveness relates to its ability to shape the
agenda or advance the state of the debate, and, ultimately, improve the
quality of the environment.
Yet science has become extremely politicized. It is often found that
good science falls on deaf ears, or is met with bad science, when the
politics favour neglecting it. Writers in the field of science, technology,
and society investigate the implicit values and the distributional con-
sequences of science.6 Three challenges to its authority are often raised.
Scientific consensus is often suspect because the scientists themselves are
part of a broader cultural discourse, and thus lack autonomy or indepen-
dent stature: scientific findings may reflect the bias of sponsors. Secondly,
the use of science is mediated and thus possibly distorted by the political
goals of potential users. Thirdly, science is political in its consequences,
because some benefit and others suffer as a consequence of policy op-
tions that are supported by the application of scientific understanding. To
the extent that those affected by the use of science in formulating policy
are not consulted in its development and application, the use of science is
potentially regarded by those affected as an illegitimate and exploitative
set of discursive practices.
Thus the possibility for accuracy is questioned, and the political trac-
tability is undermined by the reduced political authority of science to
offer meaningful statements about the threats, their urgency, and re-
sponses. If recipients are not confident in the usefulness of scientific
knowledge it will not be used.
Yet many still regard science advice as necessary, even if its philo-
sophical expectations are somewhat reduced. Current research from
comparative politics, IR, policy studies, and democratic theory suggests
that science remains influential if its expertise and claims are developed
behind a politically insulated wall.7 Ravetz and Funtowicz argue for a
procedural approach to developing usable knowledge by including mul-
tiple disciplines and multiple stakeholders.8
A new consensus is emerging amongst social scientists who study the
SCIENCE POLICY FOR ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE 117
use of science in international regimes. They suggest that science must be

developed authoritatively, and then delivered by responsible carriers to
politicians. The more autonomous and independent science is from pol-
icy, the great its potential influence.9 Consensus in isolation builds value
and integrity, and then its consequences should be discussed publicly.
Measures of autonomy and integrity include the selection and funding of
scientists by IOs rather than by governments, their recruitment by merit
on important panels, and reliance on individuals whose reputation and
authority rest on their role as active researchers rather than policy
advocates or science administrators. Accuracy can be achieved via peer
review, interdisciplinary research teams, and independence from spon-
soring sources.
Political legitimacy rests on a process of knowledge development and
diffusion that is scrupulously free of political interference. International
institutions can help foster and disseminate information, and sanitize it
so that it is not seen as compromised by potential users who may fear
that the information is controlled by one country. Studies of national-
level environmental policy processes have convincingly argued against
relying on individual institutions for research and policy advice, because
they may bias the information flow and control resources.10
Partial lessons are available from national experiences with the use of
science policy, and their design of institutions to generate usable science.
A major lesson from efforts in the USA to provide usable knowledge
for domestic policy-making – the National Transportation Safety Board,
the Office of Technology Assessment, and the international trade com-
missions – is that political impartiality is vital if technical information is
to be used as the foundation for policy, in terms of leadership that
does not correspond to political election cycles and recruitment on merit.
The timely submission of reports according to the legislative cycle is also
key.11 While national monitoring efforts have been critiqued for their
mismatch with the legislative timescales, at the international level, where
regimes are administered by secretariats and COPs (conferences of the
parties) that meet periodically, surprising monitoring results can be ef-
fectively introduced into the following year’s agenda for addressing new
threats.
While international institutions often have fewer resources and less
autonomy than their national counterparts, international institutions
often have a stronger influence over the supply of usable knowledge
when they are not monolithic. Effective international institutions in the
environmental and sustainable development domains have been those
which operate through networks composed of other international insti-
tutions and elements of civil society.12
118 HAAS
Scientific functions
Usable science covers a range of understandings. Dimitrov distinguishes

between knowledge about the extent of the problem, knowledge about
the causes of the problem, and knowledge about its consequences for
human societies.13 The Social Learning Group volumes distinguish be-
tween six different categories of knowledge as it is used in the conduct of
policy formation: monitoring, risk assessment, options, goals and strat-
egies, implementation, and evaluation.14
The focus here is on a smaller number of science policy functions
that are widely believed to be necessary for effective multilateral envi-
ronmental policy: basic knowledge, environmental monitoring, and policy
advice. The data are drawn from an e-mail survey administered to MEA
(multilateral environmental agreement, or regime) secretariats, secondary
literature on MEAs, and the Yearbook of International Cooperation on
Environment and Development.15 A summary of the findings is presented
in Table 6.1.
When each scientific policy function is performed well, in conjunction
they can contribute to effective environmental governance. By effective
governance is meant improved environmental quality that is the conse-
quence of changed state policies influenced by international regimes.
Examples where well-designed science policy functions correlate with
environmental improvement include stratospheric ozone protection and
European acid rain. Efforts to protect the Mediterranean Sea from pol-
lution are a moderate example, where mobilized science informed policy-
making but the quality of the monitoring remains sketchy. Efforts to
protect other regional seas from pollution often lack any systematic sci-
entific involvement, and have few accomplishments to date in terms of
their ability to reverse environmental degradation.16
There are multiple causal links between the performance of these
science functions and effective governance. Usable knowledge can influ-
ence states’ political will and technical ability to address environmental
threats through the provision of an institutional venue for holding coop-
erative meetings, by improving the capacity for environmental planning
and protection, and by enhancing the concern of government officials and
élites about the nature, extent, and magnitude of environmental threats.
Each scientific function, if well performed, may contribute to more effec-
tive multilateral environmental governance as states learn of new threats
and new ways to respond to problems that confront them.17 Good mon-
itoring can provide informational resources to actors who will publicize
issues and contribute to agenda setting and setting collective norms and
rules. Usable policy advice can educate government officials, improve the
quality of environmental policies, and contribute to robust regime

formation.
In addition, well-designed and well-performed scientific functions
may be interactive. For instance, climate change monitoring has pro-
voked political action to set meaningful goals for reducing greenhouse
gas emissions. Stratospheric ozone monitoring encourages states to ban
CFCs, and then move to accelerate the pace of their elimination as well
as expanding the list of regulated substances. Ozone monitoring has also
eased verification of state compliance with their obligations, as well as
evaluating the effectiveness of the regime. In European acid rain regula-
tion, monitoring led to the formulation of alternative policy responses
to prevent acidification, as decision-makers became aware of new eco-
systems at risk.18 Next the chapter looks at ways to organize monitoring
and policy advice better to improve effectiveness.
Basic science is the development of understanding of the behaviour
of transboundary and global ecosystems, at a level of resolution that
provides meaningful information to policy-makers about environmental
effects at national and subnational levels. Improvements in basic science
can contribute to agenda setting, early warning, and policy choice.
Monitoring is the systematic collection of information about environ-
mental quality. Accurate monitoring may lead to prompt agenda setting,
as well as to improving implementation by virtue of the shaming effect
of monitoring data, and to evaluation by providing data about regime
performance and observed environmental change in the target variable.
Most verification, though, relies on direct information about policy im-
plementation, rather than on indirect measures of national environmen-
tal performance.19 This section does not discuss systems of verification,
as they generally do not rely on science but on voluntary submission or
observations by third-party observers.
Policy advice involves the choice of specific national and collective
measures to address environmental degradation. Policy advice is likely
to influence the substance of international regime obligations and na-
tional environmental policy, as well as national compliance and regime
effectiveness.
Science is necessary for good policy, albeit not for cooperation. Coop-
eration without science occurs, but scientifically informed cooperation
has been more effective. It is necessary for good regime performance
and well-crafted policy. MEAs that have successfully reduced environ-
mental degradation all had arrangements for the provision of usable
knowledge, leading to the collective adoption of policies that were rea-
sonably linked to achieving tolerable levels of environmental protection
at socially acceptable costs. Moreover, supported by influential inter-
national institutions, usable knowledge helped to persuade governments
Table 6.1 Provisions for science in selected MEAs
120
Regime/MEA Effectiveness Monitoring Science and policy Comments
Stratospheric Very effective. Ozone- Governments monitor own The COP receives annual
ozone depleting substances emissions, and submit reports from the three
have been eliminated data to the secretariat. expert panels: Scientific
and the ozone layer is UNEP and NASA Assessment Panel,
significantly better than conduct independent Technology and Economics
it would have been in monitoring of the Assessment Panel, and
the absence of stratospheric ozone Environmental Effects
regulations. Most CFC layer. Assessment Panel. The
producers comply with secretariat and chairs enjoy
the regime. some discretion in
appointing members to the
panels based on merit.
Acid rain/ Very effective at reducing Regularized monitoring Policies are adopted by
LRTAP emissions of sulphur programme (EMEP) of executive body committees.
and nitrogen. Most a variety of acidifying Expert advice comes from
LRTAP countries substances, with national the Working Group on
comply with the reporting stations Strategies and Review,
regime. reporting to two national made up of experts officially
laboratories that report nominated by their govern-
to the secretariat. ments. The lead country can
Secretariat involves invite additional experts.
independent scientists to NGOs may request par-
ensure adequacy of data. ticipation, and the choice
is made by the secretariat
or the executive body com-
mittee. UNECE Secretariat
and IIASA work with a
network of university-based
modellers to provide
estimates of critical loads
for policy adoption.
Biodiversity Not effective No monitoring entity Subsidiary body on scientific,
established. Parties are technological, and technical
obligated to develop advice (SBSTTA),
national strategies that composed of nationally
contain some monitoring selected experts, provides
data, and are submitted technical advice to the
to the secretariat and COP. NGOs may be invited
then made public. NGOs to participate.
follow the reports and
publicize findings.
CCAMLR/ Self-reporting, no Scientific committee receives
Antarctica centralized authority. inputs from the Working
Group on Ecosystem
Monitoring and
Management. WG considers
results of national research.
WG is composed of
government-designated
experts. Secretariat has
little autonomy.
Whaling Moratorium has reversed No formal monitoring Moratorium applied by the
decline of endangered programme. Scientific COP since 1986. Scientific
whale species. committee is developing committee developed
Continued whaling by a comprehensive revised management
Japan, Iceland, and assessment of whale procedure in 1994 that is
Norway of non- stocks. not followed.
endangered species
threatens the
legitimacy of the
regime.
121
122
Table 6.1 (cont.)
Regime/MEA Effectiveness Monitoring Science and policy Comments
Mediterranean Governments have made National laboratories Secretariat has the authority
Sea efforts and quality has conduct monitoring to appoint scientists to
stabilized. (MEDPOL) according to standing committees.
a common protocol and Independent panels help to
submit results to IAEA develop standards for
laboratory or national achieving reductions of
laboratories, but great land-based pollutants.
inconsistency in national
reports makes synoptic
conclusions impossible.
Monitoring quality is
hampered by political
capacity.
North Sea Governments have made Ad hoc governmental- Policy is developed by
efforts, unclear that the nominated monitoring government-led panels.
sea is much cleaner. programme. While membership and
agendas are set by states,
lead countries have
incentives to publicize
stronger environmental
measures and technologies.
Climate Low, few legal Annex I (AICs) The COP is composed of The IPCC suffers
change obligations have been governments monitor ministers and high-ranking from a legiti-
adopted, and GHGs GHG emissions and officials of participating macy crisis of
have increased from submit triennial reports countries. It meets to governmental
major parties since to the secretariat for consider reports from the nomination,
1990. review by teams of IPCC and the subsidiary although formal
government-nominated body for scientific and design may allow
experts, coordinated by technical advice (SBSTA) for scientific
the secretariat. Reports The IPCC provides science integrity.
were submitted in 1994; policy advice. Its members
1997–1998; and 2001. are nominated by
governments, and rely on
peer-reviewed materials for
their reports.
Baltic Sea Governments have made Regularized national Policy is developed by Imaginative
efforts, unclear that the laboratories conduct government-led panels. innovation of
sea is much cleaner. monitoring. While membership and national
agendas are set by states, leadership on
lead countries have policy
incentives to publicize committees.
stronger environmental
measures and technologies.
123
124 HAAS
that their own self-interest was associated with preserving ecological

integrity.
Yet usable knowledge alone is neither necessary nor sufficient for
environmental cooperation. For instance, the North Sea governments
adopted a series of ministerial declarations during the 1980s to achieve
30–50 per cent reductions in the emissions of a large number of contam-
inants. However, in the absence of usable knowledge about the transfer
and deposition of contaminants in the North Sea, the environmental
effects of such regulations are unknown. In compliance with North Sea
ministerial declarations, the UK government has stopped dumping sew-
age sludge in the North Sea, even when scientific evidence suggests that
the UK contribution was marginal to North Sea environmental quality.
National ability to engage in multilateral environmental

governance
Ultimately, environmental monitoring requires participation by most
states. Yet many governments lack the capacity to perform most of
these environmental functions effectively. Many states lack the staff and
technology to monitor their environments effectively. Governments vary
broadly in their administrative ability to develop and enforce environ-
mental policies. A widespread problem facing environment ministries in
developing country governments is the small number of professional
staff, small budgets, and weak political influence over policy by the rest of
the government. Since foreign environmental policy is generally the result
of consultations amongst a number of functionally responsible agencies, a
politically weak environmental body undermines the overall ability to
form effective national environmental policy. Many governments could
benefit from adding science assessment units to their foreign ministries.
There is a strong need for resource transfers to build national capabil-
ity. A policy implication is to concentrate institution-building efforts on
countries in important geographic regions facing pressing transboundary
and global environmental threats, such as China, Brazil, and India. In-
ternational institutions can exercise limited forms of conditionality in
order to increase public resources for environmental agencies, and inter-
national institutions and NGOs can work to elevate the profile of na-
tional environmental agencies and their staffs.
Basic science
Basic science can provide a basic understanding of complex systems.
Usable basic science should still be capable of expressing major threats to
environmental quality, the consequences of different levels of environ-

mental quality, and some sense of ecosystems’ responsiveness to stresses.
Consensual knowledge about basic ecosystem behaviour has been effec-
tively used when it commands usable information about the behaviour of
a particular ecosystem – such as the Mediterranean, stratospheric ozone,
or European weather patterns – rather than a more comprehensive and
fundamental understanding of global patterns (such as global biogeo-
chemical cycles).
Keckes argues that a number of research programmes are under way
that may ‘‘improve the knowledge about the physical, chemical and bio-
logical processes which form the basis for maintenance and functioning of
marine ecosystems and the interaction of these processes with those tak-
ing place in the atmosphere and on land, including social and economic
development’’.20
The Global Environmental Change Programme is an example of this,
but has yet to provide the consensus for a systematic understanding of
global ecosystems.21 SCOPE panels, organized under the auspices of
the International Council of Scientific Unions, have also tried to organize
knowledge about the behaviour of core ecosystemic cycles. The current
Millennium Ecosystem study focuses on living systems, and similar efforts
have been made to accumulate knowledge about specific ecosystems.
Much of this understanding remains to be developed. Knowledge re-
mains concentrated on the behaviour of specific ecosystems, rather than
of the earth as a whole.
Studies of global change science also address the substantive nature
and the process by which such basic understanding is to be achieved.
William Clark argues that:
[Substantive] knowledge systems for sustainability will require an unprecedented

degree of integration. Expertise from the communities of environmental con-
servation, human health, and economic development will need to be harnessed
in problem-solving efforts. Particularly challenging will be drawing into these
collaborative endeavors the vast resources of informal expertise that comes from
practical experience in grappling with particular sustainability problems in par-
ticular social and ecological settings.22
The organization and communication of such systematic knowledge

is essential. Not only does such basic knowledge come from collaborative
work of groups of scientists representing different disciplines – from both
the natural and the social sciences – but they must also be skilled in
communicating their knowledge to people from other disciplines, as
well as to the media, politicians, and popular audiences.23 In addition to
basic science there is a need to develop better the communication skills
126 HAAS
for imparting such knowledge to various audience, and to train global

change scientists in such techniques.
Monitoring
Effective environmental policy needs an overall assessment of ecosystem

health, as well as monitoring of ongoing trends. These are useful for es-
tablishing baselines and early-warning systems, as well as for ongoing
monitoring of existing efforts to determine if additional effort is required
to achieve environmental protection. Monitoring should be impartial,
comprehensive, and synoptic. Participants in monitoring programmes
should be selected on merit.
Many monitoring schemes are conducted globally.24 The open oceans
are studied through UNESCO’s IOC and the International Council for
the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). Species-specific fisheries councils, the
FAO, and the ICES monitor fisheries. Atmospheric monitoring is con-
ducted by the WMO (World Meteorological Organization). Joint pro-
grammes of UNEP, the FAO, the WMO, and the WHO conduct some
fresh water quality and urban air quality monitoring. Stratospheric ozone
is monitored by UNEP, and European acid rain through LRTAP (the
Long Range Transport of Atmospheric Pollution regime, administered
by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe). Biodiversity
monitoring is conducted by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre
and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). UNEP was initially de-
signed to be responsible for conducting global environmental assess-
ments through its World Watch programme, but these have taken a long
time to develop and UNEP lacks the budgetary resources to perform ex-
tensive monitoring.25 UNEP published a Global Environmental Outlook
in 1997, 1999, and 2002,26 summarizing trends in some of the major
global ecosystems. But the degree of aggregation to achieve public rec-
ognition for such global reviews often sacrifices the kind of resolution
that would make the monitoring data useful for evaluating actual change
over time in controlling emissions and human activities responsible for
those emissions.
Most monitoring efforts are organized regionally, within the broader
institutional design of MEAs designed to address specific environmental
threats, such as UNEP’s many regional seas programmes. Some notice-
able monitoring gaps remain, such as land use and solid waste disposal.
In practice, environmental monitoring responsibilities as stipulated
in MEAs vary widely. Forty-eight MEAs call for environmental quality
monitoring. Submission of monitoring reports is mandatory in 81 per cent
of the cases, and voluntary in 19 per cent. Annual reports are required
in 17 per cent of the MEAs, biannual reports in 19 per cent, and triennial
in 2 per cent. The rest are unspecified. Governments are responsible for
conducting monitoring in 69 per cent of the MEAs, international institu-
tions are charged with conducting monitoring in 8 per cent of the cases,
and governments are instructed to provide their monitoring results to
international institutions in 4 per cent of the MEAs. Nineteen per cent
of the MEAs have no provisions for who is responsible for performing
monitoring. Some MEAs provide for free-standing monitoring commit-
tees, nominated by the secretariat based on merit. Other MEAs rely on
national submissions, or defer to independent commissions (such as the
global monitoring programmes discussed above). Others have rotating
bodies, coordinated by the COPs or the rotating chair of the MEA.
These last arrangements suffer from poor administration and poorly in-
tercalibrated results. Diffuse national networks are capable of providing
information, but suffer from political scepticism because the networks are
too closely tied to governmental sources.
Still other MEAs rely on ad hoc committees convened periodically
to study the environmental quality of a environmental resource, such as
the North Sea and the Baltic environmental quality status reports. These
efforts have little persistent political influence, and do not generate on-
going useful material. While they may serve a short-term agenda-setting
function by publicizing environmental threats, they do not fully serve the
monitoring function because assessments may only be made every five
years, and the reports do not systematically monitor for the same sub-
stances, so no comprehensive picture of the health of the environment
emerges. More often these surveys are conducted in order to identify
‘‘hot-spots’’ for policy attention. Inventorying hot-spots, rather than con-
ducting open-ended monitoring, is growing increasingly popular. The
Mediterranean, Baltic, and North Seas have all adopted hot-spots pro-
grammes. However, if such efforts are at the expense of more general
monitoring they exclude the possibility of achieving early warning of new
threats.
The best arrangement for organizing monitoring is through free-
standing regular standing committees that report on an annual or bi-
annual basis to the MEA. Standing committees provide for uniform
reporting, with no loss of institutional memory. In conjunction with re-
cruitment provisions based on merit they can confer accurate data about
which decision-makers may be confident. While governments often nom-
inate groups to participate in monitoring activities, secretariats can en-
courage the use of individuals or institutions based on their professional
reputations. It is easier to mobilize and consolidate a policy network
around standing committees than ad hoc ones, or independent commis-
sions unconnected to the MEA. Such committees should also study a
128 HAAS
standard list of substances over time, so as to be able to provide synoptic

information about environmental quality, and provide the data for eval-
uating the success of a regime at stemming environmental degradation.
NGOs sometimes serve as monitors, particularly in conservation re-
gimes. They may suffer problems with public credibility, though, as
their reports are widely suspected of not being partial. However, NGOs
serve as useful counterweights to national monitoring reports to ensure
accountability.
Monitoring is often insufficiently complete to provide a thorough pic-
ture of environmental quality. In addition, monitoring programmes often
fail to study the same substances over time, shifting substances in order
to provide an early-warning service rather than an overall monitoring
function. Even UNEP’s three Global Environmental Outlook publica-
tions treated different substances in each review.27
Much of the environment can be monitored remotely from satellites,
and does not require the active collection and submission of data by
governments.28 Remote sensing and satellite monitoring would also en-
hance verification of trends in natural resource use and marine pollution
from organic sources and oil, as well as helping in monitoring levels and
production of greenhouse gases, although ground truthing is still neces-
sary to confirm remote sensing data. Satellite and airplane base monitor-
ing are less effective at monitoring inorganic marine contamination and
urban air quality, for instance, which require localized sampling. More
serious than such technical considerations about remote sensing are the
political concerns associated with acquiring the information. Some de-
veloping countries are loath to cede access to information about their
countries, which they regard as a matter of national sovereignty. Assur-
ing intercalibrated results requires careful attention and repeated visits
by training teams to assure that similar techniques and equipment are
used at each monitoring station.29
While most monitoring appears to be subcontracted by governments to
universities or government laboratories, it is important that those engag-
ing in the monitoring be suitably trained so that the results are compati-
ble with those from other countries. Some international institutions have
provisions for evaluating and calibrating data submitted from national
agencies, through some arrangements for third-party evaluation of data –
as with LRTAP’s two regional data-processing centres.
Funding for monitoring should come from a stable single international
source, to counter the short-term political funding cycles of national
governments. Some programmes may periodically have insufficient fund-
ing, or the substances they monitor may have gaps over time because the
sponsors shifted the monitoring agenda to reflect immediate political
concerns in their countries.
More attention could be directed to establishing indirect measures of

environmental stress. Few efforts have been undertaken to monitor the
social driving forces behind environmental contamination, rather than
engaging in direct observation of degradation. Closer attention could be
paid to human populations at risk as an early-warning sign of environ-
mental degradation, or to patterns of human activity known to generate
specific and serious environmental threats. Few examples of such antici-
patory monitoring yet exist, and generally exist only for Europe, where
data are better. The two Dobris Assessments released by the European
Environmental Agency (in 1991 and 1995) looked at social indicators,
as have OECD reports and some World Bank publications on energy use
and on deforestation.
Policy advice
Scientific consensus can inform policy when groups responsible for artic-
ulating consensus have stable access to decision-makers. For instance,
in the LRTAP, stratospheric ozone, and Mediterranean MEAs, stable
institutional arrangements were in place to transfer scientific consensus
about the source and extent of environmental threats, as well as policy
responses. In each of those MEAs policy was adopted based on the sci-
entific consensus and the quality of the environment improved, or at least
the rate of degradation was slowed.
However, for consensus to be acceptable to leaders it must emerge
through channels that are viewed as legitimate by the leaders. Typically
these are established when the scientists have a reputation for expertise,
when the knowledge was generated beyond suspicion of policy bias
by sponsors, and when the information is transmitted to governments
through personal networks.30 These networks, called epistemic com-
munities, can be supported by international institutions – such as UNEP
and the Mediterranean Action Plan – and the policy advice will be dis-
seminated from international institutions to governments, from national
laboratories and networks up to governments, and from within govern-
ment administrations to the top levels of decision-making when these in-
dividuals are hired as consultants or environmental agency officials. The
spread of policy advice is generally through interpersonal channels.
Most science policy is provided in the context of individual regulatory
regimes. Thus, different networks are mobilized for each MEA. This is
generally the case because usable policy knowledge is highly issue spe-
cific: for example, experts in marine policy lack expertise in the manage-
ment of other environmental media. In addition, national environmental
agencies and international institutions are organized functionally to
130 HAAS
address environmental threats by media: for instance, air pollution ex-

perts do not work in the same agency as marine pollution experts and are
members of entirely distinct policy networks. The Joint Group of Experts
on Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution (GESAMP) is a rare body that
provides periodic reviews of the health or state of the marine environ-
ment with a high degree of policy legitimacy for decision-makers.31 Some
efforts, based on bureaucratic desperation in the face of scarce finances
and on arguments of economic efficiency, have been taken to combine
and cross-fertilize these policy networks by encouraging shared partici-
pation in climate change policy seminars with membership from multiple
regional seas MEAs. Such consolidation of efforts may serve to broaden
policy networks and share policy information, but should not substitute
for building organic geographically based networks around common en-
vironmental topics.
It is important to keep the basic science and science policy functions
distinct, so that the substance of policy suggestions is not tainted by
potential influence from funding sponsors. Sponsors of science groups
should be different from sponsors of the basic research and activities that
generated initial consensus.
Policy advice should be developed and circulated by multidisciplinary
international panels. Individuals should be selected by merit and serve in
their personal capacity. Ideally they should be chosen by international
institutions rather than by governments. The need for independent sci-
entific advice is a matter under current discussion in the Convention on
Biodiversity. Policy advice should be based upon peer-reviewed materials.
Climate change science policy is handled by the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s authority is hampered by
governmental nomination of experts, which has the effect of limiting the
perceived political autonomy of the institution. Some political integrity
and authority are retained by the extensive peer-review network that
scrutinizes all the IPCC publications, yet observers express concern that
government nomination of experts may bias the policy analysis towards
analyses of social adaptation over mitigation strategies.
Most MEAs rely on standing subsidiary policy bodies to articulate
policy-relevant scientific knowledge, draft reports, and respond to que-
ries from the secretariat and government members of the MEA. The bio-
diversity regime and climate change regime are arranged like this. The
ozone regime relies on standing panels of experts that meet regularly.
The CCAMLR has scientific experts involved in technical working
groups, but the experts are nominated by member governments.
A number of less effective institutional designs for mobilizing science
policy have been used as well. Some MEAs rely only on international
commissions – such as GESAMP – to provide policy data. Other MEAs’
policy foundations are based on ad hoc panels convened by MEA bu-
reaus or by the COP chairs, such as pollution control for the South-East
Pacific (SEPAC). These ad hoc arrangements do not provide usable pol-
icy knowledge because they lack legitimacy, and they often also lack in-
stitutional memory.32 Rotating chairs of the COPs – the Atlantic Treaty
System and the SEPAC regional seas programme – are a serious detri-
ment to maintaining stability in the science policy network.
Lessons about mobilizing networks of scientific expertise for

multilateral environmental governance
Since the Mediterranean Plan and subsequent efforts to generalize
the experience to address other transboundary and global environmental
threats, the following lessons are apparent about mobilizing usable policy
knowledge for environmental governance.33
0 Carefully survey the population of scientists. In the Mediterranean
a UNEP consultant spent nine months visiting national laboratories
to inventory national capabilities and personally build the scientific
network.
0 Ensure that networks and international panels have interdisciplinary
representation, including the social sciences. Individuals should have
high regard in their own disciplines as well as the ability to talk to ex-
perts from other disciplines.
0 Recruit carefully for national and regional institutions. Base judge-
ments on professional credentials and networking ability.
0 Avoid relying on one national institution to provide research and
training.
0 Provide professional outlets for members through conferences and
publications in refereed professional journals. This also elevates the
domestic profile of individual scientists in the community of expertise,
who may then be recruited to fill positions in national administrations.
0 Promote scientific discussions on topics that are likely to lead to con-
sensus, such as ripe research topics.
0 Avoid government designation of scientists to international meetings.
0 Try to make use of joint international panels for environmental risk
assessment rather than relying on national assessments. Avoid capture
by one scientific discipline or school of expert analysis.
0 Assure timely submissions in advance of meetings, and avoid single-
state sponsorship of collective research.
0 Arrange for focused interactions between scientists and policy-makers
to discuss the technical substance of the issues. In LRTAP the Inter-
national Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) arranged for
two-day sessions to familiarize policy-makers with acid rain transfer
and deposition models developed by scientists.
132 HAAS
0 Maintain momentum within the community by continuing to have

projects and research opportunities so members do not drift away. This
avoids having to reconstitute the community each time a new problem
emerges.
Broader consideration of the proper institutional design of science
policy entails timing. When consensus has been achieved before an issue
reaches the agenda and policy discussions begin, then scientists can
merely be introduced as experts, following the lessons above. However,
at times it is necessary simultaneously to develop scientific consensus and
advance policy debates. For such issues, as was the case in the Mediter-
ranean and ozone regimes, the development of science policy must be
kept insulated from ongoing policy debates, with the two streams united
only when consensus has been achieved. In other cases, where consensus
remains elusive and policy debates have already attained their own mo-
mentum, as in climate change and biodiversity, it may be best if the two
activities can be kept as separate as possible.
Financing science
Most secretariats of MEAs responsible for performing various aspects
of science policy complain of financial limitations. The budgets of most
MEAs, paid by member states, are meagre, and no international institu-
tions have suitable financial resources to perform all the science functions
by themselves. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) provides some
support for the climate change regime, biodiversity, deforestation, deser-
tification, and stratospheric ozone protection. UNEP helps administer
the Montreal Ozone Fund, which also contributes financial support for
the transition to non-CFC-based substances. These institutional arrange-
ments are insufficient to provide enough money to pay for environmental
protection, much less sustainable development, and secretariat officials
are leery of becoming overly reliant on one funding source. The UNDP,
World Bank, or private foundations could exercise a profound influence
on improving usable knowledge and disseminating it by supporting re-
search programmes and convening conferences and panels to apply basic
knowledge to environmental policy.
Conclusion and recommendations
In preparation for Rioþ10 many policy analysts pondered what to do

with the existing haphazard arrangement of international institutions
handling various aspects of science policy and environmental gover-
nance.34 Aspiring institutional designers considered how to streamline
and enhance synergies between regimes. Some urged the creation of a

new global environmental organization that would centralize all science
policy functions, as well as performing policy analysis, centralizing the
administration of all the current existing MEAs, and verifying compli-
ance with the MEAs. In principal a GEO would be the single authority –
consolidating all existing arrangements – for monitoring the environment
and collecting monitoring data.
UNEP was created in 1973 to serve such a centralizing role. But this
was in a period when no organizations performed any significant envi-
ronmental governance functions. In the intervening years other institu-
tions have assumed environmental responsibilities, so the administrative
design question is whether to reform the current array of responsibilities
or to create a new, centralized organizational structure.
Current thinking in organizational theory seems to run counter to a
centralized authority, though. The best-designed institutions for dealing
with complex and uncertain policy environments are loose, decentralized,
dense networks of institutions that are able to relay information quickly
back and forth, and where there are sufficient redundancies in the per-
formance of functions such that the elimination or withdrawal of funding
for one institution does not jeopardize the entire network.35
Rather than centralizing science policy functions, it may be better to
reform many of the existing arrangements and build a centralized source
for coordinating information flow between the institutions responsible for
performing the different science policy functions. Recruitment patterns
should be reformed, so they are uniformly based on merit. Each MEA
should have a standing monitoring and science policy body. Open-ended
basic research should be conducted, possibly supported by UNEP, in or-
der to anticipate new threats. Greater attention should be focused on the
existing gaps in the present science policy structure: waste disposal, fresh
water quality, and land-use practices. Concerted efforts should be taken
to recruit and train a generation of science advisory experts, capable of
working at the interstices of interdisciplinary environmental research
while remaining experts in their own domain, and also capable of com-
municating effectively to people outside their domain. Institutionalized
monitoring efforts could be clustered by environmental medium. More
generally there is a clear need for expanding and extending capacity-
building efforts to include the former centrally planned economies and
the newly industrialized countries.
Notes
1. The author is grateful to Kelly Craven for research assistance and to Ron Mitchell and
Kathryn Harrison for comments on the questionnaire. Edward Parson provided valuable
134 HAAS
information on institutional arrangements for the stratospheric ozone protection

regime.
2. Kasperson, Roger E., Jeanne X. Kasperson, and Kirstin Dow. 2001. ‘‘Introduction:
Global environmental risk and society’’, in Jeanne X. Kasperson and Roger E. Kas-
person (eds) Global Environmental Risk. Tokyo: United Nations University Press/
London: Earthscan, pp. 2–5.
3. Funtowicz, Silvio O. and Jerome R. Ravetz. 2001. ‘‘Global risk, uncertainty, and igno-
rance’’, in Jeanne X. Kasperson and Roger E. Kasperson (eds) Global Environmental
Risk. Tokyo: United Nations University Press/London: Earthscan, p. 178.
4. For an earlier and slightly different usage, see Clark, William C. (ed.). 1990. Usable
Knowledge for Managing Global Climatic Change. Stockholm: Stockholm Environment
Institute.
5. Social Learning Group. 2001. Social Learning and the Management of Global Environ-
mental Risks, 2 volumes. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, Vol. 1, p. 15; Clark, William
C. and Giandomenico Majone. 1985. ‘‘The critical appraisal of scientific inquiries with
policy implications’’, Science, Technology and Human Values, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 6–19.
6. Jasanoff, Sheila, Gerald E. Markle, James C. Petersen, and Trevor Pinch (eds). 1995.
Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications;
Miller, Clark A. and Paul N. Edwards (eds). 2001. Changing the Atmosphere. Cam-
bridge, MA: MIT Press.
7. Botcheva, Liliana. 2001. ‘‘Expertise and international governance’’, Global Governance,
Vol. 7, pp. 197–224; Andresen, Steiner, Tora Skodvin, Arild Underdal, and Jorgen
Wettestad. 2000. Science and Politics in International Environmental Regimes. Man-
chester: Manchester University Press; Social Learning Group, note 5 above.
8. Funtowicz, Silvio O. and Jerome R. Ravetz. 1991. ‘‘A new scientific methodology for
global environmental issues’’, in Robert Costanza (ed.) Ecological Economics. New
York: Columbia University Press; Ravetz, Jerome R. 1986. ‘‘Usable knowledge, usable
ignorance’’, in William C. Clark and Ted Munn (eds) Sustainable Development of the
Biosphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 415–434.
9. Andresen et al., note 7 above; Botcheva, note 7 above; Haas, Peter M. 2001. ‘‘Epistemic
communities and policy knowledge’’, in International Encyclopedia of Social and Be-
havioural Sciences. Oxford: Elsevier.
10. Skoie, Hans. 2001. The Research Councils in the Nordic Countries – Developments and
Some Challenges. Rapport 10/2001. Oslo: Norsk Institutt for Studier av Forskning og
utdanning.
11. Brown, George. 1997. ‘‘Environmental science under siege in the US Congress’’, Envi-
ronment, Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 12–20, 29–31; Morgan, M. Granger and Jon M. Peha (eds).
2003. Science and Technology Advice for Congress. Washington, DC: Resources for the
Future.
12. Haas, Peter M. and Ernst B. Haas. 1995. ‘‘Learning to learn’’, Global Governance, Vol.
1, No. 3, pp. 255–285; Reinicke, Wolfgang H. and Francis Deng. 2000. Critical Choices.
Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.
13. Dimitrov, R. S. 2003. ‘‘Knowledge, power, and interests in environmental regime for-
mation’’, International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 1, pp. 123–151.
14. Social Learning Group, note 5 above.
15. Yearbook of International Cooperation on Environment and Development, www.
greenyearbook.org/.
16. Haas, Peter M. 2001. ‘‘Environment: Pollution’’, in P. J. Simmons and Chantal de Jonge
Oudraat (eds) Managing Global Issues. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
17. Ibid.; Haas, note 9 above.
18. Social Learning Group, note 5 above, Vol. 2, chs 16 and 21.
19. Victor, David, Kal Raustiala, and Eugene Skolnikoff (eds). 1999. The Implemenation
and Effectiveness of International Environmental Commitments. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press; Weiss, Edith Brown and Harold Jacobson (eds). 1998. Engaging Countries.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
20. Keckes, Stjepan. 1997. ‘‘Review of international programmes relevant to the work of the
Independent World Commission on the Oceans’’, mimeo prepared for the Independent
World Commission on the Oceans, p. 1.
21. Global Environmental Change Programme. 2001. Global Change and the Earth System:
A Planet Under Pressure. Stockholm: IGPB.
22. Clark, William C. 2001. ‘‘Knowledge systems for sustainable development’’, Environ-
ment, Vol. 43, No. 8, p. 1.
23. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, www.oar.noaa.gov/
education/.
24. Keckes, note 20 above; Tsai-Koester, Li-Hsin. 1995. A Survey of Environmental Mon-
itoring and Information Management Programmes of International Organizations. Bonn:
Information Highway to the Global Environment (IHGE), www.gsf.de/UNEP/blue1.
html.
25. Gosovic, Branislav. 1992. The Quest for World Environmental Cooperation. London:
Routledge; Fritz, Jan Stefan. 1998. ‘‘Earthwatch twenty-five years on’’, International
Environmental Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 173–196.
26. UNEP. 1997. Global Environmental Outlook. New York: Oxford University Press;
UNEP. 1999. Global Environmental Outlook 2000. Nairobi: UNEP; UNEP. 2002.
Global Environmental Outlook 3. London: Earthscan.
27. Ibid.
28. Gurney, R. J., J. L. Foster, and C. L. Parkinson. 1993. Atlas of Satellite Observations
Related to Global Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Sheehan, Molly
O. 2000. ‘‘Satellites boost environmental knowledge’’, in World Watch Institute Vital
Signs 2000. New York: W. W. Norton, pp. 140–141; Chagas, Carlos and Vittorio Canuto
(eds). 1987. Study Week on Remote Sensing and Its Impacts on Developing Countries.
Rome: Pontificia Academia Sceinteiarium; Rodenburg, Eric. 1992. Eyeless in Gaia.
Washington, DC: World Resources Institute.
29. de Sherbinin, Alex, Kasren Kline, and Kal Raustiala. 2002. ‘‘Remote sensing data’’,
Environment, Vol. 44, No. 1, pp. 20–31.
30. Haas, note 9 above.
31. Taylor, Peter. 1993. ‘‘The state of the marine environment’’, Marine Pollution Bulletin,
Vol. 26, No. 3, pp. 120–127; Windom, Herbert L. 1991. GESAMP: Two Decades of
Accomplisments. London: International Maritime Organization.
32. Kimball, Lee. 1996. ‘‘Treaty implementation: Scientific and technical advice enters a new
stage’’, ASIL Studies in Transnational Legal Policy No. 28. Washington, DC: American
Society of International Law.
33. Haas, note 16 above; Tolba, Mostafa and Iwona Rummel-Bulska. 1998. Global Envi-
ronmental Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Hordijk, Leen. 1991. ‘‘Task force
on integrated assessment modelling’’, Monitair, Vol. 4, No. 6, pp. 8–11; Eckley, Noelle.
1999. ‘‘Drawing lessons about science policy institutions’’, Belfer Center for Science and
International Affairs Paper E-99-11 September; Haas, Peter M. 1990. Saving the Medi-
terranean. New York: Columbia University Press.
34. United Nations University. 1999. Inter-Linkages: Synergies and Coordination between
Multilateral Environmental Agreements. Tokyo: United Nations University, www.
geic.or.jp/interlinkages/aide.html; Pocantico Dialogue Site, www.yale.edu/gegdialogue/
dialogues.htm; German Advisory Council on Global Change. 2001. World in Transition:
136 HAAS
New Structures for Global Environmental Policy. London: Earthscan; Haas, note 16
above, pp. 345–346; Von Moltke, Konrad. 2001. ‘‘The organization of the impossible’’,
Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 23–28; Whalley, John and Ben Zissi-
mos. 2001. ‘‘What could a world environmental organization do?’’, Global Environ-
mental Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 29–34; Newell, Peter. 2001. ‘‘New environmental
architectures and the search for effectiveness’’, Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 1,
No. 1, pp. 35–44; Biermann, Frank. 2001. ‘‘The emerging debate on the need for a
world environmental organization’’, Global Environmental Politics, Vol. 1, No. 1,
pp. 45–55.
35. Aggarwal, Vinod (ed.). 1998. Institutional Designs for a Complex World. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.
7
The IPCC: Its roles in international
negotiation and domestic decision-
making on climate change policies
Yasuko Kameyama
Purpose
Climate change is a global problem that has only started to attract politi-
cal attention at international level since the late 1980s. Two international
agreements have been adopted so far to respond to this complicated
global environmental problem. The Framework Convention on Climate
Change (FCCC), adopted in 1992 and entered into force in 1994, urges
the industrialized countries and economy-in-transition countries (EITs,
including the former Soviet Union and East European countries) to
take measures aiming at returning their greenhouse gas (GHG) emis-
sions to 1990 levels by 2000. The FCCC was followed by the Kyoto Pro-
tocol, adopted in 1997, that called for achieving legally binding targets
for GHG emissions during a five-year period from 2008 to 2012. For in-
stance, annual average GHG emission from 2008 to 2012 is to be 6 per
cent less than that of the 1990 level for Japan, 7 per cent for the USA,
and 8 per cent for the EU as a whole.
These commitments by the parties are not free from obstacles. In 2001
the USA officially publicized its intention to withdraw from the Kyoto
Protocol regime, and announced its own climate change programme
in the following year. There were several reasons why the USA left the
Kyoto Protocol, one of which was scientific uncertainty regarding human-
induced climate change and its impact.
137
138 KAMEYAMA
Since the climate change problem is of a scientific nature, international

negotiation on climate change has always been affected by opposites that
emphasize the vast uncertainty of the issue. Thus, the negotiation has
been supported by a group of scientific experts called the Intergovern-
mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It is an organization estab-
lished in 1988 that supports policy-makers by reviewing relevant scientific
activities around the globe on climate change. It has published three as-
sessment reports so far, in 1990, 1996, and 2001. The latest report states
that without relevant climate policies, global mean temperature is ex-
pected to increase 1.4–5.8 C between 1990 and 2100.1 Such temperature
change is likely to cause adverse effects for agricultural production, bio-
diversity, human health, etc. The IPCC statements are referred to at
various levels, from international negotiating levels to national policy
levels.
The role of scientific knowledge or of academic groups in global envi-
ronmental regime is a matter of interesting debate by itself,2 and the role
of the IPCC has also been debated in a substantial number of aca-
demic papers.3 There are, however, still several reasons for reviewing
the IPCC’s role at this moment. First, there may have been a shift in
the expected role of the IPCC. The IPCC today may be expected to do
something different from the time when it was first set up 14 years
ago. Second, the IPCC may have been expected to play different roles
by various stakeholders. Political processes within and surrounding the
FCCC as a whole may seek for one thing in the IPCC while negotiators
from each country may look for another. Scientists may be another group
of players who are involved in the IPCC process, seeking for another
type of fruit. This means that the IPCC may have played additional roles
that were originally not expected when it was first established. The pur-
pose of this study is to review the role of the IPCC in the last 14 years
and assess what kind of role it has, or has not, played for various stake-
holders. The outcome of this study is then introduced to give suggestions
for a possible scientific organization that may work for a world environ-
mental organization (WEO).
The chapter concludes that the role of the IPCC has expanded over
the last 14 years. Originally, the IPCC was established to collect and as-
sess scientific studies relevant to climate change, as other aspects of the
problem were assumed to be determined by the FCCC and other rele-
vant political processes. The late 1980s was an agenda-setting period, in
which the IPCC was expected to signal climate change as a global issue.
As two international agreements were adopted, however, the main con-
cern of countries became more political as well as technical. The IPCC,
as an intergovernmental organization, needed to answer additional de-
mands from various stakeholders in order to maintain its legitimacy.
THE IPCC AND CLIMATE CHANGE POLICIES 139
It has undergone several revisions to fulfil such a requirement. In other

cases, the IPCC is still struggling to find a satisfying goal.
In order to maintain or increase the legitimacy of the IPCC, it is im-
portant to continue reflecting political needs to support future negotia-
tion, and at the same time reject individual political preference. This may
be achieved, or improved at least, by restructuring the election process
of leading authors and the drafting process of reports from the point of
equity of participation, as well as from the point of the independence
of science from politics. Inviting more leading authors from developing
countries and securing travel costs for those participants is an example of
such improvement from an equity perspective. Involving more scientists
outside of the IPCC regime for the peer-review process is another exam-
ple to gain more scientific legitimacy for the IPCC. Publishing two types
of reports, namely assessment reports and summaries for policy-makers,
is a good way to maintain scientific quality while giving policy-makers
enough opportunities to reflect their intention. It is worthwhile for the
IPCC to continue this two-type report approach.
If a WEO were to be established, the IPCC is a good example of a new
scientific organization that may be established under the WEO. In that
case, there are lessons to be learned from the IPCC.
History of the IPCC and its structure
Initial development before the establishment of the IPCC goes back to

the early 1980s. In 1985 a major international review of the issue formed
the basis of the third Villach Conference organized by the World Mete-
orological Organization (WMO), UNEP, and the International Council
of Scientific Unions (ICSU). This was said to be the time when the
problem of anthropogenic climate change was moved on to the political
agenda.4 The first appearance of the climate change problem as a signifi-
cant issue on the international political agenda was in 1988. Over 300
individuals attended the Conference on the Changing Atmosphere: Im-
plications for Global Security held in Toronto, Canada, in June 1998.
In its final statement, it was stated that an emission goal of a 20 per cent
reduction of carbon dioxide levels by the year 2005 would be necessary
to prevent anthropogenic global warming. The IPCC was set up in the
autumn of the same year.
Structurally, the IPCC was established under the auspice of two inter-
national bodies, UNEP and the WMO. The IPCC was set up not as an
‘‘international’’ panel but an ‘‘intergovernmental’’ panel under the aus-
pices of the United Nations. This brought about one characteristic of the
IPCC that made it different from other international scientific organiza-
140 KAMEYAMA
tions such as the ICSU and the International Geographic-Biological Pro-

gramme (IGBP) – the IPCC was expected from the very beginning to be
not a purely scientific organization, but an interface between politics and
science.
The core decision-making bodies of the IPCC are the plenary, the
bureau, three working groups (WGs), and, from 1989 to 1992, a special
committee for the participation of developing countries. The scientific/
administrative distinction runs through the WG level, between WG ple-
nary (as distinguished from panel plenary) and task force establishments,
and lead- and contributing-author meetings, which constitute the ‘‘scien-
tific core’’.5
Publications of the IPCC are categorized into six types. The best
known IPCC publication is its assessment report. The panel, at its tenth
session, decided that an approximately five-year interval would be rea-
sonable; three assessment reports had thus been published by 2001.
Executive summaries and summaries for policy-makers (SPMs) are rela-
tively short reports with the status of ‘‘reports approved by working
groups and accepted by the panel’’. They are subject to line-by-line ap-
proval by the WG plenary. As the panel consists not only of scientists but
also of government officials, SPMs are most likely to be influenced by
politics. Special reports (SRs) assess literature in one specific field, and
are subject to review, acceptance, and approval procedures. Technical
reports (TRs) are reports on technical issues, but no acceptance and
approval procedures are necessary. Finally, the IPCC also publishes syn-
thesis reports.
The IPCC and its reports are expected to support negotiators in
making judgements based on the best available scientific and technical
knowledge. They are also likely to contribute to dissemination of infor-
mation at a domestic level. The reality, however, seems to be more com-
plex, and the IPCC is observed from various angles in different ways.
The roles of the IPCC: What has been expected by

stakeholders
Officially, at the UN level, the IPCC was given a mandate of providing
‘‘internationally coordinated assessments of the magnitude, timing, and
potential environmental and socio-economic impact of climate change
and realistic response strategies’’.6 It is necessary to establish a clearer
distinction of the needs of the stakeholders, however, to assess the IPCC
by considering its potential roles. For negotiators, evaluation of the
IPCC would be made according to ‘‘how much could inputs from the
IPCC help us to come to an agreement?’’. At the same time, another
IPCC FCCC
“internationally-coordinated assessments of the

magnitude, timing, and potential environmental
and socio-economic impact of climate change

and realistic response strategies”
Figure 7.1 Role of the IPCC: Official mandate
measurement of their evaluation may be ‘‘how much could our govern-

ment utilize the IPCC in order to incorporate our position into the final
text of the agreement?’’. On the other side, scientists would feel the
IPCC was useful if ‘‘our arguments were incorporated into the final text
of the agreement’’ or ‘‘it helped us collect more research funds’’.
The plausible roles of the IPCC (as a scientific organization) for the
FCCC (and relevant political arenas) and for other stakeholders are de-
scribed in Figures 7.1 and 7.2. Arrows in the figures express directions in
which benefit is given. The mandate of the United Nations only expected
the IPCC to give benefit to the FCCC and its relevant political process in
order to achieve an international agreement that is most effective in mit-
igating climate change (Figure 7.1). The reality is, however, more com-
plex. By institutionalizing ‘‘science’’, the IPCC was asked to play more
than one role (Figure 7.2). In addition to the formally given mandate,
scientists involved in the IPCC process and negotiators involved in the
FCCC process were expecting something more from the IPCC. One way
of categorizing the different roles of the IPCC that was found in relevant
studies is according to whom the benefit of the IPCC is destined.
0 Benefit that is given to the FCCC process:
(1) IPCC as a provider of scientific knowledge
(2) IPCC as a body to legitimate what is written in reports
(3) IPCC as a forum to reach political agreements that would not be
achievable only by political argument, such as those in the FCCC.
142 KAMEYAMA
FCCC
IPCC Benefit to the
FCCC process:
Benefit to (1) (2) (3)
scientists: (4)
(5) (6)
Benefit to negotiators:
(7)
Scientist as
individual
Negotiator as individual
Benefit to the
public: (8)
The public
Figure 7.2 Role of the IPCC: Perceptions of different actors
0 Benefit that is given to scientists individually and as a group:

(4) IPCC as a corridor for the epistemic community to influence
politics
(5) IPCC as a forum to reach an agreement (if not consensus) in sci-
entific findings
(6) IPCC as a tool for researchers to obtain constant research funds.
0 Benefit that is given to negotiators in terms of governmental officials:
(7) IPCC as a tool for negotiators to justify their governments’
positions.
0 Benefit that is given to the public in general:
(8) IPCC as an organization that disseminates information concerning
climate change to the public.
In this section, each of these eight roles of the IPCC is further reviewed
one by one.
IPCC as a provider of scientific knowledge to the political process
The provision of scientific knowledge is the role that is the closest to the
IPCC’s original mandate. A question that may arise concerns the impli-
cation of the term ‘‘assess’’. Is the IPCC merely a provider of scientific
knowledge, or is it given a full authority to evaluate scientific findings and
to say some findings are more reliable than others?
The objectives of the IPCC, given by itself according to its first assess-
ment report (FAR), are twofold.7 They are, first, to assess the scientific
information related to the various components of the climate change is-
sue and the information needed to evaluate the environmental and socio-
economic consequences of climate change; and, second, to formulate

‘‘realistic response strategies for the management of the climate change
issue’’. The FAR was introduced to the Second World Climate Confer-
ence in 1990, and it was accepted as an adequate basis upon which to
initiate international negotiation on the FCCC. The report actually be-
came an impetus for nations to take action on climate change.
On the other hand, it should be noted that the FCCC does not ex-
plicitly recognize the IPCC as the basis of its judgement. The chapeau of
the FCCC8 acknowledges analytical works conducted by various actors,
without explicitly referring to the IPCC: ‘‘conscious of the valuable ana-
lytical work being conducted by many States on climate change and of
the important contributions of the WMO, UNEP and other organs,
organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, as well as other
international and intergovernmental bodies, to the exchange of results of
scientific research and the coordination of research’’. The FCCC con-
vention requests only the subsidiary body for scientific and technological
advice (SBSTA) to ‘‘provide the Conference of the Parties and, as ap-
propriate, its other subsidiary bodies with timely information and advice
on scientific and technological matters relating to the Convention’’. In
this context, the IPCC voluntarily produces reports, and it is up to the
SBSTA whether or not to refer to the IPCC reports.
Five years after the adoption of the FCCC, the Kyoto Protocol gave
a slightly more significant role to the IPCC. It seeks for the IPCC’s de-
termination to establish some of its technical procedures. For instance, in
Article 5 the protocol states that the parties are to use methodologies
that were accepted by the IPCC for estimating anthropogenic emissions
by sources and removals by sinks of all greenhouse gases not controlled
by the Montreal Protocol. This mandate is, however, still rather technical
and requires relatively few political decisions. On the whole, both in the
FCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, the IPCC is referred to as an organization
with only academic information relevant to climate change.
IPCC as a body to apply legitimacy to what is written in its reports
The mechanism of climate change due to the increase of greenhouse

gases in the atmosphere had been suggested by scientists even before the
establishment of the IPCC. Scientific knowledge on climate change in
general would have existed today even without the IPCC. One of the
IPCC’s roles is to legitimize those scientific findings by referring to them
in its reports. The final conclusions of the SPMs are considered to be the
most influential part of the reports. The IPCC strives to secure legitimacy
of its reports by involving wide participation from around the world, as
well as by organizing a repetitive peer-reviewing process by both scien-
144 KAMEYAMA
tists and government officials. The higher the legitimacy, the stronger the
influence of the IPCC reports in the political process.
One example of IPCC legitimacy in the FCCC process was seen during
the Second Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP2). The
IPCC’s second assessment report (SAR) was accepted late in 1995, dur-
ing the process of negotiation for the Kyoto Protocol. At COP2, parties
took note of the result of the ministerial round table called the Geneva
Ministerial Declaration.9 In the declaration there is a reference to the
IPCC SAR:
Recognize and endorse the SAR of the IPCC as currently the most comprehen-
sive and authoritative assessment of the science of climate change, its impacts and
response options now available. Ministers believe that the SAR should provide
a scientific basis for urgently strengthening action at the global, regional and na-
tional levels, particularly action by Parties included in Annex I to the Convention
(Annex I Parties) to limit and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases . . .
This declaration was not accepted by the parties by consensus, but it was
incorporated in the report of COP2. Ministers would not have referred to
specific scientific findings if it were not for the IPCC legitimacy attached
to them.
The level of legitimacy seems to differ according to the type of work
undertaken by each WG of the IPCC. Themes such as ‘‘mechanism of
climate change and its impact’’, a theme of WG1, are more likely to
achieve higher legitimacy than other themes such as ‘‘policy required
to mitigate climate change’’, a main theme of WG3. Reports from WG3
seem to have had more controversial topics than the other two WGs.
The divergence of level of legitimacy among the three WGs in the IPCC
seems to have occurred chiefly not by difference of procedure taken in
each WG but by the nature of the themes. WG3 mainly dealt with poli-
cies that lead to the most controversial issue, the parties’ actions and
commitments.
Some of the drafting processes were said to hamper the legitimacy
of the IPCC. The quality of the reviews in the FAR and SAR ‘‘was
degraded by omissions or inadequately defined error assignments, un-
labeled graphical scales, missing references and cross-references, refer-
ence to material unavailable to the general reader, comparisons involving
disparate cases, and an absence of overall result summaries and discus-
sion’’.10
Another issue that led to a decrease of IPCC legitimacy was insuffi-
cient participation from developing countries. Agarwal and Narain sug-
gested there were those who would use ‘‘one-world’’ discourses about
the environment to dilute responsibility for climate change by spreading
it evenly among industrialized and developing countries.11 Not enough

participation from developing countries was indicated most strongly dur-
ing the process of the FAR. Many suggested restructuring of the IPCC
process,12 and it has been improved to a certain extent in subsequent
activities. It was decided that in the SAR process there should be at least
one expert from a developing country in each lead author’s team. The
IPCC has received some support from the Global Environment Facility
(GEF) to increase such broad participation. It has also been suggested
that more articles written in languages other than English should be re-
viewed in the future reports.
IPCC as a forum to reach political agreements that would not be

achievable in the political arena
Negotiators may wish to manipulate scientific inputs in order to control

the FCCC and other political processes. This tendency increases when
the legitimacy of the IPCC is high enough to influence the FCCC and
other political processes. On the other hand, the IPCC reports would lose
legitimacy if negotiators could easily rewrite them. There would always
be a concern for the IPCC to maintain its legitimacy by preventing polit-
ical argument by negotiators.
It could be said that this is a role that deals with ‘‘trans-science’’ in
contrast to ‘‘science’’.13 Processes of knowledge creation, community
formation, and expert institutionalization are themselves highly political
exercises, with substantial implications for broader debates concerning
how people of vastly unequal technological capacity and means are going
to live together on the planet.14
Efforts to avoid politicization of the IPCC process are difficult, as the
IPCC involves participation of government officials, and also as the IPCC
actually intends to deal with political themes. The IPCC has dealt with
this problem by publishing two different types of reports. Assessment
reports are bulky documents that review best available studies concern-
ing climate change. These reports are intended to maintain the quality
of academia of experts. On the other hand, the SPMs are more or less
interpretation of scientific findings. They leave room to allow reflection
of the interests of policy-makers. Arguments that are seen in the FCCC
process mainly refer only to SPMs. Since SPMs are likely to give political
preference to selective scientific findings, the drafts are often subject to
political debate by themselves before they are referred by the FCCC and
other negotiating meetings.
There are occasions where some governments try to use the IPCC for
political purposes. Requests from governments to the IPCC concerning
what should be taken up by the IPCC are an initial step of political in-
146 KAMEYAMA
fluence on scientific activities. For example, in the sixteenth subsidiary

body meeting to the FCCC in 2002, there was a discussion in the SBSTA
about whether or not to request the IPCC to deal with Article 2 of the
FCCC, which is the ultimate objective of the FCCC, about a level of
atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases that would prevent dan-
gerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. This was
denied by a number of countries, as such studies are too political and
may lead to suggestions that more action should be taken by certain
governments.
Among different types of IPCC reports, SPMs are recognized as ‘‘con-
sensus’’ achieved among participants in the IPCC process. This, however,
is not always convincing. The SAR concluded: ‘‘the balance of evidence
suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate’’.15
This sentence, however, had not been in the final draft of the IPCC. It
was incorporated during the final process of drafting the SPM. Industry
lobby groups that were sceptical of the IPCC findings immediately at-
tacked the report, asserting that IPCC participants had violated rules of
procedure.16
Another possibility for politicization of the IPCC is extracting different
messages from the IPCC main documents by different interpretation of
climate change and its impact. Political power could shift the outcome
of knowledge by altering the direction of discourse.17 For instance, there
might be a question of whether to discuss emission sources of greenhouse
gases or to focus more on enhancement of sinks – these have the same
effect on concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but the
consequences for necessary policies would be quite different. To focus
more on one specific aspect of a problem than on other aspects is a po-
litical process. In order for the IPCC to continue dealing with political
agendas without being politicized by governments, it is necessary to rec-
ognize such drawbacks and consider ways to prevent them. Some ideas
are given in the last section of this chapter.
IPCC as a corridor for the epistemic community to influence

politics
The role of the epistemic community is best known from the works of
Haas18 regarding conservation of water quality in the Mediterranean
Sea. Benedick19 also stressed the importance of the role of scientists in
international negotiations to agree the Montreal Protocol to limit ozone-
depleting substances. Peterson, on the other hand, concluded that in the
case of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), a group of ce-
tologists did not determine outcomes either by the indirect method of
defining the terms of debate so that only their preferred policy appeared
reasonable or by the direct method of placing members or former stu-
dents into enough decision-making and implementing posts.20
Have scientists working on climate change been able to influence in-
ternational negotiations on climate change? Some of the success stories
of climatic scientists are those in the early days of the IPCC and/or before
the IPCC was established. The Villach Conference in 1985 and the Ad-
visory Group on Greenhouse Gases (AGGG) set up by the conference
are regarded as the starting point where researchers began to send out
messages to the public and managers of political power.21 Another de-
velopment of the power of scientists was observed during 1989–1990. At
the 1989 Noordwijk Conference in the Netherlands, the USA, as well as
some other countries like the UK and the Soviet Union, brought scien-
tific scepticism to the international negotiation, claiming that there was
insufficient scientific evidence to know by how much emissions of green-
house gases needed to be cut.22 Such a claim, however, left these coun-
tries in a disadvantageous position after the FAR was published in 1990.
The IPCC acknowledged that a number of uncertainties remained, but
still it considered the report as an authoritative statement of the views of
the international scientific community at this time.23 In May 1990 the UK
officials changed their position on the science, and announced the UK’s
national emission target for CO2 .
The USA had used the ‘‘uncertainty’’ of the IPCC results as one of
the reasons for the USA not to agree to ambitious emission reduction
targets. The Bush (senior) administration never accepted the scientific
assessments of the IPCC and felt they were too uncertain. This position
of the US government was changed during the Clinton administration. It
accepted the findings of the IPCC, which say that climate change is a real
problem and is caused at least in part by human activities.24 In the new
Bush ( junior) administration, the USA rejected the Kyoto Protocol in
March 2001, but at the same time it recognized a need for some action
to be taken. In the long term, the USA had to change its position on the
science because of what has been written in the three assessment reports
of the IPCC.
On the other hand, there were times when science could not take a
role during important decision-making. International negotiation up to
COP3 dealt little with sequestration of CO2 by activities related to land
use, land-use change, and forestry. Just before COP3, at the eighth Ad
Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate (AGBM8), some countries such as
New Zealand and Finland proposed to consider such activities as well.
The key question in their proposal was how actually to count the amount
of sequestration of CO2 by forestry and other human activities related to
148 KAMEYAMA
sequestration. Countries were aware of a lack of methodology and data

to incorporate forest-related activities at the same level as emissions.
In the final round, however, it was agreed to consider certain types of
activities referred to in Article 3.3 of the Kyoto Protocol, and request
the IPCC to prepare a special report on land-use change and forestry by
2000.25 Emission targets in the Kyoto Protocol for Annex B countries
also had little to do with the IPCC or any other scientific evidence, but
were a result of hard negotiation within the field of politics.26
It may be said that groups of scientists were able to give impetus to
policy-makers in the early days in the 1980s, but their influence decreased
as negotiations drew close to an agreement.
IPCC as a forum to reach an agreement (if not consensus)

concerning scientific findings
Could it be said that the IPCC played a role of finding a single, converged
answer among the divergent results of scientific findings? Or was it pos-
sible for scientists to come to a consensus by utilizing the forum of the
IPCC? The first chair of the IPCC, Bert Bolin, emphasizes the role of
the IPCC as achieving a kind of consensus among scientific experts by
saying that ‘‘hardly any articles published in scientific journals which ap-
ply a peer-review procedure reject the IPCC’s conclusion that continued
atmospheric emissions of greenhouse gases will lead to a significant
increase of the global temperature and associated changes in regional
climate’’.27
This, however, is not always convincing. Some argue there is a problem
of participation in the IPCC, not in terms of developing countries this
time, but in terms of scientists who have different views from those in the
IPCC. Although the IPCC involves thousands of participants, there are
scientists who are marginalized by core group members of the IPCC.
For example, during the drafting process of the FAR, a study that based
analysis of response options on environmental targets was excluded by
IPCC WG3 as basis for the formation of emission scenarios as its effects-
based logic ran counter to the IPCC’s cost-based assessment of strat-
egies.28
There are also others who do not wish to participate in the IPCC pro-
cess and are sceptical of conclusions in the IPCC SPMs. They are espe-
cially active in the USA.29 Debate between the scientists on both sides
became more popular in the process of the third assessment report
(TAR) of the IPCC. It thus seems difficult to state that consensus exists
among scientists – it may even be said that the scientists do not mind lack
of consensus, only negotiators do.
IPCC as a tool for researchers to obtain constant research funds
From the point of scientists, participation in the IPCC may be a convinc-

ing reason for getting research funds. Boehmer-Christiansen suggests
that ‘‘the scientific bodies set up in the 1980s to advise governments on
climate change policy emerged from the globally coordinated research
community which acted primarily as a lobby for its own research agendas
dedicated to the modeling of planet Earth and the development of alter-
native energy sources’’.30
Not quite the same but a more productive way of interpretation is
viewing this as the development of scientific activity relevant to climate
change. With more people getting interested in the issue and scientific
outcomes related to the issue, more researchers and money would be in-
vested in studies relevant to climate change, and would thus create more
output. This may result in unexpected results (more researchers might
come to prove that climate change would not occur) but it is still a pro-
gression of science itself. The institutionalization of science by the IPCC
has come to support researchers in this field.
There is also competition among researchers. The IPCC is increasing
its interest in policy-relevant studies, such as those of social/human di-
mensions. As more attention is given to those fields of study, funding for
natural sciences might decrease. Even with the continuation of the IPCC
as a whole, researchers will remain restless to get more funding.
IPCC as a tool for negotiators to justify their governments’

positions
Another way of explaining the relation between science and politics is an

aspect that puts heavier weight on politics, at both domestic and interna-
tional levels.
Modes of interaction between scientific and political cooperation ar-
ticulated by American foreign policy-makers and institutionalized in or-
ganizations like the WMO provide a normative framework against which
policy-makers could define and articulate states’ interests as well as an
institutional model for how states could pursue those interest through
specific kinds of activities.31 Countries in the EU referred to the IPCC
report at COP2 to justify their positions to aim for CO2 atmospheric
concentration of 550ppm.
Governments could also use the IPCC reports to convince opponents
in their respective countries to implement climate-relevant policies. Brit-
ish politicians found the threat of climate change useful as ‘‘greenwash’’
for unpopular energy and taxation policies.32 Certain ministries, espe-
150 KAMEYAMA
cially environment-related ministries, are likely to refer to the IPCC

conclusions to convince other ministries.33 In any policy-making at na-
tional and subnational levels, the IPCC is a good institution to justify
policies that reduce emissions, even if the original purpose of the policy
was not relevant to climate change.
IPCC as an organization that disseminates information concerning

climate change to the public
Although this is not a mandate given to the IPCC, the IPCC contributes
to raising public awareness in some countries.
In an interview survey of policy-makers and others involved in the
decision-making process for the FCCC, the IPCC was said to contribute
to informing the public of climate change in Japan.34 The media dealt
with the results of the IPCC as scientific consensus at international level,
and this type of information (whether it is correct or not) educated ordi-
nary citizens.
Little influence of the IPCC was observed in public awareness
of climate change in other countries. During the 1900–1992 period, the
Netherlands and Germany were countries that were proposing the most
ambitious emission reduction targets. Governments of both countries
were supported by the public with high awareness, but interviews sug-
gested that such awareness was not motivated by the IPCC. It may be
said that the IPCC does not consider ordinary public individuals as target
readers of its reports.
Should there be such a role in international organizations? Education
and training is actually a different type of task, but it is also an important
task. The FCCC has training programmes organized by its secretariat,
and thus it may be concluded that the IPCC does not require such task
management. On the other hand, the IPCC reports are the most effective
for such training and education. The IPCC seeks to translate as many as
possible of its reports into other UN official languages. This is an impor-
tant step to diffuse the latest information on climate change.
Ideas for a scientific organization under the WEO
The role of the IPCC was reviewed in the previous section, and some
conclusions may be drawn from it.
First of all, this review of the IPCC’s role suggests there is enough evi-
dence to say the IPCC has more or less fulfilled its mandate – set by itself
– to ‘‘assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis
the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to un-
derstanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change,

its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation’’.35 The
IPCC played a major role in directing political processes to reach in-
ternational agreements that would contribute to mitigation of climate
change.
There were other indirect roles of the IPCC that were perceived by
various actors, and the weight of those roles shifted over time. First, the
power of scientists to influence decision-making directly has decreased
over the last 14 years. This can be seen from the IPCC’s role 4 (see pp.
146–148). Second, on the other hand, the legitimacy of the IPCC has in-
creased during the same period. This is due to restructuring the IPCC
process in order to reflect requests from the FCCC process, and can be
drawn from role 2 (pp. 143–145). Third, in order to maintain the legiti-
macy of the IPCC, it is important to continue reflecting political needs
that increase legitimacy, and at the same time reject individual political
preference. This will be achieved by reflecting political needs only by re-
structuring the process from the point of equity, and not by rewriting the
content of reports.
This conclusion of the IPCC is a message to a future WEO. Establish-
ment of a body of highly qualified scientific experts similar to the IPCC
will contribute to a WEO becoming an influential organization. The sci-
entific organization would work most effectively if it considered some of
the important aspects that could be learned from the IPCC.
0 The scientific organization affiliated to the WEO should involve broad
participation, from both developed and developing countries. Enough
funding should be secured for participants from developing coun-
tries. Papers written in languages other than English should be fully
reflected in the review process.
0 The scientific organization should be able to involve scientists who
disagree with the core group of experts in the organization. It is im-
portant to have opportunities for a free discussion by those who agree
and disagree with scientific issues raised.
0 The peer-review process should be as open as possible. Closed-door
sessions should be limited to a minimum. There are critical views on
the IPCC process for its sometimes redundant review process. One
option for a new scientific body is to invite more involvement of
experts for reviews so that the focus would be on scientific/technical
matters.
0 Involvement of government officials (negotiators) in the scientific body
should be limited to a minimum. It is seen that the IPCC process is
overly politicized by the involvement of government officials. On the
other hand, such involvement was effective for the IPCC to attract
much attention from countries during negotiations. The IPCC’s
152 KAMEYAMA
approach, to have two types of reports, assessment reports and sum-

maries for policy-makers, is one good example that may be followed by
the new scientific organization if it were to allow participation of gov-
ernmental officials. It is also effective to divide an issue into several
working groups according to the level of relevance to politics. Some
fields of study, such as mechanisms of an environmental problem or
monitoring, would have less danger of politicization than studies of
other areas such as policy analysis. It is also an option to establish an-
other body similar to the SBSTA of the FCCC that limits participation
of scientists and links political processes with scientific activities.
0 The scientific organization may have a subgroup that focuses on edu-
cation of the public and dissemination of scientific knowledge. The
IPCC lacked a means to inform ordinary citizens. Such activity may
lead to greater support from the public for the organization itself.
0 If the WEO is to be an organization that aims to solve interlinkage is-
sues among different environmental conventions, the scientific body for
the WEO should also play a role as a forum for respective scientific/
technical bodies under those environmental conventions to exchange
views. The present (year of writing: 2003) Millennium Ecosystem As-
sessment organized by UNEP is a kind of activity that could be under-
taken regularly by the scientific organization under the WEO.
With the points raised above, the WEO will be able to consolidate
its relevant scientific views under one organization, and make use of it to
consolidate views to build action programmes based on the knowledge.
Such a scientific basis will contribute to reaching political agreement at
both international and domestic levels.
Notes
1. IPCC. 2001. Climate Change 2001: The Third Assessment Report of the IPCC. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Haas, Peter M. 1989. ‘‘Do regimes matter? Epistemic communities and Mediterra-
nean pollution control’’, International Organization, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 377–403; Hajer,
Maarten. 1995. The Politics of Environmental Discourse. New York: Oxford University
Press; Jasanoff, Sheila and Brian Wynne. 1998. ‘‘Science and decision-making’’, in Steve
Rayner and Elizabeth Malone (eds) Human Choice and Climate Change. Vol. 1: The
Societal Framework. Columbus: Battelle Press, pp. 1–87.
3. Boehmer-Christiansen, Sonia. 1994. ‘‘Global climate protection policy: The limits of
scientific advice. Part 1’’, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 140–159;
Boehmer-Christiansen, Sonia. 1994. ‘‘Global climate protection policy: The limits of
scientific advice. Part 2’’, Global Environmental Change, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 185–200;
Alfsen, Knut and Tora Skodvin. 1998. ‘‘The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC) and scientific consensus: How scientists come to say what they say
about climate change’’, CICERO Policy Note 1998:3. Oslo: Center for International
Climate and Environmental Research.
4. Jaeger, Jill and Tim O’Riordan. 1996. ‘‘The history of climate change science and
politics’’, in Tim O’Riordan and Jill Jaeger (eds) Politics of Climate Change. London:
Routledge, pp. 1–31.
5. Skodvin, Tora. 1999. Structure and Agent in the Scientific Diplomacy of Climate Change.
Oslo: Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, Oslo.
6. United Nations. 1988. General Assembly Resolution 43/53.
7. IPCC. 1990. Climate Change: The IPCC Scientific Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
8. United Nations. 1992. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
9. United Nations. 1996. Document FCCC/CP/1996/15/Add.1.
10. Ritson, D. M. 2000. ‘‘Gearing up for IPCC-2001’’, Climatic Change, Vol. 45, No. 3,
pp. 471–488.
11. Agarwal, Anil and Sunita Narain. 1991. Global Warming in an Unequal World. New
Delhi: Center for Science and the Environment.
12. Dowdeswell, Elizabeth and Richard Kinley. 1994. ‘‘Constructive damage to the status
quo’’, in Irving Mintzer and Michael Chadwick (eds) Negotiating Climate Change: The
Inside Story of the Rio Convention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13. Weinberg, Alvin. 1972. ‘‘Science and trans-science’’, Minerva, No. 10, pp. 209–222.
14. Miller, Clark and Paul Edwards. 2001. ‘‘Introduction: The globalization of climate
science and climate politics’’, in Clark Miller and Paul Edwards (eds) Changing the
Atmosphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 1–30.
15. IPCC. 1996. Climate Change 1995: The Science of Climate Change. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
16. Edwards, Paul and Stephen Schneider. 2001. ‘‘Self-governance and peer review in
science-for-policy: The case of the second assessment report’’, in Clark Miller and Paul
Edwards (eds) Changing the Atmosphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 220–246.
17. Litfin, Karen. 1994. Ozone Discourse. New York: Columbia University Press.
18. Haas, note 2 above; Haas, Peter M. 1992. ‘‘Banning chlorofluorocarbons: Epistemic
community efforts to protect stratospheric ozone’’, International Organization, Vol. 46,
No. 1, pp. 187–224.
19. Benedick, Richard. 1991. Ozone Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
20. Peterson, M. 1992. ‘‘Whalers, cetologists, environmentalists, and the international man-
agement of whaling’’, International Organization, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 147–186.
21. Thomas, Caroline. 1992. The Environment in International Relations. London: Royal
Institute of International Relations.
22. Rowlands, Ian. 1995. The Politics of Global Atmospheric Change. Manchester: Man-
chester University Press.
23. IPCC, note 7 above.
24. Harris, Paul. 2000. ‘‘Climate change: Is the United States sharing the burden?’’, in
Paul Harris (ed.) Climate Change and American Policy. New York: St Martin’s Press,
pp. 29–50.
25. Oberthür, Sebastian and Hermann Ott. 1999. The Kyoto Protocol: International Climate
Policy for the 21st Century. Berlin: Springer.
26. Grubb, Michael, Christiaan Vrolijk, and Duncan Brack. 1999. The Kyoto Protocol:
A Guide and Assessment. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs/Earthscan.
27. Bolin, Bert. 1997. ‘‘Scientific assessment of climate change’’, in Gunnar Fermann
(ed.) International Politics of Climate Change. Oslo: Scandinavian University Press,
pp. 83–109.
28. Haas, Peter M. and David McCabe. 2000. ‘‘Amplifiers or dampeners: International
institutions and social learning in the management of global environmental risks’’, in
154 KAMEYAMA
Social Learning Group (ed.) Learning to Manage Global Environmental Risks, Vol. 1.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 323–348.
29. Gelbspan, Ross. 1995. The Heat is On. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books.
30. Boehmer-Christiansen, note 3 above.
31. Miller and Edwards, note 14 above.
32. Boehmer-Christiansen, Sonia. 1995. ‘‘Britain and the International Panel on Climate
Change: The impacts of scientific advice on global warming. Part 1: Integrated policy
analysis and the global dimension’’, Environmental Politics, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 1–18.
33. Kawashima, Yasuko. 2000. ‘‘Japan’s decision-making about climate change problems:
Comparative study of decisions in 1990 and in 1997’’, Environmental Economics and
Policy Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 29–57.
34. Kawashima, Yasuko. 1997. ‘‘Comparative analysis of decision-making processes of the
developed countries towards CO2 emissions reduction target’’, International Environ-
mental Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 95–126.
35. IPCC. 1998. ‘‘Principles governing IPCC work’’, approved at the Fourteenth Session,
Vienna, 1–3 October.
NGOs and environmental
governance
8
Institutionalization of NGO
involvement in policy functions for
global environmental governance
Satoko Mori
Introduction
Debate on global environmental governance has resurged because vari-

ous efforts in the past several decades have been ineffective in halting
environmental degradation. Indeed, data from various sources reveal
that the environmental situation has worsened. Many observers point
out that part of the explanation for environmental degradation lies in
the institutional and structural problems of the United Nations Environ-
ment Programme (UNEP), such as small budgets and narrow mandates.
Others conclude that scattered, overlapping, and even conflicting man-
dates among the more than 500 multilateral environmental agreements
(MEAs) have hindered opportunities for coordinated responses. Based
on these arguments, several proposals, which include strengthening the
mandate of UNEP, clustering of MEAs, strengthening the UN Commis-
sion on Sustainable Development (CSD), and creating a world environ-
mental organization, might provide a more integrated environmental
framework.
No matter what new framework for global environmental governance
is designed, it should not be another organization mandated solely by
states. As the Commission on Global Governance defines it, governance
is ‘‘the sum of the many ways individuals and institutions, public and
private, manage their common affairs’’.1 It is vital to ensure the engage-
ment of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in any new institu-
157
158 MORI
tional framework because NGOs enhance the policy-making function

of global environmental governance by increasing its transparency and
accountability.
This chapter seeks to raise two major questions in terms of NGO in-
volvement in global environmental governance. What are the necessary
arrangements to ensure meaningful participation of NGOs to enhance
their policy-making function? Secondly, how and to what extent should
NGO involvement in global environmental governance be institution-
alized? Related to this second question is whether institutionalization
is appropriate in the age of networking. To answer these questions, the
chapter first presents an overview of NGO access in the UN system.
Second, it examines the existing institutional arrangements for NGO
involvement at the international level, and compares and contrasts the
strengths and weaknesses of these arrangements. In this section, three
types of institutional arrangement for NGOs are selected as case studies.
The first case study concentrates on the institutional arrangements
adopted by the CSD, which attempts to integrate both development and
environmental goals and policies. To enable a focus on the environment
field, the second case study examines the institutional arrangements
adopted by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC),
which is an MEA. Finally, the international financial institutions, which
have financed environmental projects and programmes, are looked at
through a study of the World Bank. After identifying strengths and
weaknesses within the current systems, this chapter will propose possible
ways of establishing an ideal and practical system of involving NGOs to
enhance their policy functions in global environmental governance.
Overview of NGO access in the UN system

The first formal provision for relations between NGOs and the United
Nations is outlined in Article 71 of the UN Charter:
The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consulta-
tion with non-governmental organizations, which are concerned with matters
within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international orga-
nizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultation
with the Member of the United Nations concerned.
Based on Article 71, in 1946 the UN Economic and Social Council

(ECOSOC) adopted Resolution 1296, and provided consultative status to
41 NGOs through its own screening in 1948. The NGOs with consulta-
tive status (hereafter ECOSOC/NGOs) acquired certain rights to submit
NGO INVOLVEMENT IN ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE 159
written statements, participate in intergovernmental meetings as ob-

servers, and have access to information. However, the role of NGOs was
confined to consultation, not negotiation.
Parallel to ECOSOC, specialized UN agencies such as the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR), and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) introduced
their own accreditation procedures, developing their relationships with
NGOs, particularly at the operational level. During the 1970s and 1980s,
the involvement of NGOs in the work of these organizations and pro-
grammes grew significantly, while at the same time they expanded their
political space to improve their activities and increase their influence.
A series of UN-sponsored world conferences in the early 1990s wid-
ened and deepened the involvement of NGOs in the UN system. The UN
Secretariat welcomed the participation of not only ECOSOC/NGOs but
also national-based NGOs, which did not have accreditation status with
ECOSOC. The United Nations attempted to strengthen and revitalize
the General Assembly through broader participation of NGOs, since this
would enhance the political legitimacy of the United Nations. In particu-
lar, the secretariat of the UN Conference on Environment and Develop-
ment (UNCED) promoted broader participation of NGOs both in the
preparatory process and at the conference. The secretariat relaxed ac-
creditation policy and provided accreditation status to non-ECOSOC/
NGOs. The increasing number of NGOs and their access to formal and
informal meetings at world conferences went beyond the standard set by
ECOSOC. By June 1992 more than 1,400 NGOs were accredited (here-
after UNCED/NGOs), most being national-based and/or issues-based
organizations from developing countries. This unprecedented measure
was followed by successive world conferences. Each UN conference
organized by the General Assembly provided NGOs with their own ac-
creditation status, since there were no formally integrated rules of pro-
cedure for NGOs participating in world conferences. The 1995 World
Summit for Social Development at Copenhagen accredited 1,299 NGOs,
of which 811 were represented by a total of 2,315 non-governmental
participants.2 The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing
accredited 2,607 organizations, and a total of 4,010 representatives from
1,700 NGOs participated in the conference itself. A parallel NGO forum,
which has been introduced since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human
Environment, became an integral part of official events.3 NGO repre-
sentatives were invited to address the plenary session at the World Con-
ference on Human Rights in 1993. NGOs participated in the informal
drafting groups that drew up the Declaration and Programme of Action
in the preparatory process for the 1996 UN Conference on Human
Settlements. Thus, in the early 1990s, these UN-sponsored conferences
160 MORI
expanded NGO participation in terms of both quantity and quality,

and confirmed a new level of NGO dynamism and influence in global
governance.
The substantial expansion of NGO involvement in world conferences
also demonstrated that the existing rules and procedures for NGO par-
ticipation provided in ECOSOC Resolution 1296 were outmoded and
needed to be revised. Consequently, increasing pressure from the NGO
community led to a major review of ECOSOC Resolution 1296. How-
ever, the new consultation arrangement, adopted as Resolution 1996/31,
remained virtually unchanged from the previous arrangements despite
the NGOs’ expectations that their rights would be expanded and their
access made more flexible. This review process revealed a backlash
amongst many member states. Governments were unwilling to allow
broad NGO participation because they suspected it would undermine
state sovereignty. One of the few improvements was the establishment of
a new principle that allowed national, regional, and subregional NGOs to
seek consultative status.
Not satisfied with their continuing consultative role, NGOs tried to ex-
tend their roles as negotiators. In recent years, for example, NGOs have
called for member states to grant them formal consultative rights with the
General Assembly and the Security Council. However, these attempts
were met with considerable and increasing resistance from member
states. Some governments feared changes that might compromise their
sovereignty or weaken their monopoly on global decision-making, while
others obviously opposed any expansion of the scope of NGO activities.4
Since the late 1990s, the political environment surrounding NGOs has
become much less friendly for them than it was in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. Hence, the holding of world conferences ceased in the late
1990s. This backlash against NGOs can be attributed not only to the
hardened attitudes of nation-states, but also to the financial difficulties of
the United Nations and to divisions within the NGO community, namely
between the ‘‘established NGOs’’ and ‘‘new NGOs’’. According to James
Paul, the established NGOs, which have a long history of access to the
United Nations, claimed that the flood of new and purely national NGOs
would downgrade the NGOs’ position, whereas the new NGOs viewed
the established group as a privileged élite.5
Institutional practices of NGO involvement in the CSD
Accreditation process and participation modalities
After UNCED, the CSD was set up in 1993 as a functioning commission

of ECOSOC to continue policy discussion and monitor the implemen-
tation of Agenda 21, the action plan for implementing sustainable de-
velopment. Agenda 21 identifies nine ‘‘major groups’’ of civil society,6
and recommends promoting greater involvement in the CSD’s work by
a wide range of organizations. In particular, Chapter 27 of Agenda 21
clearly states that NGOs have well-established experience, expertise, and
capacity, and recommends that the UN system and governments initi-
ate a process to review formal procedures and mechanisms for the
involvement of NGOs at all levels from policy-making and decision-
making to implementation.7 In order to reflect these ideas, the CSD
Secretariat followed the flexible and inclusive accreditation rules adopted
at UNCED, which went beyond the then-existing ECOSOC rules.
UNCED/NGOs were readily granted accreditation to attend sessions of
the CSD after they had again submitted applications for accreditation to
the secretariat.8 A total of 570 NGOs out of the 1,400 that participated in
UNCED were placed on the roster in the CSD (hereafter CSD/NGOs).9
The full list of NGOs with consultative status numbered about 3,000
organizations in 2001.10
As observers, CSD/NGOs were allowed the same rights provided by
ECOSOC. These are the right to participate in the meetings of the CSD,
to submit written statements at their own expense, and to address meet-
ings briefly at the discretion of the chair. For example, NGOs at the
first CSD could have unprecedented access and involvement through ad
hoc arrangements at the discretion of the chair, Rasali Ismile. Accredited
NGOs were also allowed to set up informal side events and exchange
their views with governments. The CSD Secretariat facilitated and coor-
dinated these NGO activities.
NGO staff members, who had been involved in the CSD process from
an early stage, evaluated NGO involvement as follows:
The CSD has seen large involvement of the major group organizations in its
work. About 200 to 300 major group representatives have attended each Com-
mission meeting at some point during the three-week period. The CSD has pio-
neered a greater involvement of the Major Groups in the work of an ECOSOC
Commission. None of the sessions is now closed – even the small working groups
are held open for major group representatives to attend and in many cases to
speak. Their increased involvement in implementing the UN conference agree-
ments has also meant increased involvement in framing them in the first place.11
Coordination of activities among NGOs
In order to coordinate activities for the CSD, in 1994 representatives of

NGOs and other major groups formed the CSD NGO Steering Commit-
tee. Two co-chairs were elected from the North and the South, respec-
tively. Members of the steering committee, who were elected by region,
162 MORI
issues, and major groups, served as focal points to ensure equal partici-
pation of issues and regional networks within the NGO community. The
committee facilitated the sharing of information and arranged for NGO
input into official processes. Its mandate was to coordinate the devel-
opment of common NGO positions rather than to represent the NGO
community or make policy. Unfortunately, however, in 2000 intense dis-
putes between caucuses within the steering committee resulted in the
majority of the Northern NGOs and issue caucuses absenting themselves
from the committee.
As a result, parallel to the CSD NGO Steering Committee, the Sus-
tainable Development Issues Network (SDIN) was set up in 2001 as a
collaborative effort among civil society networks and non-governmental
issue caucuses engaging in the World Summit on Sustainable Devel-
opment (WSSD) process.12 The SDIN, which was facilitated by three
networks – the Northern Alliance for Sustainability (ANPED), the Third
World Network (TWN), and the Environmental Liaison Center Interna-
tional (ELCI) – aimed to improve communication among NGOs working
towards the WSSD in 2002.13 The SDIN prepared a draft paper and cir-
culated it through various list-servers. Anyone interested could contrib-
ute thoughts, alterations, and points through a website discussion forum.
Taking into account comments contributed through the internet as well
as discussions, three network NGOs of the SDIN developed an NGO
position paper, which would be delivered to the secretariat.
Multi-stakeholder dialogue as a new NGO-government forum
In response to a decision taken by the General Assembly at its nine-

teenth special session in 1997, that the CSD should strengthen its in-
teraction with representatives of major groups through greater and
better use of focused dialogue sessions and round tables,14 the multi-
stakeholder dialogue (MSD) was introduced as a unique participatory
model.15 The purpose of the MSD is to engage major groups and gov-
ernments effectively in a dialogue on specific sustainable development
issues.16 It also aims at providing an opportunity for representatives
of major groups to share their views on progress that has been achieved.
At the MSD segment, multi-stakeholders exchanged views and discussed
specific issues with government representatives.
Starting at the CSD in 1998, the MSD segment has been held over two
days at the beginning of each session. Specific themes have included the
role of industry in sustainable development (1998); tourism (1999); sus-
tainable agriculture (2000); and energy and transport (2001). The MSD
segment precedes the ‘‘high-level’’ segment in which final decisions are
issued by the CSD and submitted through ECOSOC to the General
Assembly for approval. The MSD segments initially involved five key
stakeholders from major groups: business and industry, trade unions,
NGOs, local authorities, and scientific and technological communities.
Later, all nine major groups were involved in the segment.
In general, NGOs regarded the MSD segment as an opportunity to
formalize NGO involvement in the CSD process, to take their voices to
a wider audience, and to contribute constructively to the improvement of
global decisions. They also regarded the MSD as an occasion to exchange
views and experiences directly with government representatives on an
equal footing. The increasing number of major groups’ representatives
attending the CSD shows their growing expectations of MSD.17 To assist
the major group participation in dialogue, a multi-stakeholder steering
group composed of network organizations from the five key major group
sectors was set up. These network organizations facilitated the prepara-
tion of dialogue papers and consulted with their networks to identify
representatives and prepare them for participation in the dialogue. For
example, the representatives of NGOs were selected on the basis of gen-
der, age, experience, constituency, issues for MSD, geography, and so on.
The SDIN posted the set of criteria on its website in order to make the
selection process open and transparent.18
For the organizers, the MSD has been assessed as a unique way to in-
volve major groups in reviewing the progress of Agenda 21 implementa-
tion, as it was designed to build consensus on possible future actions and
generate new partnerships for sustainable development.19 Based on
these practices at the CSD, the MSD segments have become a standard
part of the official work programme of the CSD and the preparatory
committee meetings for the WSSD in 2002.20
Strengths and weaknesses
The CSD has been providing a basis for new ways of involving NGOs
in UN processes. In general, the NGO community seems to welcome the
MSD segment, pointing out that the CSD has developed an innovative
participatory model with the major groups.21 It can be said that MSD is
an innovative mechanism for formalizing increasing NGO participation
in a part of the official process.
However, several claims need to be addressed. First, many participants
indicated that the effectiveness of NGO participation in the dialogue was
very much in doubt.22 Some are disappointed with the consistent lack of
government attention to the dialogue,23 doubting that their input will be
used or acknowledged. This is because proposals made by major groups
at the MSD are not guaranteed inclusion in the chair’s summary, which
is part of the CSD’s final report on the session. The decision on what
164 MORI
will be included in the chair’s summary still depends on the interests of

the government delegations. In practice, at the CSD in 2002 the recom-
mendations of stakeholders were not reflected in the final decision.24
Second, the selection process of stakeholder representatives varies
considerably because the multi-stakeholder steering groups identify their
participants through their own processes. For example, NGOs selected
their representatives through consultation, using criteria such as exper-
tise, gender, and the regional balance set up by the SDIN.25 In con-
trast, trade unions decided on the basis of case studies submitted, and
on gender and regional balance.26 In addition, each stakeholder group
employed its own mechanism for drafting and developing papers and
consulting with their constituencies.27 This inconsistency might engender
some serious questioning of the legitimacy of representatives.
Third, the NGOs’ traditional independence of thought and action
might be threatened, because NGOs are obliged to integrate their diverse
viewpoints through the MSD process. It is also of concern that NGOs
might be exposed to the influence of other influential participants,
namely the business sector, thereby reducing their opportunity to take
their message to a wider audience.28
Institutional practices of NGO involvement in the FCCC
Accreditation process and participation modalities
Regarding the accreditation of NGOs, Article 7 of the FCCC provides

that:
Any body or agency, whether national or international, governmental or non-

governmental, which is qualified in matters covered by the Convention, and
which has informed the secretariat of its wish to be represented at a session of the
Conference of Parties (COP) as an observer, may be admitted unless at least one
third of the Parties present object. The admission and participation of observers
shall be subject to the rules of procedure adopted by the Conference of Parties.29
In order to be accredited as observers, NGOs must be legally con-

stituted entities and competent in matters related to the FCCC. Almost
400 NGOs at COP5 and 270 NGOs at COP6 were accredited. As ob-
servers, NGOs are allowed to attend convention meetings such as COPs
and meetings of subsidiary bodies without the right to vote. At COP4
it was formally decided to allow observers to attend open-ended contact
groups, subject to the same provisos.30 Observers are permitted to inter-
vene during meetings, subject to the approval of the chair. NGOs have
been given the opportunity to address statements to plenary meetings
of the COP and its subsidiary bodies. The FCCC Secretariat encourages
NGOs to make their statements on behalf of a broad constituency.31
The NGO members have another route by which to gain access to
the policy-making process. Some NGO members have attended official
meetings as appointed members of government delegations. For exam-
ple, Australia and Canada placed members of NGOs on their delegation
to the FCCC. In some cases, governments of developing countries have
provided delegate status to NGO representatives from other countries.32
This is beneficial to NGOs because, as government delegates, NGOs
could have the opportunity to access diplomatic processes and infor-
mation necessary for policy-making. Also, during sessions of the COPs,
an increasing number of governments have held regular meetings with
NGOs to exchange opinions and information in very interactive ways.
Moreover, some NGO members are working as FCCC Secretariat staff
and play an important role as a filter between NGOs, the state members,
and scientific groups.
Coordination of activities among NGOs: Transnational NGO

network
Besides these formal processes, NGOs have influenced negotiations on

climate change by forming a transnational network, the Climate Action
Network (CAN), which is a principal umbrella group facilitating in-
formation exchange and coordinating activities among environmental
NGOs. CAN, created in 1989, has been actively involved in the nego-
tiating process of the FCCC from its earliest stages by lobbying gov-
ernment delegations, issuing statements, conducting research, organizing
campaigns, and so on. This well-organized network has increased dra-
matically in size from its original 47 member organizations to more than
320 in 2000.
During conferences, CAN members hold daily meetings to exchange
information on the responses of the various governments and decide
lobbying strategies for the following day. Some NGOs, mainly the core
members of CAN, have developed good relationships with government
delegations over the years, enabling them to collect up-to-date informa-
tion. Such information is particularly useful for NGOs which have little
access to government delegations. CAN members also select those NGO
representatives who will speak on behalf of other members. CAN has a
role in ensuring transparency in intergovernmental negotiations by pub-
lishing ECO, a newsletter issued every day during the conference. ECO
166 MORI
is an influential lobbying tool for NGOs, and CAN members also use it as
a political tool for expressing their positions.
Strengths/weaknesses
NGO participation in the meetings of the FCCC has gone far beyond
the formal provision of the ECOSOC statute, since the member states
of the COP attempted to include diverse opinions from among the vari-
ous actors. This inclusive approach has resulted in the participation
of more than 3,000 representatives of non-governmental and non-profit
organizations.
However, NGOs participating in the climate policy debate are now
facing a number of problems. First, NGOs are wondering about their
potential role in enforcing the Kyoto Protocol. In the case of the Con-
vention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), NGOs
have been active in monitoring violations of the provisions of CITES and
in bringing these to the attention of the convention secretariat. These
NGO activities have contributed to a decline in the trafficking of African
elephants. To enable NGOs to play a monitoring function in the climate
change issue, it will be necessary to incorporate provisions into the Kyoto
Protocol that give NGOs further monitoring rights.
Second, the greater the opportunity for NGOs to participate in the
official process as government delegates, the less the freedom they will
have to act and speak independently. Peter Willetts explains:
When NGOs do participate on the inside, they have to decide whether constraints
on their freedom of action and the dangers of being co-opted outweigh the ben-
efits of closer access and the potentiality for direct influence. Usually a satisfac-
tory compromise is made. The insiders accept some personal constraints. They
can encourage other NGO representatives to take action they cannot undertake
themselves.33
Third, according to the inclusive approach taken by the FCCC Secre-

tariat, a broad spectrum of non-state actors, representing different and
sometimes conflicting interests, are lumped together in one category as
‘‘NGOs’’. In the climate change negotiation process, three main con-
stituency groupings have emerged: environmental groups; business and
industry associations; and local government and municipal authorities.
It is difficult even for environmental groups to distinguish citizens’ groups
from other non-state actors. In addition, the attempts to promote NGO
participation inclusively have inevitably increased the lobbying activ-
ities of the business community. Therefore, environmental NGOs have
become frustrated at being treated together with business and industry
associations.
Institutional practices of NGO involvement with

the World Bank
Participation modalities
Over the past few decades, specialized agencies at the United Nations
have developed their own arrangements with NGOs. These vary consid-
erably depending on the particular history of the agency and the issues
in its mandate. Among these agencies, UNICEF, the UNHCR, and the
UNDP have a long history of working with NGOs, and thus they permit
the greatest degree of NGO access.
In contrast to these organizations, the World Bank, an independent
specialized agency with no obligation to follow ECOSOC provisions,
originally had no interest in making any arrangement for formal relations
with NGOs. Its collaboration with NGOs began in the mid-1970s when it
began providing grants to NGOs. The Bank became interested in draw-
ing NGO experience and expertise into Bank-supported lending opera-
tions after adopting a new development strategy focusing on basic human
needs in 1974. It perceived NGO and community involvement as a tool
to facilitate project completion, preferably at a low cost. The Bank’s ar-
rangements with NGOs were generally informal and applied only to field
operations, not policy-making. According to the Bank’s statistics, opera-
tional collaboration between the Bank and NGOs showed a steady in-
crease from 1974. However, as the Bank had no fixed internal provisions
for NGO participation, throughout the 1970s Bank-NGO relations were
traditionally ad hoc and informal, varying from project to project. The
Bank neither consulted with the public nor had a filing system.
The gradual but increasing operational collaboration with NGOs made
it necessary for the World Bank to prepare a manual to clarify relations.
In 1988, after consultation with NGOs, the Bank issued Operational
Manual Statement 5.30 titled ‘‘Collaboration with NGOs’’. In this, the
Bank stated that civil society was to be involved in the design, imple-
mentation, and evaluation stages of a project cycle, but not the decision-
making stage. In 1989 the Bank issued Operational Directive 14.70,
which instructed Bank staff to involve NGOs in projects. The Bank
regarded NGOs as private organizations engaged in operational works
to relieve suffering, promote the interests of the poor, protect the
environment, provide basic social services, and undertake community
development.34
Faced with strong criticism from developmental, environmental, and
human rights NGOs against the structural adjustment policy, the World
Bank dramatically increased the involvement of NGOs in 1989. Accord-
ing to a social development report, the ratio of Bank projects with NGO
168 MORI
involvement increased from about 20 per cent in 1990 to over 70 per

cent in 2000.35 It seems that NGOs have come to be more involved in
Bank projects quantitatively. However, these figures do not always indi-
cate the improved quality of NGO involvement. Covey points out that
there is little evidence that NGO involvement is making a substantial
difference.36
Coordination of activities among NGOs
The first attempt to institutionalize Bank-NGO relations was the estab-

lishment of the World Bank-NGO Committee in 1981. This committee’s
aim was to facilitate dialogue through exchanging information and pro-
moting collaboration between Bank staff and NGOs at the project oper-
ation level. It originally comprised 14 NGO members from particular
development organizations from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America,
and the Caribbean, and 15 Bank staff from its regional offices and its
policy and planning departments.37 The members met twice a year, in
Washington and in a third world location.
However, NGO committee members were criticized for their lack of
accountability to the wider NGO community, for the method of select-
ing committee members, and for the confidentiality of discussions.38 The
committee was also strongly condemned for transforming the responsi-
bility of the Bank and its operations into a public relations exercise. As a
result, the committee could not fulfil its function as an official consulta-
tive forum between NGOs and the Bank. Consequently, in 1984 NGO
members disapproving of the committee established the NGO Working
Group on the World Bank (NGOWG) as an autonomous and parallel
body. The mandates of the NGOWG are to act as a pipeline, transmitting
information and analyses and offering access to information on the Bank;
to represent a constituency rather than act as individuals; and to feed
grass-roots experiences and information effectively into the Bank and
its processes.39 The members of the NGOWG are self-selected from
interested organizations. Hence, the World Bank-NGO Committee was
restructured and is currently composed of NGOWG members and
Bank staff. Since 1994, the NGOWG has shifted its emphasis towards
decentralization and regionalization, based on the idea that the direct
engagement of Southern NGOs is vital in tackling the issue of poverty
reduction.40 The regional assemblies have now become one of the prin-
cipal modes for dialogue between NGOs and Bank officials on matters
pertaining to the design, implementation, and evaluation of Bank-
supported projects at national and regional levels. The dialogue between
the NGOWG and the Bank also opened an opportunity to examine the
introduction of a participatory development approach.
Non-institutionalized pressures of NGOs on the Bank
The NGO community has comprised mainly two groups, depending on

their attitude towards the World Bank. One group, consisting mainly of
European and Southern NGOs and operational NGOs, is attempting to
reform the behaviour of Bank staff. This group tries to make an impact
on Bank policy through constructive dialogue with the Bank by partic-
ipating in the World Bank-NGO Committee. The other group, consisting
mainly of US NGOs and advocacy NGOs, is seeking to change institu-
tional aspects of the Bank radically or even to close it down. This group
attempts to influence Bank policy externally by organizing public cam-
paigns and by lobbying activities directed toward the US Congress.
In the early 1990s, NGO criticisms of the World Bank for failing to
alleviate poverty and implement environmental protection increased. In
1990 the latter group, which sought radical restructuring of the Bank,
launched a campaign against India’s Narmada Dam project; and in 1994
it launched the ‘‘50 Years Is Enough’’ campaign at the 50th Bretton
Woods anniversary. These NGOs argued that Bank-financed projects
created poverty while destroying the environment. More than 200 NGOs
participated in the ‘‘50 Years Is Enough’’ campaign and criticized the
Bank’s undemocratic structure. They called for institutional reforms to
create openness, full public accountability, and the participation of af-
fected populations in decision-making procedures of the Bank.41
Both internal and external pressures, in other words institutionalized
and non-institutionalized pressures, from NGOs have led the Bank to
reform its relationship with NGOs in two substantial ways.42 The most
noticeable change was the establishment in 1994 of a public information
centre under a new information disclosure policy. The creation of this
centre was an acknowledgement by the Bank of the need for greater
transparency and accountability. The centre provided documents, such as
project information documents, project appraisal reports, environmental
impact assessments for projects with the most severe and irreversible
impacts on the environment, and country-based reports, which had pre-
viously been classified. The Bank’s growing commitment to increasing
transparency was reinforced when it revised its information disclosure
policy in 2001. It is expected that documents such as implementation
completion reports, performance assessment reports, operational policy
papers, and sector strategy papers will be available to those who are in-
terested in the workings of Bank-financed projects.
The other reform was the establishment in 1993 of an independent in-
spection panel. This panel, one of several measures designed to increase
the World Bank’s accountability, was created in response to the interna-
tional NGO campaign against the Narmada Dam in India. It is a three-
170 MORI
member body that provides an independent forum for private citizens

who believe that they or their interests have been or could be directly
harmed by a Bank-financed project. This is the first system put in place
by the Bank to receive requests for a complete investigation from directly
affected people or from NGOs representing adversely affected people.43
The system allows NGOs to scrutinize the activities of the Bank and as-
certain whether the Bank has complied with its own operational policies
and procedures with respect to the design, appraisal, or implementation
of Bank-financed projects.44 The panel has been successful in bringing
problems concerning project implementation, which are concerns of
NGOs, to the attention of the Bank’s board of directors. In other words,
the panel has brought about a significant change in NGO-government
relations, because the affected borrowing-country citizen is now able to
lodge complaints with the panel without consulting his or her borrow-
ing national government. In addition, the panel enhances the position of
NGOs vis-à-vis the international institution of sovereign state members.
While the creation of the panel has been judged a significant step for-
ward in relation to formalizing the role of NGOs in the inspection pro-
cess, it has been claimed that the nation-states still retain their power
on the panel. Large borrowing countries such as India and Brazil, which
have large Bank-funded infrastructure projects, see the panel as an in-
fringement on their sovereignty.45 There are many instances where the
board of directors of the Bank did not permit the panel to conduct a full
investigation of the claims. Instead, the board sought a political compro-
mise to save borrowing countries, even after the panel submitted prelim-
inary reviews.46 In fact, only one claim has resulted in a full investigation,
although 14 claims were filed during 1994–1998. Also, it has been pointed
out that the panel has not succeeded in institutionalizing sanction mea-
sures in the case of non-compliance.47
Strengths and weaknesses
The interaction between NGOs and the World Bank started from
the operational level and later extended gradually to the policy level.
NGO staff members are now involved in the Bank’s team that pre-
pares country-based reports on poverty. Also, dialogues between NGOs
and Bank staff, including senior Bank managers, on Bank-financed proj-
ects have been instituted and expanded to the regional level. More-
over, local NGOs now have the opportunity to enter into discussions
with the Bank’s resident representatives. This increasing transparency
and accountability of the Bank has been brought about by the mutually
reinforcing interaction between institutionalized pressure and the non-
institutionalized pressure of NGOs on the Bank.
However, these changes in Bank policies are slow at best, and the
performance does not always match the promise. Thus, NGOs must
keep pressure on the Bank in the following areas. First, as NGOs have
claimed, the extent of the release of information under the new disclo-
sure policy is problematic and controversial. For example, the Bank
Information Center, one of the NGOs providing information to other
NGOs on projects and policies of the Bank, pointed out that the Bank
rejected the NGOs’ recommendations for meaningful progress in the re-
lease of documents during the preparation and implementation of proj-
ect or investment loans.48 In addition, the Bank Information Center
claimed that the unwillingness of the Bank’s board to release details of
the board’s activities to the public would undermine the credibility of the
Bank’s governance process, although the information disclosure policy
has contributed to a gradual increase in the Bank’s transparency.49
Second, the inspection panel should be vested with enforcement
power. Although the establishment of the inspection panel contributes
to the increase in transparency and accountability of the Bank, unfortu-
nately it is weakened because of the lack of a sanction measure.
Third, although NGO involvement in Bank projects has been in-
creasing, the quality and type of participation are under question. The
meaningful participation of NGOs will not be realized by the provision
of one-way information, nor by their involvement only at the implemen-
tation stage after the Bank has already made decisions. Rather, NGOs’
meaningful participation would be attained by creating a dynamic two-
way communication system, and by providing them with the information
necessary to enable them to participate in policy-making.
Conclusion: Prospects of NGO involvement in global

By comparing the existing arrangements for NGOs in the above sec-
tions, the following policy implications can be drawn regarding the ar-
rangements necessary to ensure meaningful participation of NGOs and
to increase the extent of NGO involvement in global environmental
governance.
Institutionalization of public policy dialogue
NGO involvement has been expanding from the operational level to

the policy level over the past few decades. In particular, a growing phe-
nomenon is the institutionalization of NGO-government dialogue in the
official process, as seen in the MSD at the CSD. While enhancing policy
172 MORI
dialogue in the official process, it is necessary to clarify how NGO inputs

are incorporated into the main decision-making process in order to en-
hance the policy-making function of NGOs. Otherwise, the public policy
dialogue would be merely a forum for non-state actors simply to speak
out. This would undermine efforts to secure public support, which is a
necessary condition for legitimizing global governance.
The FCCC case suggests that the introduction of an inclusive approach
involving a broad range of non-state actors is a desirable arrangement for
non-state actors. However, such an arrangement results in treating envi-
ronment NGOs together with business associations. At the conferences
of MEAs, the convention secretariats must make some arrangements to
distinguish diverse non-state actors as multi-stakeholders, like the provi-
sions at the CSD. In addition, it is necessary to integrate into clusters the
individual rules of procedure adopted by the COPs of respective MEAs
so that NGOs can participate efficiently and effectively.
Both the CSD and the FCCC cases present the expansion of NGO
involvement from the agenda-setting stage to the decision-making stage,
whereas the Bank case shows a gradual but important shift of NGO
involvement through public dialogue from operational level to policy-
making level. The creation of the public information centre and the
inspection panel contributed to the increasing transparency and account-
ability of the Bank, thereby ensuring meaningful participation of NGOs.
The right of access to justice would be fully ensured if the panel gained
enforcement power. These arrangements must be expanded to the
policy-making level.
Extent of NGO involvement
So, to what extent should NGO involvement be institutionalized while

retaining the NGOs’ policy-making function in global environmental
governance? More formal and structured NGO involvement would
provide the NGO community with many more opportunities to influence
policy-making. However, at the same time it can also create unintended
consequences for the NGO community, for the following two reasons.
First, with more structured NGO involvement, NGOs are in danger of
being coopted by governments or intergovernmental actors. In recent
years, NGOs have been asked by UN bodies or the convention secre-
tariats to organize themselves and to select representatives to make
statements, as the number of accredited NGOs has been growing rapidly
while the physical space and available time remain the same. Second, a
full institutionalization of NGO involvement impedes the comparative
advantages of the NGO networks over conventional hierarchy. The cases
of the CSD, the FCCC, and the World Bank demonstrate that non-
institutionalized activities in the form of networks, including caucuses,

working groups, and campaigns, could have an impact on government
policy making by mobilizing public opinion. For example, the advocacy
campaign ‘‘50 Years Is Enough’’ was operated without any form of in-
stitutional access to the Bank. Therefore, it is necessary to leave certain
choices to NGO networks, including the selection of representatives
to participate in or speak at meetings, and the coordination of diverse
opinions and activities among their member organizations.
In conclusion, it would be desirable for NGOs to select their own rep-
resentatives through NGO networks rather than by government control.
The important mission for these NGO networks is the establishment of
internal self-governance, which will show transparency and accountabil-
ity not only to member NGOs but also their constituencies. The cases
of the CSD NGO Steering Committee, the SDIN, and the WB-NGO
Committee illustrate the necessity of clarifying the criteria for selecting
representatives and making the selection process transparent. The insti-
tutionalization of NGO involvement by keeping a balance between ex-
ternal and internal self-governance is the key for NGOs to exercise their
policy functions in global environmental governance.
Notes
1. Ramphal, Shiridath and Ingvar Carlsson. 1995. Our Global Neighbourhood: The Report
of the Commission on Global Governance. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 2–3.
2. United Nations, Department for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development.
1996. ‘‘Role of major groups’’, Background Paper No. 2, prepared by the Division for
Sustainable Development for the CSD Fourth Session, 18 April–3 May 1996. New
York: United Nations, p. 8, fn. 5.
3. Over 25,000 people from 11,000 organizations participated in the 1992 global forum at
Rio, while over 300,000 people attended the Beijing NGO forum.
4. Paul, James A. 1999. ‘‘NGO access at the UN’’, Global Policy Forum, www.
globalpolicy.org/ngos/access/index.htm.
5. Ibid.
6. According to Section III of Agenda 21, ‘‘Strengthening the role of major groups’’, the
following nine groups are identified as major groups: women, youth, indigenous people
and their communities, NGOs, local authorities, workers and their trade unions, busi-
ness and industry, the scientific and technological community, and farmers.
7. United Nations. 1992. Agenda 21: Programme of Action for Sustainable Development.
New York: United Nations.
8. ECOSOC/NGOs did not have to register and automatically had observer status.
9. CSD/NGOs are presently on ECOSOC’s roster as a result of ECOSOC decision E/1993/
215 para. 2 (C). See United Nations, note 2 above, p. 33.
10. Consensus Building Institute. Undated. ‘‘Multi-stakeholder dialogues: Learning from
the UNCSD experience’’, Working Paper. Cambridge, MA: Consensus Building Insti-
tute, p. 14.
174 MORI
11. Bigg, Tom and Felix Dodds. 1997. ‘‘The UN Commission on Sustainable Develop-
ment’’, in Felix Dodds (ed.) The Way Forward: Beyond Agenda 21. London: Earthscan,
p. 31.
12. Issue caucuses evolved as a women’s caucus at the Beijing Conference, then spread to
other issues. Issue caucuses at the CSD include the corporate accountability caucus, the
energy and climate change caucus, the fresh water caucus, and the sustainable produc-
tion and consumption caucus.
13. The three NGO networks were invited by the WSSD Secretariat as the organizing
partner of the MSD for NGOs.
14. UN General Assembly Special Session Resolution S-19/2: Programme for Future Im-
plementation of Agenda 21 (A/RES/S-19/2, annex, para. 133 (e)), 19 September 1997.
15. The idea of the dialogues was taken up by the CSD NGO Steering Committee, which
wrote to the Under-Secretary-General Nitin Desai in 1996 requesting his support for the
introduction of dialogues at the CSD in 1997. Dodds, Felix. 2002. ‘‘The context of global
governance: Multi-stakeholder processes and global governance’’, in Minu Hemmati
(ed.) Multi-stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability. London: Earthscan,
p. 35.
16. UN Document E/CN.17/2001/6, ‘‘Multi-stakeholder dialogue on sustainable energy and
transport’’, para. 5.
17. The number of NGO participants increased from around 200–300 in 1993 to between
700 and 800 by 2000. See Hemmati, Minu (ed.). 2002. Multi-stakeholder Processes for
Governance and Sustainability. London: Earthscan, p. 33.
18. See website www.rio10.dk.
19. UN Document E/CN.17/2001/6, note 16 above, para. 8.
20. At Johannesburg the dialogue sessions are planned to include representatives from all
nine major groups.
21. Willetts, Peter. 1999. ‘‘The rule of the game: The United Nations and civil society’’, in
John W. Foster and Anita Anand (eds) Whose World is it Anyway?. Ottawa: UNA in
Canada, p. 269.
22. UNED Forum. 2001. ‘‘Count us in, count on us’’, co-chairs summary presented at
UNED Forum, International Workshop on Multi-stakeholder Processes, New York,
28–29 April 2001, p. 3.
23. Consensus Building Institute, note 10 above, p. 23.
24. Ibid., p. 6.
25. The criteria, guidelines, and time schedule for NGO candidates for MSD are posted on
www.rio10.dk.
26. Report of UNED Forum, ‘‘CSD multi-stakeholder dialogues’’, www.earthsummit2002.
org/msp/examples/ex-csd.htm.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. The COP to the FCCC has not yet formally adopted its rules of procedure, owing
to differences of opinion over the voting rule. Since all other rules have been agreed to,
the draft rules of procedure are applied at each session, with the exception of the rule
on voting.
30. However, the contact groups’ chairpersons retained the discretion to close the groups to
observers at any time. Informal closed meetings are not open to observers.
31. Depledge, Joanna. 2000. A Guide to the Climate Change Process. Bonn: FCCC Secre-
tariat, p. 19.
32. Lawyers of the Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development
(FIELD) were placed on the delegation on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States
(AOSIS), or helped the governments of AOSIS as advisers.
33. Willetts, note 21 above, p. 267.

34. World Bank. 1988. ‘‘Collaboration with NGOs’’, Operational Manual Statement 5.30.
Washington, DC: World Bank; World Bank. 1989. ‘‘Involving non-governmental orga-
nizations in Bank-supported activities’’, Operational Directive 14.70. Washington, DC:
World Bank.
35. ‘‘Social Development, World Bank, World Bank-Civil Society Collaboration, Prog-
ress Report for Fiscal Years 2000 and 2001.’’ Washington: World Bank. See website
wbln0018.worldbank.org/esd.nsf/NGOs/home.
36. Covey, Jane G. 1998. ‘‘Is critical cooperation possible? Influencing the World Bank
through operational collaboration and policy dialogue’’, in Jonathan A. Fox and David
Brown (eds) The Struggle for Accountability: The World Bank, NGOs, and Grassroots
Movements. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, p. 87.
37. Over time the number of NGO participants has increased to 25.
38. Cleary, Seamus. 1996. ‘‘The World Bank and NGOs’’, in Peter Willetts (ed.) The Con-
science of the World: The Influence of Non-Governmental Organisations in the UN Sys-
tem. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, pp. 71–72.
39. Ibid., p. 79.
40. World Bank. 2000. Proposal by the NGO Working Group on Future Relations with the
World Bank, August. See www.worldbank.org/devform/forum_ngowg/html.
41. Cleary, note 38 above, p. 88.
42. Dana Fisher examines the relationship between protesters who have demonstrated
outside specific international meetings and representatives of NGOs who have partici-
pated inside these meetings. See Chapter 9 in this volume.
43. World Bank. 1994. ‘‘The panel’s operating procedures’’, www.worldbank.org/html/ins-
panel/operating procedures.html.
44. Cameron, James and Ross Ramsay. Undated. ‘‘Integrating dissident voices through in-
ternational institutional law: Participation by non-governmental organizations in the
World Trade Organization’’, paper posted on website www.gets.org/, p. 9.
45. 50 Years Is Enough. ‘‘The World Bank’s inspection panel: Background and an update’’,
Economic Justice News online, www.50years.org/ejn/v2n3/panel.html.
46. Fox, Jonathan A. 2000. ‘‘The World Bank inspection panel: Lessons from the first five
years’’, Global Governance, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 291–294.
47. Ibid., p. 310.
48. Bank Information Center. Undated. ‘‘Bank Information Center update: The ongoing
struggle for World Bank transparency – The outcome of the information disclosure
policy review’’, www.bicus.org/mdbs/wbg/Info%20Disclosure/infodiscupdate.htm.
49. Ibid.
9
Civil society protest and
participation: Civic engagement
within the multilateral governance
regime
Dana R. Fisher1
Introduction
In recent years, civil society protests have taken place around the world
in response to the meetings of international institutions and international
regimes. These protests, which are responses to aspects of globalization
and expressions of civic dissatisfaction with global governance, bring
about a relatively new type of citizen mobilization: international de-
monstrations that focus on different aspects of globalization. Although
significant differences exist between demonstrations against economic in-
stitutions and those in support of the formation of multilateral environ-
mental regimes, they are similar in that they include participants from
many countries who are affiliated with international non-governmental
organizations and, in many cases, the participants in these protests are
mobilized around issues related to the global environment.
As a result of such international protest, questions arise about the role
that civil society can play in the global agenda-setting process. Although
scholars have pointed to civil society as the social sphere from which
pressure must come for the state to develop the political will to create
successful multilateral environmental governance regimes,2 it is unclear
whether civil society is capable of that level of mobilization. In order to
understand the role that it can and should play in the possible formation
of a world environment organization, this chapter explores civil society’s
176
CIVIL SOCIETY PROTEST AND PARTICIPATION 177
involvement in the recent meetings of international institutions and mul-

tilateral regimes. By developing an understanding of the relationship be-
tween protesters who have demonstrated outside specific international
meetings and the representatives of NGOs who have participated inside
these particular meetings, we can learn about opportunities for civil soci-
ety engagement with international institutions and identify ways that a
world environment organization should interact with civil society actors.
The sections that follow explore the relationship between civil society
protest and NGO participation in the international meetings of economic
institutions and multilateral regimes by looking at civil society engage-
ment at particular meetings in recent years. First comes a brief summary
of the dynamics of civil society and the growing literature on the multiple
civil society actors who engage in social protest at these international
meetings. Second, the chapter looks at the overall relationship between
the size of the protests and level of NGO participation at particular in-
ternational meetings: those of the World Bank/International Monetary
Fund and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Third, it
explores the organizational affiliation of the citizens protesting outside
specific international meetings. Finally, it suggests opportunities for mul-
tilateral environmental governance regimes and a world environment or-
ganization to engage with civil society, rather than isolating it.
Understanding the dynamics of civil society
As a first step in comprehending the multiple roles that civil society

actors are playing at the meetings of international institutions and multi-
lateral regimes, it is necessary to describe the social sphere that has come
to be known as civil society. Originally, civil society was seen as a rela-
tively residual category within which social actors outside of the state and
the market were placed. With an increased concern for democracy and
social movements, the sphere of civil society became of central interest
to scholars. In fact, the notion of civil society has its roots in some of the
mainstream theories of contemporary sociology.3 Within this vast liter-
ature, the notion and roles of civil society are derived and discussed.
Much of the literature focuses on conceptualizing the evolving role of the
citizen in society. To date, civil society continues to be seen as a social
sphere that is separate ‘‘from both state and economy’’.4
Not only do civil society actors continue to be considered distinct and
outside of other social spheres, but civil society is viewed as consisting
of a separate and distinct institutional complex. Emirbayer and Sheller
contend that:
178 FISHER
the state, economy and civil society are realms of social life whose relative inde-
pendence from one another constitutes one of the principal hallmarks of moder-
nity. Many of the dynamics of contemporary society are captured in the relations
among these empirically interpenetrating and yet analytically distinct institutional
domains . . . [Civil society is] the institutional sector that, metaphorically speaking,
lies ‘‘in between’’ the state and economy.5
Although the sphere of civil society in developing countries does not

have the level of institutional sophistication of developed countries, pro-
tests at the meetings of international organizations in the developing
world have increased. At the World Summit on Sustainable Develop-
ment (WSSD) in Johannesburg, South Africa, for example, ‘‘thousands
of protesters from within and outside South Africa took to the streets,
marching from the poor residential area known as Alexandra to the offi-
cial WSSD’’.6
Perhaps, in its most general form, civil society has come to be defined
as involving a ‘‘self-organized citizenry’’.7 Inside this social sphere lie
social movements, civic associations, non-governmental organizations,
and citizens who voice their political preferences through their demon-
strations, votes, and wallets. In other words, NGOs that participate in
international meetings and the citizens who demonstrate outside of them
are both specific civil society actors.
The recent literature on civil society has centred around two main
themes. On the one hand, scholars have looked at civil society’s role in
newly emerging democracies.8 Much of this work has focused on the
contributions of civil society to the democratic legitimacy of the nation-
state. On the other hand, research has tended to focus on understanding
and explaining the levels of civic engagement in advanced nations, with
the majority of the focus being on engagement within the USA.9 This
work tends to pay less attention to the role that civil society can play in
overthrowing governmental regimes and more to the role that citizens
play through traditional democratic avenues in industrialized countries.
Within this chapter, both of these conceptions of civil society are appro-
priate: citizens have responded to the meetings of international institu-
tions and multilateral regimes using the tactics that can be seen in the
literature on newly emerging democracies, but they have also joined in
the conversations taking place at these meetings by using more institu-
tionalized action forms such as lobbying inside the actual conference halls
as NGO observers.
International NGOs, transnational social movements, and protest

In addition to the growing literature on the complex of civil society, in
recent years scholars have begun to study the role that civil society or-
ganizations are playing within transnational social movements.10 Perhaps

Smith11 best describes the extensive array of work conducted by inter-
national NGOs that are involved in transnational social movements
today:
By facilitating flows of information across national boundaries, organizations with

transnational ties helped cultivate movement identities, transcend nationally de-
fined interests, and build solidary identities with a global emphasis.
This summary aptly describes the work of many NGOs at international

meetings. These organizations communicate the interests of their consti-
tuents to the representatives of governments and economic institutions,
and report the progress of the meetings to their members. In addition,
many civil society organizations involved in international meetings have
also played a role in organizing protests that take place outside the con-
ference halls during the meetings.
With the increasing frequency of large protests at international meet-
ings, scholars have looked towards these international and transnational
social movements to understand citizen resistance to globalization.12
These authors look at many different types of social movement organi-
zations and protest. One such example can be seen by the stark differ-
ences between the 1999 anti-globalization protests in Seattle13 and the
20,000-person demonstration in Kyoto, Japan during the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change negotiations in 1997.14 Although these
cases are very different, they both provide examples of social movements
responding to specific aspects of globalization: economic integration and
multilateral environmental governance.15 Generally, social movements
have demonstrated against the former and in support of the latter. This
distinction is very important to bear in mind when looking at the tactics
and messages promoted by the protests presented in this chapter, which
will be discussed in more detail in the sections that follow. At the same
time, as will also be discussed in further detail, these different types of
protest are similar in their initial organization and structure.
Although scholars have just recently begun to study protests at inter-
national meetings, sociologists had been studying social protest well be-
fore the literature on transnational social movements emerged.16 The
general goal of this research has been to understand who protests and
why. In the beginning, scholars interpreted protest as collective behav-
iour stemming from the irrational action of emotional masses.17 More
recently, however, sociologists have dispelled what McPhail18 calls the
‘‘myth of the madding crowd’’, finding instead that protest participants
tend to behave rationally. Beyond the question of the behaviour of pro-
testers, research has looked into the relationship between the organiza-
180 FISHER
tional forms and action forms of social movements.19 In other words,

these scholars have studied what tactics are more or less likely to be used
by particular social movements based on the level of organization of their
members.
Perhaps the organizational forms associated with protest have been
most clearly addressed in the work of Staggenborg. In her analysis,
she goes beyond the basic organization/non-organization dichotomy pre-
sented in much of the literature by looking more clearly at social move-
ment organizations (SMOs) involved in the pro-choice movement and
discussing levels of formalization and centralization. She also points out
the difficulty associated with classifying SMOs. In her own words, ‘‘some
SMOs look formalized on paper, but are informal in practice’’.20 Simi-
larly, within his research on the women’s movement, Buechler also adds
to the simple dichotomy between organization/non-organization.21 By
presenting the notion of the social movement community, the author
describes a type of social movement organization that is made up of ‘‘in-
formally organized networks of movement activists’’.22 In other words,
social movement communities lie in between the institutionalized social
movement organization and the non-institutionalized social movement.
Koopmans23 goes beyond these classifications in his attempt to disag-
gregate different types of organizational support for protest. He identi-
fies four types of organizational support: terrorist, communist vanguard,
other SMO, and external ally.
The discussion of action forms within the sociological literature tends
to follow this research on organizational/institutional forms. After dis-
aggregating organizational forms, the authors come to similar results as
those of Piven and Cloward, who say that ‘‘Protest is indeed ‘outside of
normal politics’ and ‘against normal politics’ in the sense that people
break the rules defining permissible modes of political action’’.24 Stag-
genborg, for example, says that formalized SMOs ‘‘tend to engage in in-
stitutionalized tactics and typically do not initiate disruptive direct action
tactics’’.25 In Buechler’s work on social movement communities, he says
that ‘‘formal organization cannot be assumed to be the predominant or
even the most common form for mobilizing collective action’’.26 Koop-
mans also finds similar results in his analysis of protest waves in West
Germany. He reclassifies action forms into disruptive, confrontational,
light violence, and heavy violence, and looks at the relationships between
these different action forms and organizational support. The study con-
cludes that ‘‘the involvement of organizations has a moderating influence
rather than a disruptive influence’’.27
More recently, scholars have begun to discuss the internationaliza-
tion of social movements and protest. Meyer and Tarrow, for example,
write about what they call a ‘‘movement society’’. With the emergence
of transnational social movements, the authors find that social protest,

protest behaviour, and the professionalization and institutionalization of
social movements have become more common.28 In contrast to Piven
and Cloward’s finding that protest is not a part of normal politics,29
these new movements have ‘‘often acted within institutional politics
and movement activists have learned to combine institutional modes
of action with non-institutional convention’’.30 In many cases, protests at
the meetings of international institutions and multilateral regimes repre-
sent this type of combination, as has been previously noted, in that civil
society organizations work both inside the meetings as NGO participants
and simultaneously organize protests to take place outside the conference
centres that were housing the meetings.
In order to understand the differences between the civil society actors
participating inside these meetings and those protesting outside them, it is
useful to refer to the definitions provided by Tarrow in his work on trans-
national politics.31 Although civil society includes many types of organi-
zational forms, to restate once again, this chapter specifically focuses on
social actors within civil society that are working inside and outside
of these international meetings. As such, the difference between inter-
national non-governmental organizations and transnational social move-
ments is of particular interest to this chapter.32 Many of the civil society
actors who are working on issues related to the environmental effects of
international institutions and multilateral regimes are international non-
governmental organizations, which Tarrow defines as ‘‘organizations that
operate independently of governments, are composed of members from
two or more countries, and are organized to advance their members’ in-
ternational goals and provide services to citizens of other states through
routine transactions with states, private actors, and international institu-
tions’’.33 Also in attendance at the meetings of international institutions
are non-governmental organizations that represent members from only
one country.34 International and domestic NGOs, as defined above, tend
to be the only civil society actors who participate in the meetings of
international institutions and multilateral regimes and they tend to use
more institutionalized forms of action. Although these types of organiza-
tions are the only ones that participate inside these international meet-
ings, other civil society actors are involved in discussions surrounding the
meetings; but they tend to participate outside. Particularly, transnational
social movements have organized around these meetings to stage protests
and demonstrations. In Tarrow’s words, transnational social movements
are ‘‘socially mobilized groups with constitutents in at least two states,
engaged in sustained contentious interaction with powerholders in at
least one state other than their own, or against an international institu-
tion, or a multinational economic actor’’.35 The ‘‘50 Years is Enough’’
182 FISHER
campaign against the World Bank and the Climate Action Network’s
campaign to pressure states to ratify the Kyoto Protocol provide clear
examples of transnational social movements that have actively demon-
strated at international meetings in recent years.
The difference between international non-governmental organizations
and transnational social movements can be seen in the action forms that
they use. Turning once again to the work of Tarrow, he restates the dif-
ference between the different types of civil society action:
Transnational social movements engage in sustained contentious interaction with

states, multinational actors, or international institutions, whereas INGOs [inter-
national non-governmental organizations] engage in routine transactions with the
same kinds of actors and provide services to citizens of other states.36
In other words, NGOs participate inside international meetings while

transnational social movements protest outside them.
Perhaps beginning with the demonstrations against the World Trade
Organization in Seattle in November 1999, protests against international
institutions and multilateral regimes have become more common. Since
Seattle, international protests have taken place in cities around the world
including Washington, DC, Prague, Genoa, Quebec, and New York. Al-
though it is clear that international non-governmental organizations and
transnational social movements have both participated in these inter-
national meetings, it is unclear how these two civil society actors are
related to one another. In other words, what is the relationship between
protesters and NGO participants at these international meetings? The
sections that follow will incorporate two different approaches to under-
standing this relationship. First, the chapter will look at the overall levels
of civil society participation at these international meetings by analysing
the relationship between the number of protesters outside specific inter-
national meetings and the number of NGO observers inside the meet-
ings. Second, it will look more clearly at the relationship between the
protesters outside international meetings and those NGO observers in-
side the meetings by presenting data on protesters’ affiliation to social
movement organizations37 at two specific demonstrations – one that was
held to show support for international environmental policy-making and
one that protested against economic globalization.
Protests and participation at international meetings
A first step to understanding the characteristics and levels of civil society

participation and engagement at international meetings is to look at the
relationship between NGO participation and civil society protesters at

recent international meetings. As has been previously stated, civil society
actors have protested against aspects of economic globalization and in
support of aspects of political globalization. Therefore, this chapter in-
cludes analyses of civil society participation and protest at the meeting
of an economic institution and a multilateral environmental regime. This
section presents data from meetings of the World Bank/International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Conferences of the Parties of the UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Due to the
timing of the recent meetings and data availability, it presents data from
two meetings of each: the annual meeting of the World Bank/IMF in
Prague in September 2000 and the spring meeting in Washington, DC, in
April 2000; and the two sixth Conference of the Parties meetings of the
UNFCCC climate change negotiations in November 2000 (COP6) and
July 2001 (COP6bis). Before presenting the analysis, it is important to
restate one of the significant differences between the kinds of civic re-
sponses to these different conferences: civil society actors participated in
protests against certain aspects of the practices of international economic
institutions such as the World Bank/IMF, and civil society actors par-
ticipated in protests in support of strong policies being accepted at the
meetings of environmental regimes such as the climate change negotia-
tions. It is important to keep these differences in mind as we look at data
from these international meetings.
Data and methods
This section looks at the differences between protesters and NGO par-
ticipants at recent meetings of the World Bank/IMF and the UNFCCC
climate change negotiations. NGO participation is operationalized by the
number of people affiliated with NGOs that are registered as participant
observers at these different meetings. NGO participants are included in
the participant directories of the UNFCCC climate change negotiations
that are made available to the public by the UNFCCC Secretariat at
every round of the negotiations.38 Lists of NGO participants registered
for the meetings of the World Bank/IMF, in contrast, are not publicly
available. Approximations of the number of NGO participants at recent
meetings were provided by representatives of both the World Bank and
the IMF. In the cases where the approximations were different, the
numbers were averaged.
It is also important to note the difference between the levels of NGO
representation permitted at these different meetings. As long as a person
can provide a letter stating that he/she is affiliated with an NGO, partici-
pant observer status is granted by the UNFCCC Secretariat to attend the
184 FISHER
Table 9.1 NGO observers versus protesters at international meetings

NGO observers Protesters
World Bank/IMF UNFCCC World Bank/IMF UNFCCC
2001 1,587 people 3,000

Autumn 2000 425 people 3,144 people 7,500 5,000
Spring 2000 200 people 15,000
climate change negotiations. As a result of this policy, most NGOs that

participate in the negotiations bring multiple participants – some even
send more than 20 members. The World Bank/IMF, in contrast, only
allows one representative for each NGO that registers.39 Representa-
tives of the World Bank and IMF state that the NGO registration process
is pro forma and almost all NGOs that register in time are approved to
send a representative.
Data on the demonstrations at each of these meetings were provided
by both NGO accounts and mainstream media sources of articles on the
protests.40 In cases where the media and NGO accounts of protest par-
ticipation were different, the numbers were averaged. Table 9.1 provides
the number of people registered as NGO participants and estimates of
the number of protesters at the recent meetings of the World Bank/IMF
and the UNFCCC climate change negotiations.
The disassociation index
In order to understand the types of civil society participation taking place

at these meetings, this section looks at the relationship between civil so-
ciety engagement inside and outside of these international meetings. The
author has created a ‘‘disassociation index’’ that measures the extent to
which civil society is disassociated from what is taking place at these in-
ternational meetings. The index compares the levels of civil society pro-
testers to participants; it is the ratio of the protest population to the NGO
participant observers.41 As might be expected, the disassociation indices
were very different for these international meetings; in particular, they
were significantly higher for the World Bank/IMF meetings than the
UNFCCC negotiations. The annual meeting of the World Bank in 2000
yielded an index of 17.65 and the spring meeting in 2000 yielded an index
of 75. In contrast, both of the climate change negotiations generated a
disassociation index of less than 2 (1.59 in the autumn of 2000 and 1.89 in
summer 2001). Table 9.2 provides the disassociation indices for these in-
ternational meetings.
Table 9.2 Disassociation indices for international meetings

World Bank/IMF UNFCCC
2001 1.89
Autumn 2000 17.65 1.59
Spring 2000 75.00
The disparities between the disassociation indices point to significant

differences in the characteristics of the types of civil society participation
at these international meetings. It is likely that because of the limitations
to NGO participation in the World Bank/IMF meetings and the negative
responses by civil society to the financial institutions themselves, there
were significantly more citizens protesting outside these meetings than
participating in the discussions that were taking place inside the meet-
ings. Once again, it is important to note that this research points to the
difference between protests against meetings of international institutions
and those that are in support of a meeting that is taking place. The dis-
association index, in fact, provides a useful way to quantify these differ-
ences. Most of the demonstrations that involve tens of thousands of
citizens and lead to violence tend to be associated with the meetings
of international organizations that do not include a large amount of NGO
involvement or transparency. Meetings that include the active participa-
tion of NGOs and provide opportunities for citizen engagement inside
the meeting have not experienced the same levels of protest and score
much lower in the disassociation index.
Protests and social movement organizations
Although the disassociation index helps us to understand the relationship

between protests and participation at international meetings, it does not
provide any information about the protesters themselves or their con-
nection to NGOs. In order to understand the organizational affiliation of
the protesters at these international meetings, the chapter will now turn
to look at how protests are organized and how people come to attend
civil society protests. The pages that follow present a study of the char-
acteristics of civil society protesters at protest events at two separate in-
ternational meetings: the Human Dike at the UNFCCC negotiations in
autumn 2000, and the Another World is Possible rally during the World
Economic Forum in winter 2002. The demonstrations studied represent
examples of the different types of international meetings being discussed
186 FISHER
within this chapter: international economic institutions and multilateral

environmental regimes. It is the hope that by analysing data collected
at these protests, we will gain a deeper understanding of the relation-
ship between social movement organizations and protest at international
meetings.
Data and methods
In order to understand this relationship, the author studied the protests

at two international meetings that received a lot of public attention: the
COP6 meeting to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol for global climate change,
and the World Economic Forum, a meeting of the ‘‘world’s most power-
ful policy makers and entrepreneurs’’.42 Background data for the differ-
ent protests were collected in different ways: data for the Human Dike
were collected through in-depth qualitative interviews with protest or-
ganizers representing the local and international organizations spon-
soring the demonstration, and information about the protests from the
organizers and media sources was collected; data for the Another World
Is Possible protest were collected through the compilation of background
information from the internet and the popular press. Information on the
protest was also collected from protest organizers. The bulk of the data
about the protesters at these two events, however, were collected in the
same way: 204 protest participants were randomly selected and answered
the survey at the Human Dike and 316 protest participants were randomly
selected and answered the survey at the Another World Is Possible rally.
The Human Dike
On Saturday 18 November 2000 protesters were surveyed while they
filled sandbags and piled them to form a dike around a section of the
conference centre within which the climate change negotiations were
being held. Because eight people refused to answer questions and four
people were unable to respond to questions in the languages spoken by
those conducting the surveys,43 204 participants from 25 countries com-
pleted the entire survey. The participants were randomly selected: the
fifth person in each of the many lines of dike-builders that made up the
protest was interviewed. All of the people were asked the same questions
regarding how and why they had attended the protest.
The purpose of the Human Dike was, in the words of Ilse Chang, the
local coordinator for the event from the Dutch environmental organiza-
tion Milieudefensie, to ‘‘show that people are concerned [with the issue
of global climate change] and want action now’’.44 The international co-
ordinator of the protest, Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth Interna-
tional, further explained: ‘‘the goal of public demonstrations [such as the
Human Dike] is to shift the discussion . . . the countries at the negotiation

are defending their domestic interests but they are not terribly interested
in their citizens’’.45
It is important to note that this protest had the stated purpose of trying
to show support for the states participating in the meeting so that they
negotiated and consented to a strong multilateral environmental agree-
ment; the goal of the protest was not to disturb or stop the negotiations.
Tony Juniper of Friends of the Earth International compared this protest
to the protest that took place during the meeting of the World Trade
Organization in 1999: ‘‘In Seattle, they were trying to stop the meeting . . .
we are trying to make climate policy better.’’46 Consistent with this pur-
pose, the protest organizers respected the boundaries maintained by the
security for the UN-sponsored conference. In order to increase partici-
pation the protest was scheduled for a Saturday, when citizens would
be off work and when most NGO observers to the negotiations would
be free to participate. The organizers of the demonstration had worked
through their social networks to recruit citizens from all over the world
who were involved in this transnational social movement.
The Another World Is Possible protest
On Saturday 2 February 2002 approximately 7,000 people took to the
streets of New York City to protest the practices of the World Economic
Forum that was holding its annual meeting inside the Waldorf-Astoria
hotel.47 The purpose of the protest was summarized by Another World
Is Possible (AWIP), a coalition of more than 100 social movement orga-
nizations, that organized protests to take place during the five-day event:
‘‘Tell the ‘Masters of the Universe’ that they don’t have the answers to
our problems. Join us in the streets as we visualize solutions that build
a better world where the people are in control.’’48 A march was planned
from the south-eastern corner of Central Park down to the Waldorf-
Astoria hotel. All interested organizations and individuals were invited
to join the march. Before the march began, a rally was held on the edge
of Central Park in Grand Army Plaza. Protesters were surveyed during
the rally. Surveyors entered the rally from the four corners of the plaza
on which the rally was taking place.49 The participants were randomly
selected and every fifth person in the crowd was interviewed.50 Everyone
was asked the same questions regarding how and why they had attended
the protest. Because 27 people refused to answer questions and one per-
son did not complete the full survey, 316 participants from four countries
completed the entire survey. These questions were worded identically to
those on the English-language survey for the Human Dike.
Unlike the Human Dike protest, it is important to note here that
the Another World Is Possible march was organized to protest against
188 FISHER
the practices of the World Economic Forum and against economic glob-
alization more generally. Although groups interested in different types
of protest joined, the organizers asked that participants honour their
request that the protest be completely non-violent and exclude direct
action, or what is called in the parlance of these demonstrations ‘‘green’’.
In the words of a flyer that was handed out, ‘‘many local activists would
prefer not to alienate our local heroes right now, especially since so many
of them are feeling screwed by the same system we are protesting’’.51
Even with the plea from the protest organizers, 36 people were arrested
during the protest.52
Results
Who protests at an international meeting?

The first question in the survey looked at the diversity of protesters.
Roughly one-third of the protesters came from the country in which the
Human Dike protest was held: the Netherlands. Although Dutch par-
ticipants were the largest percentage of the population, the protesters
surveyed represented 25 countries. Table 9.3 presents the distribution of
protesters and the countries from which they came. The majority of par-
ticipants involved in the protest were from Europe. Given the prohibi-
tively expensive cost of travel to the Hague from outside Europe, it is not
a surprise that the overwhelming majority of protest participants were
European.
In contrast to the participants at the Human Dike protest, most of
the people protesting the World Economic Forum came from the country
within which it was staged: the USA. That said, it is important to note
the significant differences in size between the USA and the Netherlands.
Given this difference, participants were asked from which state or coun-
try (if outside of the USA) they had come. Table 9.4 presents these data.
Over 97 per cent of the protesters surveyed came from the USA and
more than 67 per cent of them came from within New York itself.
How do protesters hear about a demonstration?
The second question in the survey addressed a significant issue of interest
to social movement theorists who study protests.53 Specifically, the ques-
tion asked how people came to learn that the demonstration would be
taking place. Table 9.5 summarizes how the protesters learned about the
Human Dike protest. Over 70 per cent of the protest participants learned
about the demonstration from an organization. Over 18 per cent of the
people who attended the protest heard about it through their social net-
work: a friend or family member who was attending the protest. Televi-
Table 9.3 Participant distribution at the Human Dike protest

Country Frequency %
Austria 3 1.5
Belgium 15 7.4
Canada 1 0.5
Columbia 1 0.5
Croatia 1 0.5
Czech Republic 1 0.5
Denmark 4 2.0
Estonia 1 0.5
Finland 1 0.5
France 23 11.3
Germany 24 11.8
Hungary 1 0.5
Italy 3 1.5
Lithuania 1 0.5
Netherlands 67 32.8
Nigeria 1 0.5
Norway 1 0.5
Poland 1 0.5
Slovak Republic 4 2.0
Spain 2 1.0
Sweden 1 0.5
Switzerland 1 0.5
Turkey 1 0.5
UK 41 20.1
USA 4 2.0
Total 204 100
sion, radio, and other media sources recruited about 6 per cent of the
participations.
Table 9.6 summarizes how the protesters learned about the Another
World is Possible protest against the World Economic Forum. Over 28
per cent of the protest participants learned about the demonstration
from an organization. Over 32 per cent heard about it through their so-
cial network. In contrast to the Human Dike protest, one-quarter of the
people who attended the protest heard about it through the traditional
media. In addition, almost 10 per cent of the protesters said that they
heard about it through the internet.
With whom do protesters come to demonstrations?

The third question in the survey focused on the issue of how people mo-
bilize to attend a demonstration. Of particular interest in this question
is whether participants travelled to the protest alone, with friends, or with
an organization. Table 9.7 presents the distribution of how people came
190 FISHER
Table 9.4 Participant distribution at the Another World is Possible protest

Country or state Frequency %
Argentina 1 0.3
California, USA 4 1.3
Canada 7 2.2
Colorado, USA 1 0.3
Connecticut, USA 9 2.8
Washington, DC, USA 7 2.2
England 1 0.3
Florida, USA 1 0.3
Georgia, USA 1 0.3
Illinois, USA 1 0.3
Indiana, USA 1 0.3
Massachusetts, USA 13 4.1
Maryland, USA 1 0.3
Maine, USA 1 0.3
Michigan, USA 4 1.3
Minnesota, USA 2 0.6
North Carolina, USA 8 2.5
New Hampshire, USA 1 0.3
New Jersey, USA 16 5.1
New York, USA 212 67.0
Ohio, USA 3 0.9
Okalahoma, USA 1 0.3
Pennsylvania, USA 9 2.8
Puerto Rico, USA 1 0.3
Rhode Island, USA 5 1.6
Vermont, USA 3 0.9
Washington, USA 2 0.6
Total 316 100
Table 9.5 How do protesters hear about a demonstration? The Human Dike
Source Frequency %
Media 13 6.4
Other 10 4.9
Social movement organization 144 70.6
Social network 37 18.1
Total 204 100
to the Human Dike protest. The majority of the people attending the
protest travelled with members of an organization. The rest of the par-
ticipants at the protest were split almost equally between those who came
with friends and/or family and those who came alone.
In contrast to the Human Dike, the majority of people who attended
Table 9.6 How do protesters hear about a demonstration? The Another World is
Possible protest
Source Frequency %
Media 79 25.0
Other 16 5.1
Social network 102 32.3
Internet 30 9.5
Total 316 100
Table 9.7 With whom do protesters come to demonstrations? The Human Dike
Frequency %
Alone 33 16.2
Friends or family 45 22.0
Total 204 100
Table 9.8 With whom do protesters come to demonstrations? The Another

World is Possible protest
Frequency %
Alone 62 19.6
Friends or family 162 51.3
Total 316 100
the Another World is Possible protest did not travel with members of
a social movement organization but came with friends or family mem-
bers. Over 50 per cent of the participants accompanied friends and/or
family members, compared to the almost 30 per cent who came with an
organization. Almost 20 per cent of the protest participants at the protest
against the World Economic Forum came alone. Table 9.8 presents the
data for this protest.
What percentage of protesters received funding to attend?

In addition to questions about how people learn that a demonstration
is taking place, and with whom they travel to the protest, the survey in-
cluded a question about whether support was provided by organizations
to protest participants. The goal of this question was to explore whether
participants received financial compensation for attending the protest.
192 FISHER
Table 9.9 What percentage of protesters received funding to attend? The Human
Dike
Frequency %
Received funding 52 25.5
Did not receive funding 152 74.5
Total 204 100
Table 9.10 What percentage of protesters received funding to attend? The An-
other World is Possible protest
Frequency %
Received funding 19 6.0

Did not receive funding 297 94.0
Total 316 100
Table 9.9 provides the distribution of people attending the Human

Dike protest who received funding. About 25 per cent of the protesters
acknowledged receiving a reimbursement to cover travel costs. The
Dutch environmental organization which sponsored the Human Dike,
Milieudefensie, offered to reimburse Dutch participants for their train
fares, but most participants surveyed stated that they would not take ad-
vantage of that offer. Similarly, Friends of the Earth organized reductions
in the price of a ferry ticket for participants coming from the UK, and
arranged buses to bring participants from France. Since many who re-
ceived support in the form of subsidized travel did not perceive it as
‘‘funding’’, it is probable that the survey results underestimate the per-
centage of the protesters who received support from organizations to
attend the protest.
In contrast to the Human Dike, which was held during an interna-
tional negotiation that involved a high number of NGO observers who
subsequently participated in the protest during the weekend, the World
Economic Forum involved very few if any non-governmental organiza-
tions. This situation contributed to the fact that only 6 per cent of the
people surveyed at the Another World is Possible protest received any
funding to attend. Table 9.10 presents these data.
Discussion
The data collected through the surveys of protesters at the Human Dike
demonstration at the climate change negotiations in the Hague and the
Another World is Possible protest at the World Economic Forum in New

York add a level of understanding to the relationship between civil soci-
ety organizations and international protest. As Meyer and Tarrow54 sug-
gest in their work, civil society actors work both within international
institutional structures by lobbying members of national delegations as
NGO participants, and by organizing protests outside of the meetings of
such international institutions and multilateral regimes. In other words,
these international meetings bring about the involvement of both inter-
national non-governmental organizations and transnational social move-
ments. It is, perhaps, because NGOs are included in the negotiations
of multilateral environmental agreements and receive unrestricted offi-
cial observer status for their members from the United Nations to attend
meetings like the one in the Hague that protests at such international
meetings tend to be orderly and supportive of what is going on inside the
conference centre. In contrast, very few NGOs were allowed to partici-
pate in the meeting of the World Economic Forum. As mentioned ear-
lier, the Another World is Possible protest – even though organizers
requested that the protest be ‘‘green’’ – was less orderly and 36 people
were arrested. The differences between the Human Dike and the An-
other World is Possible protests may be a product of the lack of non-
governmental organization involvement and engagement in the World
Economic Forum itself. The people protesting in New York were doing
so, at least to some degree, because they were not permitted inside the
Waldorf-Astoria. Many of the protesters at the Hague, in contrast,
were actually registered participants in the climate change negotiations.
To restate the results presented earlier, the climate change negotiations
in 2000 and 2001 yielded a disassociation index of 1.89 and 1.59 respec-
tively. In other words, there were less than twice as many protesters as
there were NGO participants at the climate change negotiations. The
meetings of the World Bank/IMF in 2000, which are similar to the World
Economic Forum (WEF) in their interests and levels of engagement with
civil society, yielded disassociation indices that are much larger (17.65
and 75 respectively). It is also important to note that the protest against
the WEF was the first large-scale protest to take place in the USA after
11 September 2001. Thus it is likely that there was lower attendance at
this protest, and those who did attend engaged in less civil disobedience
because of the recent events.
Contrary to protests against economic globalization, the Human Dike
protest was so legitimized by political élites involved in the negotiations
that Jan Pronk, the Environment Minister of the Netherlands and Presi-
dent of the COP6 negotiations, appeared at the demonstration and had
the honour of placing the final sandbag on the Human Dike in front of
members of the international press. Of more significance to this study,
194 FISHER
however, is the relationship between the protesters and the civil society
organizations which coordinated the protest. Organizations informed the
public about the protest, participants travelled to the demonstration with
the organizations themselves, and some organizations even coordinated
financial assistance to cover participant travel to the protest. Even though
fewer of the Another World is Possible protest participants received
funding from organizations and learned about the protest from the or-
ganizations, they still played an important part in mobilizing participants:
over a quarter of the participants reported that they had heard about the
protest from an organization and came to the protest with the organiza-
tion itself.55
Even with the differences between the goals of protests at these very
different international meetings, civil society organizations played a sig-
nificant role in organizing and coordinating both the Another World is
Possible and the Human Dike protests. In some ways, unlike Piven and
Cloward’s well-known statement about social protest being outside of
normal politics,56 these types of international protest have become a part
of normal global politics. At the same time, demonstrations that support
what is going on inside the meetings and also include the involvement of
NGO observers who are participating inside the meeting are qualitatively
different to demonstrations at meetings where most civil society actors
are kept outside of the events.
These data give us the opportunity to begin to compare the partici-
pants at a protest in support of the global governance of the environ-
ment and those against the meeting of an international institution
involved in economic integration that has been criticized for its effects on
the global environment. Although protest in response to different aspects
of globalization may take distinctly different action forms, as was dis-
cussed earlier, these data support the notion that the role of civil society
organizations – both transnational and domestic – is strong in organizing
protests. Gaining a better understanding of the relationship between dif-
ferent civil society actors – international non-governmental organiza-
tions and transnational social movements – will contribute to our overall
knowledge about how and in what ways institutions should respond
to citizens’ environmental concerns within this increasingly globalized
world.
Implications for multilateral governance regimes
With these results, one can now turn to the question of how a world
environment organization and multilateral environmental governance
regimes should engage with civil society actors in an effective manner.
As the disassociation index clearly shows, the more NGOs there are in-
volved in the political process itself, the less transnational social move-
ments mobilize to protest. In addition, demonstrations at meetings where
multiple members of NGOs can participate are designed to contribute to
the policy-making process and do not aim to stop the meeting. By allow-
ing multiple members of organizations to participate inside the halls of
the meetings – if not inside the rooms themselves – while at the same
time providing a certain level of transparency to their activities, it is
likely that there will be less civic dissatisfaction with the process itself.
When there are high levels of civic dissatisfaction, it tends to be ex-
pressed by transnational social movements in the form of protests – many
of which turn violent.
Although the level of civil society dissatisfaction with international
meetings can be altered through transparency and increased levels of
NGO participation, civil society organizations will continue to organize
protests outside international meetings until civil society’s role in inter-
national meetings of all types becomes institutionalized.57 The types of
protests that take place and the amount of dissatisfaction that will be ex-
pressed by protesters are directly correlated to their access to informa-
tion and to what is going on inside the meetings. Multilateral orga-
nizations should keep these recommendations in mind for effectively
engaging civil society.
Another way of further engaging civil society actors is to hold smaller,
regional meetings that provide opportunities for input from civil society
organizations. Civic dissatisfaction with international meetings tends to
occur when there is no place for input and grievances to be heard. As one
thinks about how to develop an effective world environment organiza-
tion, it is very important that NGOs and civil society are more broadly
and actively involved in the process – at both regional and global levels.
It is these civil society actors which are the bridge from multilateral re-
gimes to civil society that is geographically rooted. If the bridge is closed,
civil society actors will continue to make their voices heard, often in dis-
ruptive and potentially violent ways. In addition, if the political will for
multilateral environmental regimes and a world environment organiza-
tion is expected to be the product of pressure from civil society actors,
then they must be involved in all aspects of the process of environmental
regime formation.
The following are a summary of lessons learned from the protests at
the meetings of international institutions, and recommendations for ways
to increase the levels of civil society engagement for a world environment
organization or any other multilateral institution.
0 Transparency of the actions of the organization through the internet
and other educational documents.
196 FISHER
0 Unlimited non-governmental organization participation as registered

observers in meetings.
0 Support of demonstrations outside of meetings with involvement of
institutional representatives.
0 Non-governmental organization participation throughout the process,
including a role within the organization’s development, perhaps in the
form of an advisory council.
Notes
1. The author would like to thank Simone Pulver of the University of California at
Berkeley and Anne Janssen at Wageningen University for assistance in surveying pro-
testers at the Human Dike protest and David Berman, Jessica Green, and Gina Neff of
Columbia University and Andrea Boykowycz of the New School for their assistance in
surveying protesters at the World Economic Forum protest. Also, the author would like
to thank Professor Sidney Tarrow and the Transnational Contention Workshop at Cor-
nell University for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
2. Bhagwati, Jagdis. 2001. ‘‘Why globalization is good’’, Items: Social Science Research
Council, Vol. 2, Nos 3–4, pp. 7–8; Charnovitz, Steve. 2002. ‘‘A world environment or-
ganization’’, presentation at the World Summit on Sustainable Development PrepCom,
27 March, New York.
3. Calhoun, Craig. 1992. Habermas in the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press;
Cohen, Jean L. and Andrew Arato. 1994. Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press; Dewey, John. 1927. The Public and Its Problems. New York: Holt
Rinehart and Winston; Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks
of Antonio Gramsci. New York: International Publishers; Habermas, Jurgen. 1989. The
Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press; Habermas,
Jurgen. 1998. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4. Cohen and Arato, ibid., p. ix.
5. Emirbayer, Mustafa and Mimi Sheller. 1999. ‘‘Publics in history’’, Theory and Society,
Vol. 28, pp. 143–197 at p. 151.
6. http://allafrica.com/stories/200209010002.html.
7. Emirbayer and Sheller, note 5 above, p. 146. For a complete discussion, see Cohen and
Arato, note 3 above; Hann, Chris and Elizabeth Dunn. 1996. Civil Society: Challenging
Western Models. London: Routledge.
8. Arato, Andrew. 2000. Civil Society, Constitution, and Legitimacy. Lanham: Rowman
and Littlefield; Cohen and Arato, note 3 above.
9. Putnam, Robert D. 2000. Bowling Alone. New York: Simon and Schuster; Skocpol,
Theda and Morris P. Fiorina. 1999. Civic Engagement in American Democracy. Wash-
ington, DC: Brookings Institution.
10. Hanagan, Michael. 1998. ‘‘Irish transnational social movements, deterritorialized mi-
grants, and the state system: The last one hundred and forty years’’, Mobilization, Vol.
3, No. 1, pp. 107–126; Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond
Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. New York: Cornell University
Press; Lewis, Tammy L. 2000. ‘‘Transnational conservation movement organizations:
Shaping the protected area systems of less developed countries’’, Mobilization, Vol. 5,
No. 1, pp. 105–123; Meyer, David S. and Sidney G. Tarrow. 1998. The Social Movement
Society: Contentious Politics for a New Century. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, pp.
ix, 282; Risse-Kappen, Thomas. 1995. Bringing Transnational Relations Back In: Non-
state Actors, Domestic Structure and International Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press; Rothman, Franklin Daniel and Pamela E. Oliver. 1999. ‘‘From local to
global: The anti-dam movement in southern Brazil, 1979–1992’’, Mobilization, Vol. 4,
No. 1, pp. 41–57; Smith, Jackie, Charles Chatfield, and Ron Pagnucco. 1997. Transna-
tional Social Movements and Global Politics: Solidarity Beyond the State. Syracuse: Syr-
acuse University Press; Tarrow, Sidney. 2001. ‘‘Transnational politics: Contention and
institutions in international politics’’, Annual Review of Political Science, Vol. 4, pp.
1–20.
11. Smith, Jackie. 2001. ‘‘Globalizing resistance: The battle of Seattle and the future of
social movements’’, Mobilization, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1–21 at p. 5.
12. Ayres, Jeffrey M. 2001. ‘‘Transnational political processes and contention against the
global economy’’, Mobilization, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 55–68; Caniglia, Beth S. 2002. ‘‘Elite
alliances and transnational environmental movement organizations’’, in Jackie Smith
and Hank Johnston (eds) Globalizing Resistance. New York: Rowman and Littlefield;
Keck and Sikkink, note 10 above; Maney, Gregory M. 2001. ‘‘Transnational structures
and protest: Linking theories and assessing evidence’’, Mobilization, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp.
83–100; Nepstad, Sharon E. 2002. ‘‘Creating transnational solidarity: The use of narra-
tive in the US-Central American peace movement’’, in Jackie Smith and Hank Johnston
(eds) Globalizing Resistance. New York: Rowman and Littlefield; Reimann, Kim. 2002.
‘‘Building networks from the outside in: Japanese NGOs and the Kyoto Climate Change
Conference’’, in Jackie Smith and Hank Johnston (eds) Globalizing Resistance. New
York: Rowman and Littlefield; Smith, ibid.; Tarrow, Sidney. 2002. ‘‘Towards a sociology
of transnational contention’’, in Jackie Smith and Hank Johnston (eds) Globalization
and Resistance. New York: Rowman and Littlefield; Ayres, Jeffrey and Sidney Tarrow.
2002. ‘‘The shifting grounds for transnational civic activity’’, available on the Social
Science Research Council website at www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/ayres.htm.
13. Smith, ibid.
14. Reimann, note 12 above.
15. These two characteristics are not meant to represent an exhaustive list. Rather, they
represent aspects of political and economic globalization that are particularly relevant
for this study.
16. Koopmans, Rudd. 1993. ‘‘The dynamics of protest waves: West Germany, 1965–1989’’,
American Sociological Review, Vol. 58, No. 5, pp. 637–658; McAdam, Doug. 1982. Po-
litical Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970. Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, p. 304; McPhail, Clark. 1991. The Myth of the Madding Crowd.
New York: A. de Gruyter; Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Cloward. 1977. Poor
People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Pantheon Books;
Piven, Frances Fox and Richard A. Cloward. 1992. ‘‘Normalizing collective protest’’, in
M. A. Mueller (ed.) Frontiers in Social Movement Theory. New Haven: Yale University
Press; Oliver, Pamela. 1989. ‘‘Bringing the crowd back in: The non-organizational ele-
ments of social movements’’, Research in Social Movements, Conflict and Change, Vol.
11, pp. 1–30; Staggenborg, Suzanne. 1988. ‘‘The consequences of professionalization
and formalization in the pro-choice movement’’, American Sociological Review, Vol. 53,
No. 4, pp. 585–606; Tarrow, Sidney. 1998. Power in Movement: Social Movements and
Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
17. For a full discussion of the collective behaviour literature see Smelser, Neil. 1962.
Theory of Collective Behavior. New York: Free Press; Turner, Ralph H. and Lewis M.
Killian. 1972. Collective Behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
18. McPhail, note 16 above.
19. Buechler, Steven M. 1997. ‘‘Beyond resource mobilization?’’, in Steven M. Buechler
198 FISHER
and F. Curt Cylke (eds) Social Movements: Perspectives and Issues. Mountain View,
CA: Mayfield Publishing, pp. 193–210; Koopmans, note 16 above; Oliver, note 16
above; Staggenborg, note 16 above.
20. Staggenborg, note 16 above, pp. 426, 590.
21. Buechler, note 19 above; see also Buechler, Steven M. 1990. Women’s Movements in the
United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
22. Buechler, note 19 above, p. 199.
23. Koopmans, note 16 above.
24. Piven and Cloward 1992, note 16 above, p. 303; see also Piven and Cloward 1977, note
16 above.
25. Staggenborg, note 16 above, p. 599.
26. Buechler, note 19 above, p. 199.
27. Koopmans, note 16 above, p. 652.
28. Meyer and Tarrow, note 10 above; see also Tarrow, note 16 above.
29. Piven and Cloward 1992, note 16 above, p. 303.
30. Meyer and Tarrow, note 10 above, p. 5.
31. Tarrow, note 10 above.
32. For more specific information on NGO participation in multilateral governance, see
Chapter 8 of this volume.
33. Tarrow, note 10 above, p. 12.
34. One such example can be seen by the case of the American Global Climate Coalition,
which represented a number of US economic interests at the climate change negotia-
tions.
35. Tarrow, note 10 above, p. 11.
36. Ibid., p. 12.
37. Social movement organizations include international non-governmental organizations
and other less institutional organizations.
38. For example, UNFCCC Secretariat. 1999. Provisional List of Participants – Conference
of the Parties Fifth Session. Bonn: UNFCCC; UNFCCC Secretariat. 2000. Provisional
List of Participants – Conference of the Parties Sixth Session. The Hague: UNFCCC;
UNFCCC Secretariat. 2000. Provisional List of Participants – Conference of the Parties
Sixth Session Part II. Bonn: UNFCCC.
39. In some cases different branches of the same organization, such as the European and
American sections of an NGO, are allowed to send one representative each to the same
meeting.
40. Houlder, Vanessa. 2001. ‘‘Peaceful protest thrown a lifeline Friends of the Earth’’, Fi-
nancial Times, 23 July, p. 6; Kahn, Joseph. 2000. ‘‘Protests distract global finance meet-
ing’’, New York Times, 27 September, p. A8; Kifner, John and David E. Sanger. 2000.
‘‘Financial leaders meet as protests clog Washington’’, New York Times, 17 April, p. A1;
McDonald, Frank. 2000. ‘‘Protesters at the Hague demand deeds not hot air’’, Irish
Times, p. 4.
41. The equation for the disassociation index is ‘‘number of protesters/number of partic-
ipants’’.
42. Sanger, David E. 2002. ‘‘Economic forum shifts its focus to new dangers’’, New York
Times, 3 February, p. A1.
43. Interviewers conducted the surveys in English, French, Dutch, or German, depending
on the protester’s language of choice.
44. Interview with author, 16 November 2000.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. New York Times. 2002. ‘‘Drawing a line’’, New York Times, 3 February, p. A1.
48. www.anotherworldispossible.com/convergenceA.html.
49. The rally took place on the small square that is located at Fifth Avenue between 59th
and 60th Streets.
50. Although the protesters were not standing in formal lines like those at the Human Dike,
the crowd was so dense that it was possible to weave through the demonstration sur-
veying every fifth person.
51. Another World Is Possible (AWIP). 2002. Protest flyer, 2 February.
52. New York Times, note 47 above.
53. McPhail, note 16 above; Oliver, note 16 above; Smelser, note 17 above; Turner and
Killian, note 17 above; Meyer and Tarrow, note 10 above.
54. Meyer and Tarrow, note 10 above.
55. Anarchist affinity groups have been included under the classification of civil society
organization.
56. Piven and Cloward 1992, note 16 above, p. 303.
57. For example, Gemmill, Barbara and Abimbola Bamidele-Izu. 2002. ‘‘The role of NGOs
and civil society in global environmental governance’’, in D. C. Esty and M. H. Ivanova
(eds) Global Environmental Governance: Options and Opportunities. New Haven: Yale
Center for Environmental Law and Policy, pp. 1–24.
Business/industry and
10
Balancing TNCs, the states,
and the international system in
global environmental governance:
A critical perspective
Harris Gleckman1
Transnational corporations are unavoidably part of the dialogue on

global environmental governance. One aspect of environmental gover-
nance is to strike the correct balance in environmental protection be-
tween global market forces and international public needs. In political
science terms, one of the functions of governance is to set rules to neu-
tralize the imperfections in a market and ensure that legitimate public
concerns are incorporated appropriately in the operations of the market-
place. Most of the chapters in this book examine the role of international
environmental governance between states. This chapter examines the
role of interstate bodies, firms, and civil society in global environmental
governance.
The chapter opens with a reflection on the way governments engage
in the environmental management of their domestic business enterprises
and how this has changed over time. At the domestic level, there is no
doubt that there is an ongoing power alignment and realignment between
a state-driven environmental regime, on the one hand, and a private-
sector-driven environmental system, on the other. The should-the-state-
decide or should-the-manufacturer-decide debate has a long history,
going back at least to the days when environmental regulations were
principally local zoning rules.2 The chapter offers an overview of domes-
tic practices in OECD countries and presumes that these long-standing
domestic histories will affect how interstate actors and transnational cor-
203
204 GLECKMAN
porations at the international level will approach and understand inter-

national environmental governance.
The argument here is that the power balance in national environmen-
tal governance has shifted within the last 15 years, from a system that
is mainly state-driven to one that is increasing market-driven. Interna-
tionally, things are a little different. The chapter looks at some special
characteristics regarding the international environmental governance of
business activities; the rationale underlying the recent evolution of in-
ternational private environmental rule-making; and the role that a world
environment organization would need to play. It concludes with a num-
ber of policy recommendations that can redress the current imbalance in
the international environmental arena and give greater weight to gov-
ernment and public participation in global environmental management.
Domestic markets
Current government environment regulatory systems affecting business
activities can best be seen as having four major components:3 laws, reg-
ulations, enforcement, and public engagement. What is unique in each
OECD country is the variety of ways in which these four components are
combined and the relative importance given to each element in daily
practice. In the OECD context, ‘‘laws’’ are those governmental regula-
tory activities made through a parliamentary process; ‘‘regulations’’ are
those governmental regulatory activities made by an administrative pro-
cess; ‘‘enforcement’’ denotes those government regulatory activities per-
formed by administrative agencies in conjunction with judicial bodies;
and the ‘‘public engagement’’ components are those governmental activ-
ities that obligate the state to keep citizens informed on environmental
matters.
Table 10.1 presents some of the endogenous and exogenous factors
Table 10.1 Selected factors that create differences between national environ-
mental regimes
0 Differences in range of ecological realities
0 Different choices in different historical experiences
a different accidents affect public consciousness
a different issues get broadcast media attention
a different cultural concerns and environmental values
a differences in the scope and conception of the ‘‘environment’’
0 Different underlying legal regimes
0 Different existing administrative systems
0 Different history of external impositions and political battles (e.g. colonial
history, civil war)
TNCS, STATES, AND THE INTERNATIONAL SYSTEM 205
that affect the particular combinations in different OECD countries. The

different combinations of these four components also reflect the relative
political power of citizen groups, the state, and corporate interests at any
given time.
A state regulatory system affecting business activities is needed by
‘‘civil society’’ and the ‘‘business sector’’, but in different ways. The for-
mer needs the state to provide protections that individual consumers and
nature cannot, on their own, effect. The latter needs the state to provide
legitimacy of standards, to minimize the advantages of environmental
free corporate riders, and occasionally to restrict market entry that could
challenge the existing market shares.
The business need for legitimacy of its standards and the associated
enforcement of these standards is widely recognized in the business
press. In order to garner public trust, individual businesses recognize
that they benefit from state regulation whenever they proclaim ‘‘we are
law-abiding corporate citizens’’ and ‘‘our emissions meet government
standards’’. Business also endorses governmental standards when they
provide a legal ceiling on civil liability matters and opportunities for ef-
fective advertising campaigns (‘‘government reports that XX is the best
in its class’’).4
Corporate free-riders in the environment area are those firms which
undertake actions that get ‘‘bad’’ press for an industry. The chemical in-
dustry as a whole may clean up its act, but public perception of chemical
dangers will be strongly influenced by the misbehaviour of the weakest
firm in the industry. Leading business executives are also acutely aware
that these corporate ‘‘bad’’ actors can promote public demand for greater
breadth and specificity in laws and regulations and greater resources
assigned to enforcement and public disclosure. Arranging for the gov-
ernment to enforce laws and regulations against the marginal firms is an
acceptable way of reducing the potential for public and state engagement
in environmental management.
It is less acknowledged in the business literature that environmental
regulations can influence the structure of the market. Larger and well-
established firms have a vested interest in having whatever environmen-
tal rules there are based on their current technology and management
systems. These ‘‘state rules’’ can then serve to protect their engineering
investments and act as barriers to entry for potential competitors.
What is most relevant for this chapter is that both individual business
enterprises at the national level and the broader public in the long term
share a common interest in a well-functioning state regulatory system.
However, at any given historical period one can imagine having a ‘‘bal-
ancing rod’’, with a governmental environmental regulation system as
the fulcrum, the public sector governance on one side, and private sector
206 GLECKMAN
interest governance on the other side. During some periods of time the
balance of forces favours the public sector. At other periods the balance
beam has clearly tipped towards the private sector.
The strength of the public side is influenced by a good number of
normal political pressures. Some of the environmental and health impacts
of business activities have resulted in opposition by civil society. Public
political pressure can prod states to take action to pressure the market
to address the problem. On the health and safety front, organized coal
workers and unions demanded safer work conditions and the state
created an inspectorate to monitor mine safety. On air pollution, neigh-
bourhoods near factories organized for cleaner air and less risk from
industrial accidents, and governments were forced to create legal, regu-
latory, and administrative systems to address these concerns.
The private sector brings its weight to bear on the balance beam
through providing political contributions to law-makers; lobbying law-
and regulation-makers; using lawyers and the legal system to try to un-
dercut specific rules and regulations; and advertising to affect public per-
ception about environmental laws or regulations that business sees as a
burden. However, there remains a structural limitation for the business
community. In weakening the overall governmental regulatory frame-
work, they still need to have justifiable and supported government
standards to which the business community can refer as acceptable envi-
ronmental practices.
Business leaders also want a government system that grants them
as much flexibility as possible. The approach currently advocated by the
private sector for maximum flexibility has been named by the business
community as ‘‘self-regulation’’.5 This term has been selected to capture
the public support for ‘‘regulation’’ while transferring the leadership
from the state regulatory system to the individual firm or industry asso-
ciation. For analytic clarity, this approach is probably more neutrally
termed ‘‘voluntary environmental management’’ or VEM.6
The effort at corporate VEM in OECD countries seeks to shift the
balance sharply towards greater corporate control while maintaining
some of the necessary characteristics of a state environmental regulatory
system. In doing so, VEM has created four parallel activities in the state
regulatory system: internal voluntary standards, self-defined implemen-
tation standards, self-financed certification systems, and elective public
reporting. These are reflected in Table 10.2.
There are of course significant differences between the state domestic
environmental regulatory systems and the private sector ‘‘regulatory
approach’’ in domestic markets. As indicated in Table 10.3, some of the
differences are crucial to the shift in political balance towards commercial
control of environmental matters while firms retain the vocabulary of a
Table 10.2 Parallel structures between components of state regulatory systems

and voluntary environmental management systems
Components of a state Components of a corporate voluntary

regulatory system environmental management system
Laws Voluntary codes and standards
Regulations Self-defined implementation standards
Enforcement Self-financed certification systems
Public disclosure Elective public reporting
normal state regulatory approach. The effect, though, is to reduce broad

public engagement in environmental matters, to reduce business ‘‘over-
head’’ costs, and to build public support for private sector environmental
management.
In the long term, however, VEM processes also weaken even that
function of a state regulatory system that benefits the business sector.
This can be seen by the dilemma faced by the business sector when civil
society perceives a ‘‘new’’ environmental problem. Under voluntary en-
vironmental management, civil society is more likely to focus its attention
directly on the private sector, rather than on public sector institutions.
The domestic experience of business executives, government officials,
and civil society participants obviously spills over into the international
arena. These actors bring with them the ‘‘successes’’ as well as the ‘‘fail-
ures’’ of their national history. In one type of OECD country, where ne-
gotiated understandings are worked out between the government and the
business leaders, their representatives in international forums bring with
them a sense of cooperative understanding. In other OECD countries,
where it is the expectation that laws and regulations will be followed,
their international delegations may well reflect their domestic history
by heightened expectations about the precision of the drafting of any in-
ternational agreement. This domestic understanding influences the initial
perspective of corporate executives, government officials, and NGOs
outside of their home country.
At the international level
On the international level, the dynamic between the business sector, state
actors, and civil society is more complex than domestic practices in some
ways and more straightforward in others.
On the governmental side, there is not really an equivalent body to
the nation-state. The UN organizations, the WTO, and the existing col-
208 GLECKMAN
Table 10.3 Features that differentiate between VEM and a state regulatory sys-
tem affecting business activities
Component of VEM
system Different features
Voluntary codes and 0 Some industrial sectors have voluntary standards;

standards other sectors are completely without industry
standards
0 Industry standards vary widely in public policy
implication
0 National standard-setting bodies are proposing an
ever-expanding list of standards for broad use
0 Individual and trade associations’ codes have
limited acceptance in many social and
environmental communities
Self-defined 0 Self-defined baseline of appropriate natural and
implementation human conditions
standards 0 Self-defined thresholds for minimum performance
standards
0 Self-defined level of public acceptance of specific
implementation standards
0 Without a parliamentary forum or a public hearing,
little way to engage stakeholders and determine
the potentially conflicting views on a specific
product or process level
Self-financed 0 Almost no sanctions for a company even when its
certification auditor discovers the violation of a VEM standard
systems 0 Independence of auditing firm and auditor, and the
legal status of the audit report, are not clear
0 Minimal supervision of environmental auditing
bodies
0 Little agreement on auditor responsibilities beyond
client firm
0 Few, if any, penalties for improper audit
judgements
Elective public 0 Performance benchmarking nearly impossible
reporting 0 Evidence of ‘‘improvement’’ may or may not be
relevant
0 Few performance standards for voluntary
environmental reporting
0 Extensive information and images in corporate
environmental reports and websites, but little that
permits an inter-firm comparative assessment
0 Environmental management information is often
completely independent from public environmental
reporting
lection of multilateral environmental organizations all do have a role in

governing the international market; but together they lack the political
strength of any OECD national state. In this sense, the international sys-
tem is quite simple: there are no parliamentary/congressional hearings,
no courts with environmental jurisdiction, no international political
parties or elections, and no civil transnational liability proceedings.
The relative weakness of the interstate regulatory system is also seen in
the limited scope and number of environmental conventions, the weak-
ness of convention rules, and the cumbersome enforcement arrange-
ments though the conferences of parties (interesting in this connection is
that the acronym happens to be COPs). It is also the case that, unlike
domestic environmental law and regulations, international environmental
agreements are often drafted in deference to the terms of international
trade rules.
However, from the point of view of the enterprise, the multi-country
character of the transnational corporation significantly increases the po-
litical options of a TNC as compared to a nationally based firm in man-
aging its environmental relations to a ‘‘state’’. A given TNC can choose
different geopolitical jurisdictions for its legal home, for its financial cen-
tre, for its tax obligations, for its production facilities, and for its mana-
gerial control. Of course, not all TNCs are internally structured in the
same way. Some are managed as networks, some are more production-
centred than customer-centred, and some are more source-centred than
product-centred. But whatever the underlying management structure, a
transnational corporation has more options in how it balances environ-
mental protection, state oversight, and public perception.
On the international level, NGO actions have defined issues that have
provided the basis for intergovernmental initiatives. Targeted campaigns
on infant formula, tobacco, pesticides, banned products, and waste dis-
posal have led the intergovernmental machinery to take on these specific
problems. International civil society has also created the expectation that
international action is necessary and has forced governments to confront
issues that the international business community would rather not ad-
dress. Public policy issues such as debt cancellations, reparations of illicit
funds sent abroad, the Tobin tax, and corruption in international business
transactions would not have appeared on the international agenda with-
out a broad groundwork being laid by civil society bodies.
Proposals for a WEO, and other similar international proposals for
strengthening international environmental governance, are intended in
one way or another to change the balance of existing relations between
the interstate system and the international firm. Seen in this fashion, it
is not surprising that the international business community can be quite
supportive of the current fragmented international system. While en-
210 GLECKMAN
hanced corporate global managerial control is of benefit to the interna-

tional firm, the business community continues to prefer that the interstate
system is without leadership and incoherent in environmental matters.
One of the current measures of the international business community’s
continued support for a weak interstate system is their insistence that
the UN system is not a place to formulate even environmental guid-
ance documents. If the United Nations was seen as a legitimate place
to develop corporate environmental norms with interstate participation,
international business leadership would be concerned that, over time,
pressure might develop to change some of these corporate ‘‘norms’’
into more legally binding conventions. To the business community, these
would be as unwanted as any new domestic laws and regulations. In the
build-up to the WSSD, this effort to keep the UN system fragmented on
corporate environmental matters is well reflected in the pre-conference
issue on ‘‘what is a good Type 2 outcome’’.
Civil society organizations and some governments believe that the
WSSD process should define a ‘‘sustainable public-private partnership’’,
or at least specify the minimum conditions for recognizing that a par-
ticular public-private partnership is a sound sustainable development
activity. The business community, along with many of the OECD gov-
ernments, are strongly disinclined to have an interstate meeting express
a formal standard for ‘‘sustainable corporate activity’’ as this might, over
time, encourage more active interstate standards directly impacting on
the corporate environmental activities of global firms.
However, as OECD domestic corporate environmental models vary
widely, any new component of an international regulatory system for the
environment is likely to be very experimental even on the governmental
side. Given this reality, the proposals to strengthen interstate control
of corporate environmental issues are likely to be an unusual combina-
tion of existing national practices or a wholly new structure at the inter-
national level. The latter new arrangements include some data-exchange
arrangements, some ‘‘name-and-shame’’ approaches, and some multi-
country scientific assessment panels.
At the interstate level there are also serious institutional obstacles
that do not really operate at the domestic level. First there is the multi-
jurisdictional character of global corporate law. How does one have
states with different legal approaches and different environmental laws
and regulations come to grips with a TNC that thrives on multi-state
fragmentation? Second, governments in the international arena often
provide ‘‘protection’’ for their ‘‘national’’ firms in their conflicts with
other governments and their domestic firms. And third, there are the
limitations on civil court decisions on environmental matters: firms can
move assets easily to second or third states to avoid a civil liability pen-
Table 10.4 Special international aspects of voluntary environmental management

Component of VEM
system Special international aspect
Voluntary codes and 0 International conventions bind states not firms
standards 0 Very limited coverage of existing international
environmental agreements
0 Most international environmental standards are
now drafted by business-related bodies
Self-defined 0 Each conference of parties can make its own
implementation implementation standards
standards 0 Some agreements use principally ‘‘market-based’’
implementations
0 Most agreements and systems currently seek to use
incentives for ‘‘good behaviour’’ by creating profit
opportunities for the private sector; no MEA can
sanction firms for ‘‘bad behaviour’’
Self-financed 0 The WTO Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement
certification gives favourable standing to ISO-type certification
systems 0 Many certification systems are formulated in order
to affect media campaigns and consumer opinion,
not necessarily to check levels of corporate
implementation of industrial association standards
Elective public 0 Current reporting requirements in MEAs bind
reporting states, not private actors
0 Current elective coverage of corporate
environmental reports varies widely
0 The disclosure standards in ISO 14001 are entirely
voluntary, except that ISO 14001 firms
acknowledge that they are ISO certified
0 Major efforts are ongoing with the Global
Reporting Initiative to formulate commonly
accepted reporting standards
alty. These three additional weaknesses on the interstate side make it

even easier for self-interested and short-term business concerns to thrive
in a fragmented international environmental arena and to oppose a more
balanced international environmental system.
Again there are special features in each of the four areas of an envi-
ronmental corporate management system in current arrangements for an
international corporate voluntary system of governance, as indicated in
Table 10.4.
Consequently on the international level there is greater complexity
in the private sector/state balance and a far higher concentration of
environmental power in the private corporate sector in the international
arena than in the domestic sector. As the international environmental
212 GLECKMAN
governance system is so weak, it also fails to meet the long-term needs of

the business sector. To meet the business need for legitimate market
standards and references for good environmental performance, there is
an increasing move internationally towards privatization of environmen-
tal rule-making.
Private environmental rule-making is the outgrowth of three develop-
ments: two at the international level and one at the domestic level. At the
international level there has been the very successful work, over many
years, in the development of technical product standards for the interna-
tional business market under the aegis of the International Organization
for Standardization (ISO). Second is the endorsement by the Marrakesh
Agreement of a revision of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers
to Trade that gives special trade status to ISO standards. Thirdly, private
environmental rule-making on the international level is also a conse-
quence of the withdrawal of governments from domestic regulatory
activity: if states argue that they should not be making domestic envi-
ronmental rules, they have little motivation or political support for mak-
ing international environmental rules.
The ISO has for some 50 years been developing industrial product
standards and maintains a highly diverse system of technical product and
process standards-setting arrangements. The ISO estimates that, on any
given day, some 30 ISO work groups are formulating or reviewing ISO
product standards. These standards are for the most part drafted as
engineering standards. However, since the build-up to the UNCED (Rio)
conference, the ISO has moved increasingly into process standards and
into areas where the ISO standard touches public policy concerns. The
national teams developing ISO standards are largely corporate execu-
tives from firms affected by the standard who have been selected by their
national standard-setting bodies to participate in the international work-
ing groups. While the best known of these newer public-policy-related
standards is the ISO 14000 series, many other ISO series deal with vari-
ous ‘‘engineering’’ aspects of noise, water discharge rates, air emissions,
and waste management.
The 1994 GATT makes clear reference to international standards
set by the ISO. When a country creates a national standard or guideline,
then the international community acknowledges that this country is pre-
sumed to have avoided creating an unnecessary barrier to trade through
the new regulations. Because of such text in the 1994 and in the cur-
rent Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement, standards developed
by the ISO have acquired a very important status. At the same time, the
new GATT created obstacles to using the recommendations of UN in-
tergovernmental expert groups as global standards in the international
trading system.7
Table 10.5 Possible tools to achieve a better balance between corporate interests
and the interests represented by the interstate system
Public legal regime/ 0 Complement state standards in MEAs with

corporate voluntary codes specific firm-level standards
and standards 0 Agree that existing MEAs have de facto
obligations on private actors
0 Make legally binding existing industry codes
of conduct in the absence of a relevant MEA
0 Establish an international court with
jurisdiction on environmental matters
Public sector regulations/ 0 Create corporate and civil society advisory
corporate self-defined bodies to the conferences of parties of
implementation standards MEAS
0 Enhance civil society participation in ISO
decision-making
0 Establish other joint (industry, government,
civil society) standard-setting bodies similar
to the Forest Stewardship Council and the
Marine Stewardship Council
Public sector enforcement 0 Agree to joint investigation arrangements
systems/corporate self- 0 Agree to joint enforcement arrangements
financed certification 0 Create an international dispute settlement
systems panel
Public reporting 0 Move towards a non-elective version of the
requirements/corporate Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)
elective public reporting
International policy options

Over time, the interests of TNCs and needs of IGOs and global civil so-
ciety need to be rebalanced, at least to incorporate the regulatory needs
for surrogate representatives for ‘‘citizens’’, ‘‘nature’’, and ‘‘future gen-
erations’’.8 Proposals for a WEO fall into this category. This chapter is
intended to help define the functions of a WEO in terms of its potential
role in the environmental activities of TNCs.
At the strategic level, both structural and interim changes can be ex-
plored. Structural changes would require a redefinition of the corporate
charter of firms and the functions of nation-states, a reauthorization of
international organizations, and a changed responsibility for NGOs. As
long as TNCs and states exist as they now are, political imbalances in
environmental protection will inevitably favour the short-term private
sector interests. In the near term, and in a world with each of these insti-
tutions, there are nevertheless various approaches that could begin to
recentre the balance beam. Some of these are included in Table 10.5.
214 GLECKMAN
The current balance between international corporate voluntary envi-

ronmental management and public sector environmental management
is, at least from the perspective of the environment, tilted too far in one
direction. By recognizing the four components of environmental regula-
tory systems and the drivers at the national and international level, it is
possible to construct a number of ways to recentre the political balance,
to create a sustainable business climate, and to enhance global environ-
mental protection.
Notes
1. This paper represents the author’s own personal, professional views, not those of the
United Nations.
2. UN Conference on Trade and Development Programme on Transnational Corporations.
1993. Environmental Management in Transnational Corporations: Report on the Bench-
mark Corporate Environmental Survey, Environment Series No. 4, ST/CTC/149. New
York: United Nations; Gleckman, H. 1995. ‘‘Transnational corporations’ strategic re-
sponses to sustainable development’’, in H. Bergensen and G. Parmann (eds) Green
Globe Yearbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 93–106; Baram, M. 1994. ‘‘Multi-
national corporations, private codes and technology transfer for sustainable develop-
ment’’, Environmental Law, Vol. 24, No. 33, pp. 32–65; Roht-Arriaza, N. 1996. ‘‘Private
voluntary standard-setting, the International Organization for Standardization, and in-
ternational environmental law-making’’, in Yearbook of International Environmental
Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 105–161.
3. Financial incentives and disincentives in environmental management are not considered
in this chapter, as they are relatively minor actors in national environmental manage-
ment. This may be changing with the increase in interest from institutional and private
investors in socially responsible investing (SRI), which screens for sound environmental
management. The most optimistic accounts indicate that SRI investing accounts for one
in eight dollars invested in the USA. See Social Investment Forum, SIF Industry Re-
search Program. 2001. 2001 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the United
States. Viewed at www.socialinvest.org/areas/research/trends/SRI_Trends_Report_2001.
pdf. On the other hand military actions and inactions affecting the environment were
excluded because they are rather large and abrupt sources of environmental degradation
and are not formally part of any OECD government environmental approach.
4. An example of this is when auto manufacturers cite government safety and fuel efficiency
standards as performance benchmarks in their advertising and voluntary public environ-
mental reports. On fuel efficiency, auto manufacturers cite Japanese Automobile Manu-
facturing Assocation and European Automobile Association (ACEA) standards, both
of which apply in advance of government regulations, and EPA standards. Two examples
are Ford Motor Company. 2000. Building Relationships. Viewed at www.ford.com/NR/
rdonlyres/eriiydwcj54tyeuv4qcwf5zgiip3gyrk3iyrlhxhwyvpcdv7avwkvgwmht6uvx4rxurv2-
hobmhdc66yvdvmp3k2bc6e/2000_ccreport4.pdf; and Toyota Motor Corporation reports
globally and by region. In Japan, they report fuel efficiency against Japanese government
standards. See www.toyota.co.jp/IRweb/corp_info/eco/index_frame.html?location=dev.
For North America, Toyota reports against US EPA standards and also reports where
each model performs relative to ‘‘best in class’’ on EPA benchmarks. See www.toyota.
com/about/environment/news/enviroreport.html.
5. See Morelli, John. 1999. Voluntary Environmental Management: The Inevitable Future.
Springer, UK.
6. The phrase ‘‘corporate environmental governance’’ might be another example of the
private sector using governmental vocabulary to legitimize the private sector’s encroach-
ment on some of the functions of the state. In practice, the terms ‘‘corporate governance’’
and ‘‘corporate environmental governance’’ are used to describe the effectiveness of the
process and the methods required for the board of directors and/or the management to
control parts of their far-flung multinational firm. Corporate governance is not created
or maintained in a public process, which would be normally accepted components of a
‘‘governance’’ system.
7. This argument is elaborated in Krut, Riva and Harris Gleckman. 1998. ISO 14001: A
Missed Opportunity for Sustainable Global Industrial Development. London: Earthscan.
8. There are several leadership initiatives in this respect undertaken by business-NGO
groups. States frequently do not play a role, so these are purely voluntary initiatives.
A recent example is Earthwatch Europe, IUCN – The World Conservation Union, and
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). 2002. Business and
Biodiversity: The Handbook for Corporate Action.
11
The private business sector in
global environmental diplomacy
Mikoto Usui
Introduction
This chapter deals with certain facets of the game change strategies being
pursued by the ‘‘business and industry’’ sector1 in global environmental
diplomacy. This is a rather slippery and complex subject area that most
NGO scholarships have tended to think light of. This introduction tries
to provide an integrative perspective on this subject and a few impor-
tant messages emanating from it, although the subsequent three sec-
tions address only selected dimensions of this perspective owing to space
limitation.
‘‘Diplomacy’’ implies the conduct of international relations by nego-
tiation (rather than by force), propaganda, recourse to law, information
exchange, or engendering goodwill and other peaceful means that are
designed either directly or indirectly to facilitate negotiation.2 In the
context of this chapter the term is rather coterminous with ‘‘public di-
plomacy’’ that involves a myriad of non-state actors concerned with the
management of interdependence on a more or less voluntary basis, ex-
erting more or less tangible spillover effects on interstate policy-making
arenas – a phenomenon that has assumed increased importance under
the shadow of the Rio Summit and its subsequent globalized follow-up
processes.
The preceding three chapters deal with non-governmental organiza-
tions (NGOs) as a genre of agency (i.e. creative actors attempting to
216
THE PRIVATE BUSINESS SECTOR AND THE ENVIRONMENT 217
bring about change) that promotes ‘‘public interests’’. In Chapter 8 Mori

(in line with Article 71 of the UN Charter and ECOSOC Resolution
1296) tries to be lenient about the distinction between the two different
categories of NGOs – not-for-profit civil society organizations (CSOs)
and for-profit business organizations (FPOs) – but amply illustrates the
difficulties of coordinating or reconciling the two camps for developing
common NGO positions in conjunction with major global conference di-
plomacy on the sustainable development (SD) matter. Fisher (Chapter 9)
explicitly differentiates the two categories, and sees CSOs as an analyti-
cally distinct institutional sector that is separate from both state and
economy (industry and business). Chapter 10 (Gleckman) explicitly re-
fers to the private business sector, but concentrates on the desiderata of
business-state and business-IGO (intergovernmental organizations) rela-
tionships. In so doing, Gleckman adopts overtly a structuralist vantage
point from which ‘‘self-interested and short-term business concerns’’ are
seen to ‘‘thrive in a fragmented international environmental arena’’. He
thus shares the same normative bias as embraced by many NGO schol-
arships in stressing need for stronger regulatory systems to rectify the
political power balance. In contrast, the author of the present chapter
tries to offer a rather diametrically different perspective in which business
and civil society, as well as IGOs, are seen as creative agencies en-
deavouring to find space for interactive leadership for social change
amidst the existing contradictory structures.
Business-society bifurcation
There are many provocative ways of caricaturing the FPO-CSO engage-

ment, the latest version of which is ‘‘the Davos Man versus the Porto
Alegre Protester’’. The Davos Man represents the community of large
international corporations and believes in a liberal economy even though
not totally negligent of the third pillar of the Johannesburg agenda:
‘‘poverty eradication’’. The Porto Alegre Protester condemns the ‘‘cor-
porate power and government complicity in the rape of the planet’’, and
is vociferous about the ‘‘foreign direct liability’’ accompanying foreign
direct investment and the need for subjecting multinational corporations
(MNCs) to some legally binding international codes of conduct.3 Never-
theless, some more serious scholarship is required now to explore how
to reap better whatever fragmented promises may be looming out of the
emergent tri-sectoral interactions that are being shared by some, if not
all, segments of the business sector.
A great deal of interest has been expressed in the notion of inter-
sectoral ‘‘partnerships’’, although there is yet little clarity on what
these do and do not entail in reality. Constructive arrangements for
218 USUI
multi-stakeholder interaction are open-ended and still somewhat fuzzy

in overall terms. As Keohane and Nye assert, the ever more pervasive
rhetoric of partnership has not much altered the principle of global gov-
ernance that continues to be characterized by networked minimalism.4
‘‘Networked’’ may be interpreted as signifying the predominance of flat
or horizontal organizational forms that link individual independent actors
without commitment to a common strategy or policy position. Being
networked does not immediately lead to a negotiated order among the
participants. Moreover, ‘‘minimalism’’ features the parallel, or poorly
nested, connection among different networks, such that intrusion into the
autonomy of each is kept minimal even when they share some broadly
defined goals of cooperation. Thus NGO scholarships tend to locate the
CSO in the political realm as an agency standing for the citizen’s power
and serving as a critical countervailing force against state and industry,
while industry is an agency representing the economic power that has
traditionally dominated state-society relationships. This perspective is
embedded in a broader argument about the economy-society relationship
in the so-called ‘‘reflexive’’ modernization process which has attracted
much critical thinking. The critical reflection has engendered even an
ideal type of CSO whose mission is ‘‘to serve undeserved or neglected
populations, to expand the freedom of, or to empower, people to engage
in advocacy for social change’’.5 While NGO scholarships have tended to
congeal with such a normative bias, they have left the FPO sector, par-
ticularly its relationship with environmental NGOs, as a grossly ‘‘under-
researched’’ by the academic community.6
This chapter purports to span this gap with a reflection on the promises
and problems of the FPO sector as another crucial genre of agency for
change toward SD. It is about time that we should step away from
the now classical stereotype of business-society relationship, a farcical
description of which was given some 25 years ago by Dahl and Lindblom
as something that ‘‘would appear peculiar to a man from Mars’’:
Business’s superior power is derived from the fact corporations are charged by
society to organize and manage its productive forces. The result of this responsi-
bility is the ‘‘privileged participation of business’’ in government . . . Societies op-
erate by rules that require that businessmen be induced rather than commanded
. . . these societies must provide sufficient benefits or indulgencies to businessmen
to constitute an inducement for them to perform their assigned tasks.7
A three-layered analytical perspective on corporate game

change strategies
We then need to locate the FPO sector, too, in the ‘‘zone of plasticity’’
lying between structure and agency, just as NGO scholarships have done
in order to assess the CSO role in social change. ‘‘Structure’’ implies ex-
isting institutionalized sets of statuses, roles, and prevalent rules of the
game, and ‘‘agency’’ stands for those actors who voluntarily define their
own goals and strategies for game change, i.e. reconstructing their rela-
tionships, norms, and rules.8 It is in this zone of plasticity (alternatively
called the state of ‘‘structuration’’) that the contradictory goals, roles,
and values entrenched within extant structures give rise to space for
creative agency.9 Put differently (if not quite alternatively), Andrew
Cooper, speaking of changing diplomacy in and around the UN system,
conceptualizes a global model of interactive leadership to grasp the com-
plex and open-ended processes in which more or less like-minded states
and business and non-business NGOs ‘‘rub against and off each other
in an uneven fashion’’.10 So, our attention will centre on how relatively
resourceful, innovative corporations endeavour to promote game change,
individually or collectively, to cope with emergent social norms, external
pressures, and constraints.
Within the FPO sector, such actors correspond to those whom Holliday
and Pepper (co-chairs of the WBCSD) characterized as ‘‘innovators’’
and ‘‘market shapers’’ (as distinguished from ‘‘compliers’’ and ‘‘laggards/
free-riders’’) when they tried to describe a ‘‘smart hierarchy’’ of envi-
ronmental public policies.11 In formal environmental policy arenas, the
innovator/market shaper types of business actors are found in a relatively
non-conspicuous, not very cohesive, but highly discretionary group of
opportunists. Sprinz and Weiss refer to them as ‘‘Third party leaning to-
ward Pusher’’, so distinguished from two other types of more vociferous
interest groups, ‘‘Dragger/laggard’’ and ‘‘Pusher/leader’’.12 One might
ask such questions as how far are the ‘‘Third party’’ actors leaning to join
the ‘‘Pusher/leader’’ group? What initiatives are they taking meanwhile
to prepare themselves for enlarged future business opportunities? And
what kinds of regulatory policy design would help them cross the thresh-
old for rising up to coalesce with ‘‘Pushers’’? These are among the major
questions to be entertained in this chapter.
In order to capture the corporate game change strategies at multiple
levels, a simplified analytical framework might be of help. Table 11.1 is
one of the possible ways of describing it. It consists of three levels.
0 Global: How to change international institutional setting.
0 Intermediate: How to change individual business environments.
0 Local: How to change products (or make intra-firm adaptations).
Various thematic dimensions or action areas are distinguished at each of
these levels. Those listed in Table 11.1 are meant to be illustrative and
not exhaustive. Individual actors may choose to act at more than one
level simultaneously. Important from an analytical perspective is that
moving from one level to the next can help trace the local-global nexus
that flows across the multilayered processes of structuration.
220 USUI
Table 11.1 An integrative perspective on corporate game change strategies to-

wards sustainability
Level Thematic areas of action (major examples)

Global I-A Enhancing global advocacy networks for self-
Changing international legitimization to cope with CSOs’
institutional setting confrontational diplomacy
I-B Partnership-building with IGOs and other
stakeholders with problem-solving
commitments ( joining the UN Global
Compact and the ‘‘Type 2’’ track of the
WSSD process)
I-C Positive leadership-taking in the processes of
interstate negotiation on global and regional
conventions and protocols
Intermediate II-A Lobbying in national and local governmental
Changing individual policy-making processes
business II-B Intra-industry alliance for developing
environment voluntary standards and certification systems
II-C Partnership-building with CSOs for joint
ventures and development of credible de
facto standards (of more, or less, cross-border
significance)
II-D Policy negotiation and voluntary
environmental agreements with national
governments (on climate change and other
environmental and ethical issues)
Local III-A Changing products and processes through
Changing own products individual management systems (geared to
and services (intra- such notions as eco-efficiency, zero emissions,
firm adaptation) natural steps, ecological marketing, etc.)
III-B Compliance-oriented environmental
management policy (adopting broadly
recognized standards such as ISO 14001, SA
8000, BiE, etc.)
III-C Stakeholder engagement to cope with zones
of conflict at the grass-roots level (especially
in the case of mining and minerals MNCs
operating in developing countries)
III-D Self-motivated partnership-building with
local community-developmental actors in
developing countries
In fact, we will see the confrontational postures of the Davos Man and
the Porto Alegre Protester in global-level public diplomacy (action area
I-A) tend to subside quickly as we move down towards the lower levels
of the landscape. Actors from the two camps get enticed increasingly by
opportunities for engaging each other for mutual gain, e.g. by developing
jointly designed and administered credible standards and certification

systems, if still mainly on a voluntary basis. Further down at the local
level, problem-, issue-, and situation-specific multi-stakeholder dialogues
are forced to assume boundary-spanning characteristics that would gen-
erate space for joint action and a negotiated order with responsibility
allocation and joint problem-solving commitments. To discover the right
pathways through this global-local nexus would be of utmost importance
to improve regime design for further deepening and widening existing
multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs).
It should be noted that the adoption of such a multilayered analytical
framework would necessarily implicate a definition of international insti-
tution inclusive of both its soft/informal and hard/formal content. An
effective regime must find the right mix of formal and informal rules
of the game and the appropriate enforcement characteristics related to
them. This neo-institutional perspective is highly relevant in speaking of
institutional reforms in view of the evolving nature of SD regimes, most
of which are at their early fledgling stages. As for the ‘‘organizational’’
dimension of institutional reform, there is an old saying of the classical
functionalist that ‘‘form follows function’’.13 Heeding the global-local
nexus should make it desirable to add to it that ‘‘function follows shared
problems’’. Within the state sector, IGOs have emerged as a separate
agency on account of their functional role (in addition to their mandates
originally given as interstate policy forums) as a coordinating and ‘‘syn-
ergizing’’ agent for concerted efforts by states, industry, and civil society
for the supply of international public goods.14 These IGOs’ enhanced
focus on implementation of existing agreements may or may not be a new
‘‘conceptual leap’’ enthusing the world community, but certainly de-
mands improved participatory delivery mechanisms at multiple levels.
For that matter, the ‘‘Type 2 outcomes’’ of the WSSD process would de-
serve continued attention as an avenue for reconsolidating and enriching
the ‘‘vertical interlinkages’’ spanning through the global-local nexus of
existing and new MEAs.
The structure of the rest of this chapter
Treating all the individual themes at full length for all the three levels
shown in Table 11.1 would deserve more than a book project. Since the
author of the present chapter has already given a fuller treatment of
the three-level perspective on a level-by-level basis elsewhere,15 the fol-
lowing three sections focus on selected dimensions remoulded so as to
permit a return trip from global to local and then back to global. (The
bracketed codes relate by and large to the corresponding themes/action
areas shown in Table 11.1.)
222 USUI
0 Public diplomacy grounded in networked minimalism [I-A]:

– parallelism at the global level: the ICC environmental diplomacy
– some theoretical reflections
– adaptive developments from Rio to Johannesburg.
0 Multi-stakeholder engagement with problem-solving commitments:
– a bird’s-eye view traversing through the local-intermediate-global
nexus
– evolving facets of stakeholder theory [II and III]
– stakeholder engagement in zones of conflict [III-C]
– voluntary standards and certification schemes [II-B and II-C]
– self-motivated business-CSO partnerships [II-C]
– self-motivated business-community partnerships in the bottom tier of
the world market [III-D]
– from the Global Compact to the ‘‘Type 2’’ track of the WSSD [I-B].
0 Beyond the WSSD: regime design matters [I-B and I-C]:
– horizontal and vertical interlinkages
– how to coax industry to become ‘‘Pusher’’
– two parallel ‘‘Type 2’’ showcases and an agenda for future research.
Public diplomacy grounded in networked minimalism
While corporate legality continues to rest within a system of state law,

world-renowned multinational corporations (MNCs) have begun to work
harder at legitimizing themselves at the international level. Many CSO
representatives, as well as NGO scholarships, are concerned about the
private sector’s own capability of generating de facto standards in cyber-
space, financial markets, intellectual property rights, bond-rating institu-
tions, etc. and effectively lobbying to their advantage in national and
international policy-making processes. Cutler, Haufler, and Porter con-
ceptualize this tendency as an act of claiming industry’s own ‘‘private
international authority’’, which complements, and sometimes even sub-
stitutes for, state authority.16 It has power-game dimensions, such as
controlling markets, reducing inter-firm transaction costs, capturing state
regulations, and sometimes even using the state against other civil society
actors. However, such power-political dimensions are no novelty. On the
one hand, the ‘‘plural élitism’’ theory of state-society and business-society
relationships has generated a number of studies on the advantages that
the corporate sector has in terms of money and technology. And, on the
other hand, the rules of the game have long allowed for an alliance in one
form or another between IGOs and leading business actors to cope with
problems of legitimacy and accountability posed by industry’s ‘‘private
authority’’.
Such reproachful remarks notwithstanding, there is still enough room

left for us to tread back the historical course of international institu-
tional adaptation and dynamics of structure-agency confluence in which
industry’s private authority has exhibited traces of both resilience
and adaptive responsiveness to changing world requirements. Note that
‘‘adaptation’’ implies new activities being added without questioning un-
derlying institutional values, some new means of action being altered,
or some new objectives being added without worrying about their coher-
ence with existing ones.17 Let us first see how the ICC – the world’s most
powerful umbrella organization – has acted as the frontline spokesman
for international business interests. Then, after some effort of theorizing
about the pitfalls inherent in the ICC’s public diplomacy at the global
level, we will bring in on the scene more consciously SD-oriented actors
such as the WBCSD and the UNED Forum. These actors have been
particularly instrumental in creating space for institutional adaptation
within the UN-orchestrated processes towards the Johannesburg Summit.
Parallelism at the global level: The ICC environmental diplomacy
The ICC, established in 1919, has been involved from the very outset
in global politico-economic diplomacy at the highest levels. It was one of
the earliest NGOs that enjoyed full voting rights and participated directly
in League of Nations meetings. It outlived the League of Nations. Hock-
ing and Kelly18 give a fairly detailed account of the ICC involvement
with the League of Nations as well as the UN system through the 1970s.
In the early post-war years it was the ICC that stood firmly against the
draft charter of the International Trade Organization and exerted pres-
sure for creating the GATT instead. The ICC has been present at the UN
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) from its first meet-
ing in 1964. The UN-GATT Economic Consultative Committee, created
under the ICC aegis in 1969, facilitated high-level discussions to guard
the international business interest from the South’s increasingly aggres-
sive UN diplomacy, and proved instrumental for the later launch of the
OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises in 1976. Upon Maurice
Strong’s invitation, the ICC gave a 15-minute presentation at the first UN
Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE), Stockholm, in 1972.
The ICC Commission on the Environment was established as an out-
come of its World Industry Conference on Environmental Manage-
ment (WICEM), co-sponsored by the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP) (the latter being the only immediate organizational innovation
that Stockholm brought about). At that stage, the Commission began to
spend most energy in arguing that environmental standards would ham-
per the market-place unless they were acceptable on an all-industry basis.
224 USUI
Harris Gleckman (then a staff member of the UN Center on Transna-

tional Corporations (UNCTC)) gives an interesting insider’s account of
how the ICC lobbied against the UN initiatives during the preparatory
process for the 1992 Rio Summit. While the ICC’s Business Charter of
Sustainable Development plagiarized from the UNCTC-authored Criteria
on Sustainable Management without any acknowledgement, the ICC kept
openly criticizing the UNCTC’s work on environmental matters, con-
tending that ‘‘the UN should reduce its attention to environmental mat-
ters affecting the international market’’.19 Moreover, together with some
OECD countries it ‘‘launched a frontal effort to avoid any reference to
TNCs and their potential contributions to SD’’ and ‘‘resisted all attempts
made by IGOs to table meaningful definitions of sustainable business and
ignored offerings from citizens groups’’.20
In Rio, ‘‘the ICC three-day conference omitted any direct discussion of
the future tasks expected from national industries or TNCs in Agenda
21’’.21 Meanwhile, on the part of the CSO camps, a large coalition of in-
ternational activists formed the International Non-governmental Forum
(INGOF), which rallied in Rio at a distance from the ICC conference and
was busy finalizing its own draft International NGO Treaty – a counter-
proposal to Agenda 21.22 At that time, no formally integrated rules
of procedure existed for more than 1,400 participating NGOs. Ann Do-
herty’s questionnaire study reveals the various complaints registered by
CSO respondents about the presence of not-for-profit business associa-
tions (the ICC, the BCSD, the Association of Chemical Manufacturers,
etc.) in the same capacity as other non-profit NGOs. They include state-
ments such as ‘‘Business succeeded in escaping all regulations’’; ‘‘Busi-
ness reduced the scope of the conference’’; and ‘‘Corporate interests
ruled the agenda in favour of market-based approaches’’; etc.23
During the preparatory process for the 2002 World Summit on Sus-
tainable Development (WSSD), the ICC and the WBCSD jointly formed
a new platform named Business Action for Sustainable Development
(BASD). They jointly submitted a position paper to the multi-stake-
holder dialogue segment of the WSSD/PrepCom IV. That paper was
curt and in a reserved tone, but eloquently recapitulated their long-
embraced strategic priority:24 ‘‘Business solutions to sustainable devel-
opment focus on concrete actions and deliverable results rather than
process and procedures’’ (emphasis added). In contrast, the dialogue
paper given by a group of NGOs on the same occasion reiterated at
length the familiar CSO stance regarding how MNCs ought to be better
tamed:25 ‘‘The WSSD must endorse . . . a legally binding framework/
convention for corporate accountability and liability under the UN, with
independent mechanisms for monitoring progress and enforcement’’
(emphasis added).
In Johannesburg, the BASD organized a Business Day on 1 September

2002 – a high-profile open forum with panellists drawn from senior busi-
ness leaders. It was accompanied by a new book entitled Walking the
Talk.26 The overarching themes of the Business Day were sustainable
management of natural resources, making markets work for all (even
for poor people’s ‘‘sustainable livelihoods’’), and accountability and
transparency.27 In parallel, however, on the very same day Friends of the
Earth International organized ‘‘Art Action: Hear Our Voice’’ near the
entrance to the Earth Summit hall. A six-metre-tall ‘‘Corporate Giant’’ (a
super-fat inflatable businessman which had already toured in Europe),
surrounded by 6,000 biodegradable statues representing the diverse
voices of ‘‘peoples’’ victimized by MNCs, were meant to symbolize ‘‘cor-
porate power and government complicity in the rape of the planet’’.28
The advocacy networks of CSOs and those of FPOs tend to be kept
disparate. More often than not, each camp rallies by itself and for itself to
mount campaigns for self-advocacy. This is the case even at forums for
global conference diplomacy where they are officially given a consultative
status. Mori notes that ECOSOC Resolution 1296 on NGOs with con-
sultative status limits their role to consultation, and not negotiation (see
Chapter 8). At the level of formal conference diplomacy, their activities
consist mainly of submitting written statements for information in the
hope of identifying differences and sharable values and objectives among
different sectors and actors. The ‘‘multi-stakeholder dialogue’’ session of
the UNCSD was inspired by the UNED Forum, which had been estab-
lished in 1993 as an outgrowth of the Sustainable Development Unit of
the UN Association of UK and Ireland, and later renamed the Stake-
holder Forum for Our Common Future with its expanded international
membership.29 However, the dialogue at this high level of political
aggregation has generated something even less than ‘‘positional bargain-
ing’’, serving mostly just to highlight positional differences among differ-
ent actors. Parallelism looms obstinately between the two camps when
each attempts to present itself as though it were a single coalition. Mori
(Chapter 8) speaks of the failure of the CSD Steering Committee for
NGOs to develop common positions among the various caucuses of
which the committee was comprised.
Some theoretical reflections
In terms of the structure-agency nexus, one can argue that the confron-
tation or parallelism between FPO and CSO issue networks stems from
the leaders of each camp placing too much emphasis on the structural
perspective at the expense of the agency perspective. CSOs’ criticism is
usually addressed at the ‘‘laggard/free-rider’’ segments of the business
226 USUI
community, rather than its ‘‘innovator/market shaper’’ wings. The latter,

as a lead agency for change, remain highly sensitive to critical social
voices, but are often suspect of complicity with the former because they
are all embedded in the same formal structure that the ICC represents.
A commonplace of organization theory is that ‘‘informal links among
organizational participants congeal alongside formal structures’’ in the
sense that such links ‘‘develop to confront issues defined in the formal
structure’’.30 Also, David Mitchell’s model of ‘‘alliance security di-
lemma’’ in inter-institutional negotiation (which was adapted from the
two-level game theory) may help explain, by analogy, the confrontational
situation in which the two coalitions run into ‘‘the risk of being entrapped
even when they are not really interested in it’’.31 Other coalition-
theoretic hypotheses, such as the one worked out by Lynn Wagner,32
may be useful for predicting that negotiation tends to stop at a con-
frontational ‘‘we-they’’ differentiation when each coalition with low in-
ternal cohesion tries to project the appearance of a highly cohesive group
by resorting to the lowest common denominator that is trenched on a
highly simplified structuralist vision of social order. This is more likely to
occur when the agenda is framed in terms of broad cross-sectoral issues,
over which positional preferences tend to vary more greatly across dif-
ferent coalitions than within each coalition. If an attempt were made to
fuse two such coalitions together, even the commonly shared SD agenda
would easily result in positional parallelism of the ‘‘we-they’’ type.
Thus, some scholars (such as Jacques Fomerand33) question whether
many of the UN global conferences are really serving the purpose of
genuine public diplomacy, apart from the momentary media events which
may not have lasting effects on state policies. One way of avoiding seri-
ous analytical enterprise in this matter might be to see their impact,
as Paul Wapner34 does, in the longer-term perspective of ‘‘dialectical’’
interaction through time among different contradictory forces. And, as
Peter Haas says, while they may not have immediate direct effects on
policies, they do in time provide indirect effects that may induce states to
take more progressive steps toward SD.35
It is clear from the foregoing reflection that the author of this chapter
would not think much of institutional reform proposals like the ‘‘World
Environment Organization’’ (WEO) or ‘‘World Environment and De-
velopment Organization’’ (WEDO), although these are directly or in-
directly heeded in many other chapters of this volume. An imagery of
the ‘‘global corporatism’’ type of organizational arrangements36 quickly
stumbles on numerous thorny issues. Apart from the theoretical problem
of conflating ‘‘institution’’ and ‘‘organization’’,37 even the idea of ‘‘cor-
porate and civil society advisory bodies’’ for MEA-COPs (suggested by
Gleckman in this volume in his Table 10.5) would be unlikely to over-
come the weaknesses of the CSO Multi-stakeholder Steering Group and

the issue of democratic legitimacy of representatives from NGO sectors.
It will be seen in the next section that the polarized nature of positional
bargaining consciously grounded in contradictory structures tends to give
in to exigencies of problem-solving requirements envisaged in stake-
holder engagement at lower levels. Meanwhile, let us continue with our
search for promises of institutional adaptation that have begun to loom in
the post-Rioþ5 phase of the Johannesburg process.
Adaptive developments from Rio to Johannesburg
Towards Rioþ5, in the face of the ever-louder anti-globalization and

anti-MNC voices from CSO circles, the ICC began to seek more sen-
sible, politically neutralized, and intellectually credible ways of interfac-
ing between its members’ private interests and the increasingly wary
public. One avenue was to build the WBCSD with a globalized sustain-
ability-oriented professional mission by merging its Environment Com-
mission’s bureau for programme delivery38 with the Business Council for
Sustainable Development (BCSD) in 1995. The latter had been set up by
Stephan Schmidheiny (then a corporate adviser to Maurice Strong, the
UNCED Secretary-General) in association with 50 senior CEOs but in-
dependently of the ICC. The other was to find a major partnership role
in the new agenda which was being contemplated by Kofı́ Annan for the
United Nations.
The ICC charter continues to emphasize its role as a defender of busi-
ness interests39 and have its Paris-based international secretariat actively
feed business views into the United Nations and other IGOs on any
issues directly affecting business operations. In contrast, the WBCSD
is mandated to concentrate on SD issues and environmentally desirable
business practices40 and take an independent professional stance. Unlike
the ICC representatives, the WBCSD’s members can speak, not on
behalf of their corporations, but in their personal capacities. Now its
membership includes CEOs from 160 of the world’s largest and most
influential companies, and its global network consists of more than 35
regional and national BCSDs, still growing to make inroads into more
developing countries and countries in transition. Both the WBCSD and
the ICC are equally actively involved with the United Nations, partic-
ipating in the ad hoc inter-sessional working groups of the UNCSD and
the conferences of the parties (COPs) of various major MEAs. The
WBCSD’s advocacy activities appear politically much lower profile than
the ICC, but intellectually higher profile with active interaction with re-
nowned international policy research institutions such as the World Re-
sources Institute (WRI), the International Institute for Environment and
228 USUI
Development (IIED), and the Prince of Wales International Business

Leaders Forum (IBLF), etc., as well as the World Bank and the UNDP.
The WBCSD adopts problem-solving approaches with its working
groups specialized in specific issue areas of SD, such as climate and en-
ergy, sustainable development reporting, medicines and genes, biodiver-
sity, and ‘‘sustainable livelihoods’’. This last issue area has been added
(since 2001) to promote a view within the business community that
‘‘markets can be a major force for advancing sustainable development
among the world’s poor’’.41
With a view to finding a major role for the international business
community to assume in Kofı́ Annan’s Global Compact (GC) project, the
ICC and the WBCSD began to have a number of meetings with Annan
while endeavouring to cope with the unease and doubt being voiced by
many member corporations. At the same time the ICC launched a series
of seminars and press releases on public-private partnership, which cul-
minated in the Geneva Business Dialogue (in September 1998).42 Many
CSOs were sceptical of this Global Compact process, and rallied to get it
‘‘hijacked’’ by their own proposal of a Citizens’ Compact. The notion of
the Citizens’ Compact was dedicated to enhancing the CSO right of sur-
veillance and the development of a legally binding framework to govern
global corporations’ behaviour. To counteract this, the ICC Environment
Commission delivered an eloquent speech at the Rockefeller Founda-
tion on the relevance of the ‘‘poverty eradication’’ dimension of the UN
agenda for sustainability-conscious business actors. It even tried to reas-
sure that ‘‘the time horizons of business are relatively long compared to
democratic governments, seeking a renewal of their mandate every few
years’’.43 Apparently such a bold statement was made possible on the
strength of the launch of the WBCSD working group on sustainable
livelihoods mentioned above. The group’s first report on the rationale of
pro-poor business community engagement44 was made available on the
Business Day in Johannesburg, coupled with a more macro-oriented sis-
ter edition, Investing for Sustainable Development.45 The latter was pre-
pared jointly with the IUCN, the LEAD, Deutsche Bank, and the World
Bank Institute, addressing the question of creating an enabling policy
environment that should underpin business solutions to SD in terms of
‘‘concrete actions and deliverable results’’.
The UNED UK Committee, founded in the wake of the 1992 UNCED
to promote national SD processes,46 endeavoured increasingly to feed its
experience in stakeholder dialogue as an input to international processes,
and thus inspired the UNCSD to incorporate a dialogue segment into its
regular sessions. The UNED Forum undertook a fairly serious research
project (2000–2001) on multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs). This
project was intended to review various examples of MSPs around inter-
governmental bodies with a view to distilling an acceptable ‘‘template

procedure’’ and methodological framework for the WSSD process.47
The examples studied included the UNCSD multi-stakeholder dialogue
(1997–), the UN Global Compact process (1999–), the Global Report-
ing Initiative (1999–), the World Commission on Dams (1998–2000), the
WBCSD-IIED Global Mining Initiative (1999–2001), the Aarhus Con-
vention Process, etc.
The result inspired the CSD again (acting then as the WSSD Prep-
Com) towards official adoption of the ‘‘Type 2’’ track. The UNED Forum
was then renamed as the Stakeholder Forum for Our Common Future
and prepared to hold an implementation conference (IC) in Johannes-
burg (24–26 August 2002). The Stakeholder Forum was comprised of BP,
Novartis, Unilever, and Ondeo Suez from the business community, along
with the UN Foundation, UNEP, the World Bank, the IUCN, the Inter-
national Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), the Rockefeller
Foundation, and other NGO groups. Twenty-five facilitators from its
globalized membership worked out 14 draft Type 2 agreements in four
issue areas (fresh water, energy, food security, and health). The Stake-
holder Forum coordinator reporting on the IC outcome states:
The new partnerships are about action, not about lobbying governments.
Impacting policy-making is not the primary concern of the participants who
gathered at the IC. They [we] met to agree action to implement existing (and
emerging) policy agreements. However, it is hoped that the stakeholders’ actions
and what we learn from them will indeed feed into policy-making in the future.48
Multi-stakeholder engagement with problem-solving

commitments: A bird’s-eye view traversing through the
local-intermediate-global nexus
Multi-stakeholder processes come in many shapes at many levels. Their
organizational forms and procedures need to be designed to suit specific
situations, issues, or problems as well as the participants’ abilities, needs,
and other circumstances. In this overview, the focus is set on grasping
how industry has come to heed a broader range of ‘‘stakeholders’’ than
just shareholders to cope with emerging pressures and opportunities at
grass-roots, as well as international, levels. In fact, upholding stakeholder
thinking has been gaining greater currency with the advent of MNCs’
increased global reach and the surging anti-globalization waves. Many
corporate managers have begun to think about the need for ‘‘reinte-
grating business into society’’, as being urged by CSO activists and
scholarships.
230 USUI
This section will first take a glance at key elements of the stakeholder
theory which seem to be shared broadly by both social systems theorists
and management scholarships concerned with issues of corporate social
responsibility (CSR). Against such theoretical backgrounds it then dis-
cusses some of the important issues envisaged in practice, particularly the
notion of ‘‘foreign direct liability’’ facing ‘‘asset-specific’’49 industries
operating in developing countries; the proliferation of ‘‘bottom-up’’
standards in forestry and tourism industries; and self-motivated industry-
community partnerships that would probably have positive implications
for poverty eradication in poorer societies. These kinds of stakeholder
engagement with problem-solving commitments will be seen to have led
towards two noteworthy global-level institutional innovations: the Global
Compact and the ‘‘Type 2 outcome’’ incorporated into the Johannesburg
process.
Evolving facets of stakeholder theory
A broad consensus seems to be emerging regarding the practice and

ethics of social systems design among social system theorists. Emphasis
is put increasingly on the concept of stakeholder engagement and the
methodologies for boundary-spanning dialogue. For instance, Ken
Bausch50 stresses the need for well-sustained and properly managed
group processes in order that a ‘‘negotiated order’’ may be arrived at
with an agreed allocation of rights and obligations among the stake-
holders willing to engage in joint problem-solving. The thrust of such
processes is to treat participants’ differing perspectives on a given issue as
resources for problem-solving rather than as antagonistic differences to
be edited out or harmonized, and also to reconfigure power differences
in terms of a balance of interests rather than a balance of forces or re-
sources. Moreover, a sharable knowledge base is essential for rationally
reconciling the participants’ diverse pre-rational cognitive filters in order
to engender space for joint action.
Such a visionary theory resonates well into recent CSR scholarship.
CSR was originally (during the 1970s) conceived as ‘‘profitability þ
compliance þ philanthropy’’, but has subsequently embraced additional
thematic frameworks such as business ethics, corporate citizenship, and
stakeholder engagement. The most recent version of stakeholder theory
adopts, in addition to social ‘‘obligation’’ and ‘‘responsibility’’, an ele-
ment of social responsiveness: i.e. attention to not just active interaction of
business with a broad range of stakeholders but also anticipatory action
committed to both social and economic goals. Much conceptual and em-
pirical work has been undertaken to integrate relationship-building ac-
tivities into stakeholder engagement.
Some interesting propositions can be found in the recent two-volume

edition by Andriof et al. entitled Unfolding Stakeholder Thinking.51 One
of them is that the ethical facet of CSR may be a consequence of, rather
than an exogenous causal factor for, multi-stakeholder learning dialogue.
While participants in the dialogue process are usually faced with ‘‘messy
systemic problems’’ characterized by a dissensus-generating dichotomy
between ‘‘self’’ and ‘‘other’’, a more ‘‘sense-making’’ process can ensue
when a shared vision of relational responsibilities starts emerging, lead-
ing to ‘‘co-construction’’ of multilateral negotiated orders.52 In order
to explain the positive role of big corporations in this process, Duane
Windsor53 draws upon the logic of ‘‘consequentialism’’: namely, through
sustained stakeholder dialogues it would become easier to trace and
specify responsibility for consequences (including distant repercussions),
which may lead to negotiated outcomes pertaining to distributive equity,
and a change from the status quo directed towards the least advantaged
in any given situation. Corporate managers amid the zone of conflict in
developing countries are faced with a perceived imbalance in the public’s
conceptualization of business responsibilities. Thus they learn sooner or
later more stringent lessons than other stakeholders, to the effect that
they become increasingly inclined to lead the way towards a collective
action effort to solve a shared problem. These are certainly among the
promising theoretical possibilities, but need to be buttressed by further
empirical studies.
Stakeholder engagement in zones of conflict
Field studies available on the realities of CSR practices of mining and

minerals MNCs operating in developing countries confirm that CSR and
good ethical behaviour are means of improving relationships with local
stakeholders. But the yet-unresolved question is: what are the best means
of promoting CSR among those MNCs – voluntary codes of conduct,
international regulations, or host government intervention? MNCs’ self-
regulatory initiatives alone would not guarantee good CSR practice un-
less host governments are equipped with a sophisticated legal system and
effective mechanisms for their enforcement. And such preconditions vary
greatly from country to country.54
As for international regulations, the negotiations of the UN Commis-
sion on Transnational Corporations for an MNC code of conduct started
in 1974, dragged on throughout the decade, and then subsided without
a definitive outcome with the advent of more urgent negotiations for debt
relief and ‘‘adjustment with a human face’’ early in the 1980s. The OECD
revised twice its 1976 MNC guidelines. In the 1990s the Multilateral
Agreement on Investment (MAI) faltered in the face of the fierce protest
232 USUI
of environmental and anti-MNC CSOs arguing that it protected the rights

of corporations without paying equivalent attention to their respon-
sibilities.55 The 2000 revision of the OECD guidelines for MNCs56 pro-
vides for monitoring by designated national contact points, but it is yet
to be seen if it will result in a really effective international regulatory
instrument.
The Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development (MMSD) Project
would deserve particular mention in this conjunction. This two-year re-
search and consultation project was contracted to the International Insti-
tute for Environment and Development (IIED) through the WBCSD by
nine of the world’s largest mining companies, for the purpose of creating
a sustainable future vision of the minerals sector. Its final report, entitled
Breaking New Ground,57 disseminated on the IUCN Business Day in
Johannesburg (31 August 2002), was an outcome of the ‘‘MMSD pro-
cess’’ involving a broad range of stakeholders – four regional partner-
ships (Southern Africa, North America, South America, and Australia),
some 20 national projects, and 23 international workshops and semi-
nars. Its policy prescription includes establishing a sort of ‘‘sectoral
global compact’’ that embraces a framework agreement on norms and
principles, a global declaration and protocol, and national and regional
industry codes of conduct, as well as capacity-building action plans at
community, national, and global levels. The MMSD Project’s office is
now closed (with at least part of it being taken over by the ongoing
WBCSD Global Mining Initiative). But the process can be regarded as a
valuable experimentation of industry-specific multi-stakeholder engage-
ment with explicit heed to global-local interlinkages.
Voluntary standards and certification schemes
Industry’s self-regulatory initiatives include more, or less, internationally

accredited voluntary standards and certification schemes. In fact there
exists a plethora of such initiatives. Some represent merely the self-
promotional gimmicks of intra-industry mini-lateral alliances (Level II-
B); some involve partnering between reputable MNCs and CSOs that
bear particularly upon the development of voluntary standards and cer-
tification schemes of cross-border significance (Level II-C). There is also
multi-stakeholder engagement in the form of business-community part-
nerships geared to development of locally adapted ‘‘bottom-up’’ stan-
dards (Level III-D).
For example, the number of certification initiatives on forestry and
forestry products has more than doubled since 1996, and over 40 new
schemes are under development in more than 30 countries. Many of
them assume characteristics of oligopolistic competition rather than vol-
untary self-regulation. Critics jeer at them as a ‘‘classical example of the

fox guarding the henhouse’’.58 This tendency corroborates with the fact
that forestry is a domain where only a very weak, fragmentary regime
exists. The International Tropical Timber Agreement (ITTA: 1983) and
the Tropical Forestry Action Program (TFAP: 1985) were the results
of interstate negotiations including forestry-related MNCs and tropical
timber-producing and timber-importing countries among major stake-
holders. Both initiatives came under fierce criticism by environmental
NGOs in that they were donor-driven rather than country-driven, lacking
clear priorities in their decision processes, and had centralized admin-
istration ‘‘disenfranchising’’ a broader spectrum of stakeholders.59 The
1992 UNCED could only agree on a ‘‘Non-Legally Binding Authorita-
tive Statement of Principles’’ (Forestry Principles), which offered only a
starting point for protracted negotiations by the Intergovernmental Panel
on Forests (IPF), subsequently renamed as the Intergovernmental Forum
on Forests (IFF). Earlier conferences of the parties of the Convention on
Biological Diversity (CBD: 1992) could not launch a work programme
on forestry owing to the strong blocking coalitions involving timber-
producing and timber-exporting developing countries and major forest-
exploiting MNCs. Of the world’s forests, 140 million hectares are
exploited by fewer than 50 MNCs under short-term exploitation per-
mits.60 Such short-term contracts leave little incentive for the multi-
million-dollar timber industry to plan and manage for longer-term
exploitation. Industry competition for acquiring renewed and new ex-
ploitation permits is accompanied by self-promotion and legitimization,
resulting in a proliferation of would-be SD-oriented timber certification
schemes both within industry and created by third parties. This im-
plies creating differentiated thresholds for ‘‘good practices’’ that are used
to claim comparative social advantage for insiders over potential new
entrants.
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is one of the major de facto
standards engineered by MNC-CSO partnerships which are often likened
to soft conventions of global significance. It originated from a defensive
partnership of B&Q (a company specializing in ‘‘do-it-yourself’’ wood
products) with the WWF-UK in response to the repeated anti-DIY dem-
onstrations mounted jointly by the Rainforest Action Group, FoE UK,
and timber industry labour unions in 1991. Although the FSC is nearly
globally accredited, critics point out that its structure and operational
practice lack equity in that the competitive interests of ‘‘excellent pro-
ducers just above the FSC threshold of acceptable forest management’’
are favoured, often at the expense of the almost equally good producers
just below it.61 So the FSC has not successfully contained the plethora
of locally inspired standards and certification initiatives on forestry and
234 USUI
forestry products. Generally speaking, globalized standards tend to be

process-based, as most ISO management standards (such as the ISO 9000
and 14000 series) are. This makes difficult their across-the-board appli-
cation to asset-specific industries operating in different countries.
However, differentiated thresholds for good practice are not always
a bad thing. If they are based on business-community partnerships at
locality-specific levels and well administered, they can stimulate lo-
cally better-adapted innovation and competition. Especially where SD-
conscious CSOs are actively involved in local conservation activities, the
multi-stakeholder process can serve as a sort of real-time policy forum
and help raise societal expectations for better-than-legal practice and
accountability. Locality-specific visions and standards can possibly get
linked to some ‘‘bottom-up’’ pathways connecting between the local
and the global. Thus, Bass, Font, and Danielson argue that ‘‘exploring
locality-specific visions and standards is a necessary precursor to certifi-
cation schemes in order to avoid inequity from top-down standards’’.62
The norms well shared among local producers would in time permeate
into consumer preference, which would in turn induce buyers’ groups to
shift their sourcing strategy in favour of more broadly credible certifica-
tion systems, stimulating development of national or regional certifica-
tion and labelling schemes. Examples of this kind include the emergence
of the Pan-European Certification Initiative in 1999, and the effort of the
African Timber Organization to develop a regional scheme based on the
ITTO (International Tropical Timber Association) criteria and indi-
cators. Mexico, Malaysia, and Tanzania, with the support of the IUCN,
the WWF, and the UK Forestry Commission, have just launched (in
March 2003) a region-specific sub-regime, the Global Partnership on
Forest Landscape Restoration.
In the domain of tourism, the picture is somewhat different. Actions
for tourism certification took off no earlier than around 1998 but have
already resulted in over 100 different voluntary labels and schemes. This
industry, too, has an asset-specific characteristic, since key tourism infra-
structures (such as beaches, national parks, and historical sites) are often
publicly owned, except related hotel businesses, and most voluntary local
standards and certification schemes are administered jointly with local
governments. They are seldom run for profit but the majority are heavily
government-subsidized. Besides, cooperative ventures between private
business actors and local communities in this domain are increasingly
promoted by biodiversity conservation NGOs, rural developmental pro-
grammes, and ODA donors as a means of making the tourism indus-
try beneficial to all parties, not only by providing access to capital and
international tourists for local communities but also by facilitating the
industry’s access to natural and cultural resources in host developing
countries. However, because of the international nature of tourism,

tourists would rather wish to see internationally consistent and well-
accredited standards established. Thus, proposals are emerging to de-
velop something comparable to the FSC, such as a global ‘‘Sustainable
Tourism Stewardship Council’’. In fact, the World Tourism Organiza-
tion’s (WTO) rather ‘‘top-down’’ initiative has launched (as of 2000) the
Tour Operator Initiative for Sustainable Development (TOISD) jointly
with UNESCO and UNEP.
Privatization of utilities in urban-peripheral areas has expanded
scope for privately financed infrastructure (PFI) businesses. These typi-
cally involve business-government partnerships, and sometimes tripartite
business-government-community partnering arrangements. In developing
countries both bilateral and multilateral donor agencies, mandated in-
creasingly to alleviate poverty, get involved particularly in the phase
of such partnering arrangements requiring substantial capacity-building
for the community citizens concerned. Suez/Ondeo’s Water for All pro-
gramme for drinking water in needy rural provinces in South Africa,
its Aguas Argentinas Consortium with the municipality and community
CSOs in Buenos Aires, and other water system initiatives targeted for
below-the-poverty-line people in Bolivia, the Philippines, Morocco, etc.
are among the often-cited examples in UN policy documents, as well as
in WBCSD documents.63
Self-motivated business-CSO partnerships
Not a few cases of business-CSO partnerships have arisen out of self-

motivated collaborative arrangements without formal involvement of
IGO facilitators. Examples of industry-specific de facto voluntary stan-
dards of global significance that are based on MNC-CSO partnerships
include, in addition to the FSC mentioned above, the Unilever-led Ma-
rine Stewardship Council (MSC: since 1995) and the Tea Sourcing Part-
nership (TSP: since 1997). Jem Bendell’s Terms of Endearment64 offers
many more of such examples, and points to the emerging tendency that
major environmental NGOs like the WWF and Greenpeace, which used
to pay little attention to market-based mechanisms, have come to enter
strategic partnering agreements with major industrial MNCs. These are
to serve the objectives of these NGOs’ mainstream advocacy activities, as
well as to help improve the environmental/ethical performance of their
partner companies.
Negotiations between the two different institutional (and also profes-
sional) cultures would take time. But, after such differences have been
mutually recognized through sustained negotiation, the outcome may be
236 USUI
Table 11.2 Rational motivations for mutual engagement of multinational corpo-

rations and environmental NGOs
Motivations for MNCs to engage with Motivations for environmental NGOs

environmental NGOs to engage with MNCs
0 Creating new markets 0 Disenchantment with government
policies
0 NGOs’ credibility with the public on 0 Gaining greater leverage through
social issues and priorities business links with government
0 Avoiding negative public 0 Access to more funds and technical
confrontations and managerial resources
0 Cross-fertilization of thinking for the 0 Cross-fertilization of thinking for
future the future
0 Cooptation of new stakeholders 0 Access to supply chains
hinged on rationally calculated merits of collaboration, as illustrated in

Table 11.2 in general terms.
One might feel that such motivational compatibility could augur a
possibility for civil regulation to tame MNC behaviours. But Bendell
points out that notion would soon crumble in the face of serious limi-
tations on the part of CSO power, particularly with respect to the social
reach of consumer politics of today. While CSO power is practically
linked to consumers’ spending power, citizens in Southern countries have
far less of such power than their counterparts in the North.65
A few more warnings may well be in order. Firstly, corporate part-
ners would sooner or later face great difficulties in accommodating the
increasingly demanding sustainability agenda of their CSO partners that
would threaten the corporate short-term financial time horizon. Sec-
ondly, the CSO partners would face conflicts with their memberships and
their own fundraising base. And thirdly, resourceful CSOs may not exist
so ubiquitously as one would wish to think. Elkington and Fennel66 even
predict that the reserve army of well-resourced independent CSO part-
ners is likely quickly to run short of the now rising demand from cor-
porate players. They thus suspect that ‘‘the corporations leading off in
forging strategic alliances with key CSOs may be doing so just to enjoy a
‘first-mover’ benefit’’.
Nevertheless one may venture to argue that there should be an onto-
logically tenable reason for believing that both FPOs and CSOs seek op-
portunities for mutual direct engagement in one form or another for the
purpose of their individual organizational survival and growth. This is
because any organization, be it private or public, for-profit or not-for-
profit, is necessarily ‘‘Janus-faced’’ in the sense that it consists of a mix-
ture of two programmatic ideal types: action and politics. For a business
corporation, if its mainstream business activities stand for its ‘‘action’’

programme, then its political programme consists, like corporate public
relations activities, of ‘‘reflecting’’ as faithfully as possible the diverse,
inconsistent demands and ideologies of its external stakeholders. The two
types of programme normally abide side by side within the same orga-
nization, and need to be managed separately with radically different or-
ganizational ideologies and professional cultures. There always remain
some imbalances or inconsistencies between the two programmes, and
yet to maintain a right mixture of the two is a necessary condition for
organizational survival and growth. Thus a CSO, too, would need to
buttress its mainstream advocacy activities (action) with occasional con-
tractual engagement with appropriate business corporations, if focused
only on selected niches of the larger issue areas with which it is con-
cerned.67 By the same token, one can argue that such CSO-FPO part-
nerships need not, and ought not, be sustained on such a longer-term
basis as to precipitate them into the danger of mutual cooptation.
Self-motivated business-community partnerships in the bottom tier

of the world market
Now, reverting to the stakeholder engagement scenes in developing

societies, the ‘‘Pyramid Laboratory’’ and its contribution to the WBCSD
activities deserve particular attention. The WRI-organized Sustainable
Enterprise Summit in October 1999 had before it a provocative research
paper entitled ‘‘Strategies for the bottom of the pyramid’’.68 It drew at-
tention to the bottom tier of the world market that was worth about $2
trillion (some 4 billion people living mostly in rural villages, shanty
towns, and urban slums, with less than $1,500 annual income per capita)
– a market not insignificant, although smaller than $10–15 trillion of the
mid-tier of the pyramid. The paper made a strong case for the relevance
of businesslike approaches for international corporations to engage
themselves with local CSOs and public authorities to assist in community
developmental activities in developing societies.
The examples cited then were limited to only a few countries (espe-
cially India) involving only a few MNCs, but showed a reasonable range
of variations, including local infrastructural development projects (such
as Grameen phones in Bangladesh and rural telephones in India); micro-
credit facilities with the collateral requirement replaced by local peer
group evaluation (and often with a focus on women); corporate sourcing
direct from indigenous local firms and smallholder farms for globally
marketable products; product development and distribution systems en-
gaging a local supply chain involving micro-firms in villages and towns;
and renewable energy servicing systems for off-grid rural areas. Table
238 USUI
Table 11.3 Key dimensions of pro-poor business-community partnerships for ad-

dressing the bottom tier of the world market
Key dimensions/business
models Illustrative examples
Local infrastructural 0 Rural telephones (India); Grameen phones
development involving (Bangladesh)
private sector technical 0 Suez/Ondeo’s Water For All programme for
and managerial drinking water in two needy rural provinces of
resources South Africa
0 Aguas Argentinas Consortium (between Suez/
Ondeo, the municipality, and community
NGOs) for the water and wastewater system
in Buenos Aires; Ondeo’s water system
initiatives targeted for below-the-poverty-line
people in Bolivia, Chile, Indonesia, the
Philippines, and Morocco
Micro-credit with local 0 Deutsche Bank’s Microcredit Development
peer group evaluation Fund cooperating with local financial agents
instead of collateral and CSOs to create community-owned for-
profit micro-credit companies
0 Citibank’s micro-lending services in
Bangalore, India
0 International SRI funds catering for small-
scale investments, such as Pax World Funds
and Calvert New Africa Fund
0 HSBC (international financial service)
contributing its employees’ time to Investing
In Nature, a joint project with Earthwatch, the
WWF, and Botanic Gardens Conservation
International
Sourcing direct from 0 Indigenous Designs, a Californian clothing
indigenous firms and producer, sourcing high-quality garments from
smallholder farms in indigenous firms in Ecuador and Peru for sale
developing countries in the USA
0 Starbucks’ ‘‘shade-grown coffee’’ and M&M
Mars’ ‘‘sustainably grown cocoa’’ sourced
from small farmers in developing countries
0 Sappi-Monds partnership with smallholder
tree growers in South Africa
Product development 0 Unilever in India adopting the practice of a
and distribution prosperous local detergent producer, Nirma
systems engaging a 0 Ruf and Tuf Jeans (ready-to-make jeans
network of micro-firms components) created by Arvind Mills, India,
in villages and towns with a network of 4,000 tailors located in small
rural towns and villages
0 Aventis’ partnership with the WHO, MSF, and
Bristol-Myers Squib
Table 11.3 (cont.)

Key dimensions/business
models Illustrative examples
Renewable energy 0 Waterhealth International’s solar-powered
servicing systems for Ultra Violet Waterworks technology for
off-grid rural areas in developing societies
developing countries 0 Partnership between SUDERETA (Tanzanian
NGO) and North-South Initiative e.V
(Germany) for setting up ‘‘Enterprises of
Trust’’ for production and sale of renewable
energy systems in rural regions
0 Environmental Enterprises Assistance Funds
(with IFC, Calvert Social Investment
Foundation, Energy House Capital Corp,
USAID, etc.), including a Solar Development
Group that supports 26 PV companies
servicing off-grid rural areas in 14 developing
countries
0 Eskom’s electrification programme in South
Africa
0 BP Solar rural development projects
0 G8 Renewable Energy Task Force (co-chaired
by Sir Mark Moody Stuart of Shell) to identify
the barriers and solutions to increased use of
renewable energies in developing countries
11.369 lists key dimensions of pro-poor business-community partnerships

with several illustrative examples for each dimension.
Prahalad and Hart70 tried to appeal to the international business com-
munity by offering a plausible framework of management economics un-
derlining these pro-poor business models. In a nutshell, as in the case of
electronic commerce, the argument rests on the merits of recouping re-
turn on investment via ‘‘capital efficiency’’ (rather than labour efficiency
to be achieved with capital-using technology); achieving it by intensive
use of local labour and other resources, including local small businesses;
reducing transaction and organization costs through partnership agree-
ments with local community authorities and CSO groups; and achieving
high-volume sales with low margin unit return.
The Pyramid Laboratory vision and theory may have appeared just
a pie in the sky at that time. But the idea has since quickly made an in-
road into the WBCSD work programme in the form of its ‘‘Sustainable
Livelihoods’’ project (already mentioned in the preceding section). The
WBCSD initiative in this direction may have been in part politically
prompted in the course of its negotiation with Kofı́ Annan for the Global
240 USUI
Compact and its subsequent engagement in the preparatory process for

the WSSD. The first report on this project71 still devotes much energy to
persuading the business community about the business-friendly project
rationale by emphasizing ‘‘deregulation and privatization’’, ‘‘market op-
portunities’’, and ‘‘licence to operate’’. The project is meant to be an
‘‘honest broker’’ facility to help bring together like-minded companies,
NGOs, and governments, local, national, and international. The report
indicates that the project has already collected over 60 case studies on
pro-poor business ventures which are to be published in a fuller report in
a few years’ time.
Certainly, truly developmental business-community partnerships do
not occur in a vacuum. Where daunting power asymmetry exists between
international corporations and local communities, negotiations would
require some third-party brokers or facilitators, and even an extra pro-
gramme for pre-training community partners for improved negotiation
capability and power. International development agencies are often
called on for assistance in such situations. In fact, the WBCSD has
offered a sister publication on this matter72 which heeds, among other
factors, the need for ‘‘entrepreneurial capacity incubators’’ – a practical
multi-partner approach for deepening and expanding local supply chains
and facilitating entrepreneurial development in developing societies.
Such incubator projects are supported by IGOs such as the GEF, UNEP,
and UNIDO, as well as the WBCSD, the IUCN, the LEAD and the
WRI. Thus, ‘‘business-IGO’’ partnership has become correlative with the
win-win strategy for pro-poor business ventures. And it has become an
important dimension of institutional adaptation on the part of the UN
system.
From the Global Compact to the ‘‘Type 2’’ track of the WSSD
A number of global partnership models have emerged whereby the UN

Development Programme (UNDP), the World Bank, the International
Finance Corporation (IFC), UNCTAD, and other UN agencies have
taken substantial ‘‘brokering’’ initiatives for multi-stakeholder engage-
ment at the concrete problem-solving level in the context of development
cooperation. Relatively well-known examples include the Consultative
Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), the Global
Water Partnership (GWP), the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immu-
nization (GAVI), the UN Fund for International Partnership (UNFIP),
the UNDP MicroStart programme, the GEF-supported IFC funds for
supporting environmental enterprises, the UNDP-World Bank Advisory
Facility for Public-Private Infrastructure, etc.73
There are several other examples of multi-sectoral partnership in
which major FPO actors assumed a lead role. Particularly noteworthy

in the context of business-community partnership is the Business Part-
ners for Development (BPD) – a three-year study project initiated in
1999 by the World Bank together with multi-sectoral partners including
BP, Shell, Kellogg’s, Rio Tinto, Care International, Vivendi, the IBLF,
etc. Its objective was to investigate empirically how private businesses,
civil society, and public administrations could work together in the field
to deliver benefits to both business and communities in developing
countries. The research was completed by December 2001 and its re-
port74 consists of an analytical compilation of the lessons learned from
the 30 ‘‘focus projects’’ that involved more than 120 different organi-
zations in 20 different countries. The ICC-UNCTAD partnership for
promoting foreign investment, initiated in 1998, was to assist the world’s
poorest countries in upgrading the managerial and technological capacity
of their small and medium-sized firms by facilitating their supply and
distribution linkages with MNCs. Its Bio-Trade Initiative is to increase
market access for biodiversity products from developing countries.
Still another noteworthy example is the UNEP-orchestrated Cleaner
Production (CP) network. It has been in existence since 1989, involving
many national CP centres and allied CP centres (now more than 100)
operating across some 40 countries. It has a pragmatic and proactive
banner of ‘‘pollution prevention’’, with gradually increased emphasis on
achieving greater ‘‘eco-efficiency’’ through reduced resource (and en-
ergy) inputs, reduced wastes, and reduced environmental risks. Although
not linked to any formal MEAs, its International Declaration on Cleaner
Production (IDCP), launched in 1998, has served a sort of framework
accord whereby signatory countries, business firms and associations, local
autonomies, and productivity centres show their voluntary commitment
to the CP banner. With the advent of the WSSD process, a new 10-year
work programme is being proposed with a broader-scoped agenda of
‘‘sustainable consumption and production’’.75
As well-documented information on those proactive initiatives reached
the UN General Assembly and the CSD forums, two institutional in-
novations came into being to complement the conventional interstate
mechanisms for international policy-making. One was the Global Com-
pact (GC), initiated by the UN Secretary-General’s ‘‘good office’’ (i.e.
not based on General Assembly resolutions) with an intention to ad-
vance ‘‘global corporate social responsibility’’. The other is the ‘‘Type 2’’
avenue introduced by the UNCSD (acting as the WSSD/PrepCom) by
way of an open assembly hall for voluntary multi-party partnerships/
initiatives with problem-solving commitments of cross-border signifi-
cance. Such partnerships/initiatives are defined as ‘‘action-oriented
coalitions focused on deliverables’’ that will ‘‘contribute to translating
242 USUI
political commitments into action’’76 and involve CSOs, FPOs, IGOs, bi-
lateral aid donors, and local autonomies as appropriate.
In retrospect, those two innovations were interdependent in the sense
that the GC paved the way toward the Type 2 outcome for the WSSD
process. And the ICC, the WBCSD, and their allied think-tanks had
much to do with this development. The GC office, once established (in
June 2000), proved instrumental in having the UN Secretary-General
present his report to the UN General Assembly on UN cooperation with
the private sector.77 The report minimized the element of policy advo-
cacy by simply presenting the results from a comprehensive factual sur-
vey on UN organizations’ ongoing partnership activities with the private
sector (the GC being treated as one of them). The survey was prepared
by the IBLF, and its findings were shaped in consultation with a large
number of member governments and UN agencies.
Meanwhile, the GC triggered various complementary initiatives at re-
gional and national levels with the support of major international busi-
ness associations and their member companies. By the time the Type
2 track to the WSSD was proposed, the GC’s outreach and network-
building activities had exposed many countries and institutions in Africa,
Asia, and Latin America to the promises of issue-specific proactive
private-public partnerships on the field. The GC ‘‘policy dialogues’’ in-
cluded annual conferences on the theme of business and SD, and several
working groups specialized in issues such as multi-stakeholder partner-
ships, sustainable investment, and sustainable entrepreneurship.78
When the Type 2 track was proposed by the WSSD PrepCom chair-
man, many developing countries, as well as CSO caucuses, voiced suspi-
cion that both the GC and this proposal would result in ‘‘privatization
of sustainable development’’,79 and argued for a restrictive definitional
clause stressing more or less immediate positive spillovers to the Type 1
(i.e. intergovernmental) negotiations at the WSSD. But after some nego-
tiations, the chairman removed such initial restrictions to open the track
for voluntary action-oriented partnerships and initiatives, both new
and ongoing, as long as they could ‘‘demonstrate added value in the
WSSD context’’. However, critics still continue to challenge the defini-
tional ambiguity of Type 2 outcomes and raise issues such as commit-
ments to project funding and procedures for monitoring, evaluation, and
compliance.
Beyond the WSSD: Regime design matters
We now return to the global level, this time paying particular attention
to the formal policy- and rule-making dimension of regime formation and
maintenance. Firstly, the notion of ‘‘vertical interlinkages’’ will be elabo-

rated with emphasis on the local-global nexus. This is followed by a dis-
cussion on the ‘‘Stiglerian threshold’’ – a critical condition for pulling in
the ‘‘Third party leaning towards Pusher’’ on formal rule-making initia-
tives at the interstate level. The section then addresses some issues con-
cerning regime design, hinting at certain policy research strategies of
relevance in the post-WSSD context.
Horizontal and vertical interlinkages
Much attention is being paid to scope for ‘‘interlinkages’’ among the

UNCED instruments on climate change, biodiversity, anti-desertification,
forest sustainability, hazardous chemicals, etc., and also between these
and major economic instruments like the WTO and the OECD MAI.
The objectives of such interlinkages are by and large twofold: a greater
administrative efficiency in intergovernmental negotiations and policy
management at national and international levels; and an enhanced cog-
nitive base needed for international agreement-making. The logic of
synergistic merits is quite clear. Less clear, however, are the processes
through which the synergies would help dissolve recurring political
deadlocks in multilateral treaty-making.
A multi-party forum necessarily involves multiple issues even when it
deals with an agenda focused on a single issue area at a time. Ernst Haas’
typology of international agreement suggests that an agreement based
only on politically sponsored tactical issue linkage in the absence of a
consensual knowledge base would be short-lived.80 Even when the ex-
pert knowledge for ambitious problem-solving exists and is accepted
by politicians, issue linkage may remain at best fragmented if the shared
political goal is static or fragmented. Then the resulting agreement may
be of only pragmatic value and subjected to further amendments in line
with increased knowledge. However, Haas simply juxtaposes four ideal
types of international agreement without postulating any a priori corre-
lation between knowledge consensualization and political goal-sharing.81
Sharing an improved cognitive basis alone may or may not promote the
sharing of an expanded and interconnected political goal. So, interlink-
ing different MEAs at the cognitive level is one thing, while reconciling
among the different, more or less short-sighted, political goals embraced
by different participants is another.
In fact, international regimes have been traditionally constructed
as ‘‘decomposable’’ hierarchies, each being based on more or less frag-
mented issue linkages. Multilateral conference diplomacy allows for
behind-the-door trading between different issues of interest to different
parties. So, in reality, we are accustomed to the subtle mechanism of ne-
244 USUI
gotiation whereby multiple issues provide the ‘‘means’’ rather than the
subject of agreement. The outcome tends to be at best of pragmatic
value, and we know it would be hubris to dream of a grand package of
fully nested MEAs that would cover the immensely complex whole of
problems and causalities simultaneously. For example, after reviewing
the theory and practice of linkage, Lawrence Susskind suggests that ne-
gotiators should be able not only to add issues and parties but also to
subtract issues and parties to help hold winning coalitions together.82
And he recommended in conjunction with the pre-UNCED Salzburg
Initiative (1990–1991) adopting a bottom-up approach which would build
decentralized coalitions that cut across typical North-South lines on a
(bio)regional basis and then aggregate increasingly larger clusters of
states and NGO interests into coalitions of like-minded stakeholders.83
So, the best pragmatic way out may be to work simultaneously on both
horizontal interlinkages among relevant MEAs (to broaden the cognitive
base on which they stand) and vertical interlinkages, or strategic ‘‘issue
divisions’’, that can connect individual MEAs with relevant issue-specific
sub-agreements and multi-stakeholder action programmes. ‘‘Cognitive
evolution encompasses the ability to compose and then decompose a
nested problem set’’,84 because decomposition is required for the pur-
pose of making organized action possible. Vertical interlinkages become
particularly important for facilitating clearer responsibility allocation
among all the relevant stakeholders so as to ensure clear-cut and effective
compliance mechanisms for individual MEAs.
How to coax industry to become ‘‘Pusher’’
This leads us back to the question posed earlier in the introduction:

under what conditions or situations will the ‘‘Third-party leaning towards
Pusher’’ be likely to step forward and begin to coalesce with ‘‘Pusher’’
(hard-nosed environmentalists and green parties) to support a new legis-
lative proposal on the table? One possible answer is an appropriate issue
division that would make a Stiglerian situation perceptible sooner than
otherwise. The Stiglerian situation refers to one in which leading firms
(of the innovator/market-shaper type) begin to perceive a newly envis-
aged regulation as an opportune leverage for them to earn quasi-
monopoly rents on their new products and technologies. This theory,
named after George Stigler’s decades-old article,85 draws straightfor-
wardly on standard business economics without invoking a normative
notion like CSR. It points to the situation in which regulatory benefits
concentrate on a relatively few leading business actors, while costs are
thinly distributed over many. Important for introducing a new regulation
is not only the way the regulatory proposal is designed, but also precisely
when it is tabled officially. The timing should match the relevant indus-
trial actors’ perception of a ripening Stiglerian situation that can prompt
them to move for game change. That timing may well be called the ‘‘Sti-
glerian threshold’’ for brevity’s sake.
Relevant examples at the domestic level abound. Among those policies
which saw quick international assimilation after the first adoption in one
country, one can recall, for example, the ban on use of leaded gasoline
(which promised higher profits for producers of unleaded gasoline); the
banning of the domestic sale of DDT in OECD countries (which gave a
competitive edge to producers of more sophisticated pesticides); the
regulatory initiative in Germany for recycling packaging materials and
automotive parts (which other countries feared would imply a new tech-
nological trade barrier); and the Japanese automobile industry’s adoption
(as early as in 1978) of the then world’s most stringent NOx emission
regulation – the so-called Japanese resurrection of the American Muskie
law (which the Japanese auto industry began to think would help en-
hance its international competitiveness). More generally, one can look
back in time to identify the Stiglerian thresholds which triggered suc-
cessful adoption of a variety of individual regulatory measures of the
command-and-control type, introduced by governments covering specifi-
cally designated products and processes at a time.
One of the salient cases at the level of multilateral environmental
negotiations is the unexpectedly swift adoption of the Montreal Ozone
Protocol in 1987 – only two years after the adoption of the equivocal
framework convention at Vienna. It can be attributed to the changed
perception of leading chlorofluorocarbon producers, particularly DuPont,
followed by Imperial Chemical Industries, about the commercialization
prospect of substitution products in the pipeline.86 Besides, in regard
to regulatory design it should be noted that the ozone regime was, unlike
the climate change regime, focused on a very narrow range of specific
products. One can also recall the 1962 OILPOL amendment which in-
troduced provisions requiring tankers to install specific technology (the
load-on-top procedure), and the 1978 Protocol to MARPOL which in-
troduced further a new vessel-building technology (the segregated ballast
tanker). In these cases, the major improvement in enforcement of the
convention was triggered by switching from performance standards to
equipment standards, which made it easier to detect violations during
regular port inspections. And the ease of detecting and prosecuting
equipment violators eliminated the tanker owners’ fear that complying
with the more costly technology would put them at comparative disad-
vantage. Thus, Ronald Mitchell contrived his thesis on ‘‘regime design
matters’’.87 The thrust of his argument is that ‘‘specific’’ regimes of the
classical type, each specialized in a single well-specified issue area, could
246 USUI
more effectively induce compliance, and that it was more clearly the
case when the regimes relied on technology-based standards than on
performance-based standards (i.e. specifying only discharge limits).
Here, some warnings are in order. Public policy is not usually sup-
posed to favour resourceful, privileged economic actors at the expense
of a larger number of weaker, less innovative actors. Technologically
advanced firms that can readily reap upon the Stiglerian threshold are
hardly in need of public subsidy or governmental promotion policy. And,
once a Stiglerian strategy succeeds, the public authority must then work
hard to look after stragglers.88 Besides, the more narrowly specified
are the target actors for regulation, the fewer will be the laggards suffer-
ing from it and the lesser the sense of shame on the part of the govern-
ment. In fact, this explains why both government and industry favour
the step-by-step piecemeal adoption of product- and equipment-specific
command-and-control policies which cumulate in an altogether not very
coherent arsenal of public policy instruments in many countries.
The DuPont-supported Montreal Ozone Protocol did in fact put many
minor, technologically less prepared, producers at a disadvantage, and
required its London revision (1990) for compensating developing coun-
tries in the form of a special multilateral fund to support their phase-out
efforts.89 Also, the DDT ban within OECD countries (in the mid-1970s)
has had a lasting awkward aftereffect, in that many laggard small pro-
ducers continued to seek an outlet for their traditional, potentially haz-
ardous, pesticides.90 We ought to learn hard lessons from these instances.
It is not enough just to say that ‘‘public shaming’’ through information
disclosure is a very effective tactic for large, reputation-sensitive corpo-
rations, because the same tactic would not make sense when dealing with
small firms which have no reputation to protect. Moreover, the sustain-
ability issues are too pressing to stay calm just on the grounds that no
policy would be better than a bad policy.
After acknowledging all those warnings, the author would like to
contend that an industry-government collusion, coopting hard-nosed en-
vironmentalist groups on a Stiglerian threshold, can drive a wedge into
powerful anti-regulatory coalitions that would otherwise continue to in-
sist on the status quo. For that matter, regulatory design matters. Great
care should be exercised to design issue-specific sub-regimes that would
be effective enough to coax potential leaders, to deepen or widen existing
regimes, and to get the tide turned for steadier advancement toward SD.
Potential win-sets perceived at the international level may not always
prove domestically feasible. But, in some cases, even the same industry
that has opposed a domestic legislation may come forth to promote a
similar one at the international level. Elizabeth DeSombre provides a
number of examples of industry-environmentalist coalitions which came
to support forward-looking regulatory proposals in the areas of endan-

gered species, air pollution, and fisheries.91 She says that industry’s in-
terest in these cases is mainly in seeking ‘‘a new level playing field for
international competition’’. This is a typical argument put forward by the
winning coalition emerging on a Stiglerian threshold, even though she is
speaking in the context of domestic catching-up legislation in technologi-
cally less-advanced developing countries.
Fortunately, loftier principles and norms tend to prevail in multilateral
policy arenas than in domestic policy processes, the latter being exposed
more readily to stragglers’ backlash tactics. Multilateral diplomacy does
not only help bridge over the discrepancy between problem space and
political action space, but can often function as a change agent that stim-
ulates the diffusion of policy innovations across national borders. Indeed,
such a reverse tide of influence92 may generally prove more effective for
smaller countries whose internal capacity for policy development and
administration is severely limited. But the picture may well be quite dif-
ferent for cross-border coalition-building within the like-minded leading
business actors. The ‘‘responsible care’’ activism offers a case in point.
It has steadily made inroads into many industrial countries and proved
highly instrumental for the launch of the OECD Guidelines for Pollutant
Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs),93 as well as for the recent con-
clusion (in 2001) of the Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
(POPs). Certainly, more empirical research is desirable to look into
such reverse paths whereby the outcomes of multilateral policy discourse
exert positive influence upon domestic policy processes, and to examine
the role being played by leading industry agents in manoeuvring such
pathways.
Two parallel Type 2 showcases and an agenda for future research
The Johannesburg plan of implementation has designated the CSD as the

focal point for Type 2 partnerships/initiatives. As of January 2004, the
CSD Secretariat posts 266 partnerships (and some activities in the pro-
cess of initiating partnerships) on its website.94 The CSD-11 (May 2003)
agreed to a set of criteria and guidelines for scrutinizing and following up
on the registered projects. The CSD-12 (April 2004) will have a ‘‘Part-
nerships Fair’’ such that both existing and potential new partners can
create synergies between partnerships, launch new partnerships, and
present ideas on the CSD follow-up process.
One-third of the projects approved for the CSD registry were sub-
mitted by national governments as leading partners, nearly 40 per cent
led by UN agencies/funds and programmes and other IGOs (UNEP, the
UNDP, the World Bank, UNIDO, and UNESCO being particularly
248 USUI
active), and about a quarter led by the so-called (non-governmental)

major groups. However, the CSD registry scarcely includes projects with
business-oriented approaches. Ninety-odd industry-led partnerships/ini-
tiatives adopting business-oriented approaches used to be posted on the
BASD website until late 2002. The site has recently been taken over by a
newly established portal called ‘‘Partnerships Central’’ and is now ad-
ministered by the Center for Advancement of Sustainable Development
Partnerships (CASDP) – a newly created, independent, non-profit orga-
nization governed by a board of directors chaired by Lord Holm of
Cheltenham (former vice-chairman of the BASD).95 Thus we are cur-
rently left with a pair of parallel showcases of Type 2 projects and pro-
grammes, as shown in Table 11.4.
Many of the projects in the CSD showcase are focused on training,
policy research, and information-sharing. The WBCSD/BASD Partner-
ships Central showcases offer a number of schemes of business-NGO and
business-NGO-IGO partnering in which ICC/WBCSD member compa-
nies and associations play some leading roles. Many of them are already
fairly large-scale international programmes of the ‘‘sectoral global com-
pact’’ type. Major examples include the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI), the Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI), the
Global Mining Initiative, the Sustainable Asset Management (SAM), the
Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the Responsible Care programme,
etc. This compendium is complemented by the WBCSD publication
Walking the Talk,96 which offers as many as 64 case studies (or success
stories) on SD-oriented corporate activities and programmes.
One might question here again: ‘‘Why such a parallelism between the
two showcases?’’ Part of the possible answer may be associated with the
tramline nature of public diplomacy of CSOs and FPOs (as discussed
earlier). Another possible answer may be that, given the scepticism about
the Type 2 approach being voiced by some CSOs and Southern dele-
gations, the international business community may have chosen not to
spoil the success it has had in promoting its long-embraced approach
to SD. Its emphasis on ‘‘concrete actions and deliverable results rather
than process and procedures’’ has resonated well into the proactive Type
2 outcome of the WSSD process.
Both showcases are at best illustrative of ongoing and newly evolving
initiatives. Many of the CSD-registered projects may be suspect of fund-
raising artifice on the part of advocacy NGOs (even though quite a few
seem to have succeeded in attracting donors’ attention). Besides, it is
most disappointing that only three partnership projects are classifiable
primarily into the ‘‘poverty eradication’’ category, in spite of the high
weight given to it in the WSSD trilogy. The number would increase to
a dozen or so, but not much more than that, if one included rural en-
Table 11.4 Type 2 outcomes: Two parallel showcases of multi-party partnerships/

initiatives
The UNCSD Type 2 registry The BASD partnership initiatives

Over 260 projects, mostly oriented to Showcase A
training, information-sharing, and Over 50 projects posted on the
policy research, clustered by major BASD website, including:
thematic areas: – Business Partners for
– production and consumption Development
patterns (9) – Environmental Enterprises
– energy (23) – Global Reporting Initiative
– natural resource base (70) – Global Mining Initiative
– education (14) – Energy Wisdom Program
– other means of implementation (39) – Global Alliance for Vaccines and
– local authorities and urbanization Immunization
(14) – Marine Stewardship Council
– other new partnerships being – Sustainable Forestry Program
initiated (33) – Rio Tinto-Earthwatch Initiative
0 Geographical coverage: Showcase B: Partnerships Central
– global (60%) About 130 projects (as of March
– regional (40%) 2004) clustered in the WEHAB
0 Financial commitments: two-thirds themes:
being funded (total some $1.2 – water and sanitation (12)
billion) – energy (36)
0 Leading partners: – health (14)
– governments (65%) – agriculture (29)
– IGOs (33%) – biodiversity (38)
– NGOs, including private sector,
local authorities, and research
institutes
ergy and community water projects. The ‘‘self-motivated’’ business-

community partnerships being considered by the WBCSD’s Sustainable
Livelihoods project do not seem to have made inroads into the CSD
registry.
As Uli Piest points out, there is a need for clearer mechanisms for
ensuring accountability and monitoring of these Type 2 projects in their
implementation phases in order to strengthen their links to decision-
makers at national, regional, and global levels.97 At the present stage
the CSD registry may be, on the whole, not much more than a fuzzy and
disorderly showcase of self-proclaimed promises. Before attempting to
impose any hasty bureaucratic standards on these bottom-up initiatives,
careful research would be needed for objectively calibrating their indi-
vidual credibility and feasibilities in politico-institutional, technical, and
financial terms.
250 USUI
A similar qualification would apply to the BASD Partnerships Central

showcase. As for Walking the Talk,98 the 27 cases shown in the chapters
on ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’, ‘‘from dialogue to partnership’’, and
‘‘making markets work for all’’ are particularly appealing, while many
others are focused on intra-firm or intra-industry SD initiatives. Many of
the success stories may be suspect of public-relational bias. Objective
scholarly research would be desirable here too. Although the corporate
wall of self-advocacy is likely to be tough to crack, action research on
these sustainability business models may be focused on the ongoing vol-
untary programmes of the ‘‘sectoral global compact’’ type with a view to
developing an appropriate IGO-mediated mechanism for enhancing their
accountability and third-party monitoring. Also, it might be particularly
rewarding to conduct a series of closed-door interviews or talk-shops
with the like-minded corporate executives who seem increasingly leaned
to become ‘‘Pusher’’ towards whatever new international regulatory ini-
tiatives may fit their individual speciality niches. Such an enterprise might
help find out whether, and in what ways, leading-edge industrial actors
communicate among themselves, if only very privately, to assess the
ripeness of relevant Stiglerian thresholds for them to lead forward in in-
ternational environmental rule-making.
Follow-up research on the Type 2 showcase projects and programmes
may generate important stepping-stones by way of a ‘‘bottom-up’’
approach to the deepening and widening of existing MEAs. It may well
be complemented by some ‘‘top-down’’ approaches to issue division.
In discussing examples of the Stiglerian threshold, the author at-
tempted to shed light on the possible merits of product- and equipment-
specific regime designs, but at the same time warned about the built-in
bias of governmental regulations in favour of command and control. This
does not mean that all good regimes must be of that kind. Some critics,
particularly economists, argue that most of the low-hanging fruits for
command and control have been picked or that such an approach is no
longer suited to meet the enormous global challenges of SD. But the au-
thor would rather argue to the contrary. SD is yet a highly contested
concept, and even a value consensus about its nature is fragile. So there
must be scope for further pragmatic ‘‘issue division’’ for deepening of
extant MEAs.
For example, Ronald Mitchell, who cared much about regime design
in conjunction with the OILPOL and the MARPOL, invites attention
now to the pending issues of the Kyoto Protocol. In an article co-
authored with Edward Parson, he suggests possibilities for improving
the overall procedural system for the Clean Development Mechanism
(CDM), again with particular attention to its monitoring and compliance
dimension.99 He points to a need for the practice of honest self-reporting
to appropriately designed project criteria, and a balanced approach for

responding to project performance including the credits to be awarded to
successful project completion and to be withheld for under-performing
projects, etc. As for the Kyoto Protocol, David Victor100 predicts that its
future COPs will have to revive sooner or later the ‘‘policies and mea-
sures’’ (PAMs) approach (an à la carte menu from which countries are
free to choose), coupled with ‘‘pledge and review’’ (PAR) rounds. The
PAMs-PAR approach was once proposed by the EU (tacitly supported
by Japan) in the early phase of the protocol negotiations but sidelined
in favour of the USA’s (would-be) business-friendly idea of emissions
trading. This approach might require a separate protocol because of the
complexity of international policy coordination that would demand
GATT/WTO-like successive negotiation rounds.
The Climate Change Convention alone can envisage many other
niches for multilateral sub-agreements in which green competition ap-
pears to be precipitating towards Stiglerian thresholds, among others
within the energy and transport sectors. In addition to the schemes
already mentioned in Tables 11.3 and 11.4, the potential of a tradable
renewable energy certificate (TREC) system has gathered increasing at-
tention, especially in the OECD countries. With some due adaptations,
the TREC may find legitimate links to the CDM of the Kyoto Proto-
col.101 The Biodiversity Convention, too, is such an expansive platform
that many more protocols are to come into the pipeline in addition to the
recently concluded (somewhat evasive) protocol on living modified or-
ganisms (LMOs). A detailed discussion on these specific possibilities is
beyond the scope of this chapter. It is hoped that the international policy
research community will explore more systematically the potentialities
of these and other plausible angles for improved environmental regime
design.
Concluding remarks
This chapter attempts to locate ‘‘business and industry’’ in the agency

structure perspective, and highlight the various strategic options envis-
aged by the relatively creative industrial actors endeavouring to find
space for game change and interactive leadership towards sustainable
development, in parallel to, as well as in cooperation with, other non-
state actors. An effort is made to ‘‘de-mythologize’’ the confrontational
public diplomacy of the ‘‘Davos Man versus the Porto Alegre Protester’’
all too often observed at the global level, with the help of some coalition-
theoretic reflections and also by presenting a multi-layered perspective
on multi-stakeholder engagement with problem-solving commitments.
252 USUI
Industry’s emphasis on ‘‘concrete actions and deliverable results’’ can be

seen to have resonated well with IGOs’ growing inclination towards the
implementation of existing global commitments at local and cross-border
levels. Heed is given to both promises and problems of corporate social
responsibility, business-NGO partnerships (facilitating development of
locally adapted and/or internationally credible standards), and business-
community partnerships (with pro-poor community developmental im-
plications).
This multi-layered perspective suggests that the international institu-
tion, construed inclusive of both its formal and informal content, is not
at all thin, but has grown ever denser during the decade from Rio to
Johannesburg. But it is on the whole yet too fuzzy and fragmented, es-
pecially with respect to (not just intellectually obvious but) politically
effective pathways between the local and the global. In seeking ways of
improving regime design, timely perception of the ‘‘Stiglerian threshold’’,
coupled with an appropriate degree of issue division, is considered cru-
cial for coaxing SD-oriented industrial actors to become ‘‘Pusher’’ for
international rule-making.
The author of this chapter would shy away from making any wishful
propositions regarding the ‘‘organizational’’ aspect of the global envi-
ronmental institution, but would rather say ‘‘form follows an agreed
function, which in turn follows a well-nested set of shared problems’’.
Some lines of policy-oriented research are suggested with a view to de-
veloping improved ‘‘vertical interlinkages’’ that would serve for further
deepening and widening of existing and newly evolving multilateral en-
vironmental accords in the post-WSSD context. They include, among
others, bottom-up action research, preferably large-scale and participa-
tory, for monitoring and consolidating the ‘‘Type 2’’ initiatives for effec-
tive interlinkages with regional and global conventions; a skilfully man-
aged consultation process with SD-oriented industrial leaders with a view
to making informed prediction of specific regulatory niches auguring Sti-
glerian thresholds of interest to them; and a series of case studies ex-
ploring the role of ‘‘Third party leaning towards Pusher’’ in promoting
policy innovations at the international level and then manoeuvring the
flow of their impact back on to national policy processes.
Notes
1. ‘‘Business and industry’’ is one of the nine ‘‘major groups’’ of society as identified
in Section III of Agenda 21. It is synonymous with the ‘‘private business sector’’ in
the chapter’s title, and is variously referred to as ‘‘industry’’, ‘‘business’’, ‘‘for-profit
organizations’’ (FPOs), etc. for brevity’s sake. This sector includes not-for-profit busi-
ness associations, business-sponsored think-tanks, and umbrella organizations such as
the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the World Business Council for
Sustainable Development (WBCSD).
2. Berridge, G. R. 1995. Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall/
Harvester Wheatsheaf.
3. Desai, N. 2002. ‘‘Notes on a Statement by Nitin Desai, UN Under-Secretary-General’’,
WSSD Round Table, Copenhagen, 21 February, available at www.iied.org/wssd/.
Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) organized an anti-MNC campaign, ‘‘Art
Action: Hear Our Voice’’, on the same day that a ‘‘Business Day’’ was held by Busi-
ness Action for Sustainable Development (BASD) during the Johannesburg Summit, 1
September 2002. They also organized the World Social Forum (WSF) in Porto Alegre,
Brazil, and then the ‘‘Public Eye on Davos’’ in Davos, Switzerland in January 2003.
These were meant to be world CSO summits in competition with the World Economic
Forum (WEF).
4. Keohane, R. O. and J. S. Nye Jr. 2000. ‘‘Introduction’’, in J. S. Nye and J. D. Donahue
(eds) Governance in a Globalizing World. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution,
pp. 1–41, at p. 14.
5. McCarthy, K. D., V. Hodgkinson, and R. Smariwalla. 1992. The Non-profit Sector in
the United States. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, p. 3.
6. Rittberger, V. 2000. ‘‘(I)NGOs and global environmental governance: Introduction’’,
in Pamela S. Chasek (ed.) The Global Environment in the Twenty-first Century: Pros-
pects for International Cooperation. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, p. 86;
Breitmeier, H. and V. Rittberger. 2000. ‘‘Environmental NGOs in an emerging global
civil society’’, in Pamela S. Chasek (ed.) The Global Environment in the Twenty-first
Century: Prospects for International Cooperation. Tokyo: United Nations University
Press, p. 156.
7. Dahl, R. A. and C. E. Lindblom. 1976. Politics, Economics and Welfare. New Haven:
Yale University Press, Preface. It should be noted that ‘‘businessmen’’ in this descrip-
tion ought not be taken as individual persons, but representing just the economic sec-
tor as such in the modern world of functional differentiation.
8. This terminology is drawn from the structuration theory in the realm of sociology
which conceptualizes collective social action (formal or informal groups or organiza-
tions) as being neither purely structural nor purely agential but resulting from the in-
terplay of structure and agency, or the confluence of operating structure and purposely
acting agents. See Harper, C. L. 1996. Environment and Society. Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall, p. 281.
9. Broadbent, J. 1998. Environmental Politics in Japan: Networks of Power and Pro-
test. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Annex I. For example, Paul Wapner
says that ‘‘Openings in the system arise from contradictions; NGOs work the contra-
dictions’’ – see Wapner, P. 2000. ‘‘The transnational politics of environmental NGOs:
Governmental, economic, and social activism’’, in Pamela S. Chasek (ed.) The Global
Environment in the Twenty-first Century: Prospects for International Cooperation.
Tokyo: United Nations University Press, p. 104. The CSO and FPO sectors are not
self-subsisting entities with circumscribed properties but have numerous contradictory
tendencies within them. Dana Fisher (Chapter 9 in this volume) notes that the state,
economy, and civil society are analytically distinct institutions enjoying relative inde-
pendence from one another in modern society, even though they are empirically
interpenetrating. But Wapner pays heed to the dialectical character of tri-sectoral in-
terpenetration and includes the economy within the civil society – see Wapner, P. 1997.
‘‘Governance in global civil society’’, in O. R. Young (ed.) Global Governance: Draw-
ing Insight from the Environmental Experience. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT
Press, p. 305, note 6.
254 USUI
10. Cooper, A. F. 2002. ‘‘Like-minded nations, NGOs and the changing pattern of diplo-
macy within the UN system: An introductory perspective’’, in A. F. Cooper, J. English,
and R. Thakur (eds) Enhancing Global Governance: Towards a New Diplomacy?.
Tokyo: United Nations University Press, p. 7.
11. Holliday, C. O. and J. Pepper. 2000. ‘‘Sustainability through the market: Seven keys to
success’’, paper contributed on behalf of the WBCSD at the WRI Sustainable Enter-
prise Summit, Washington, DC, 19–20 September, p. 33. These four categories of ac-
tors in terms of the degree of innovativeness are correlated with four different types of
public policies: voluntary initiatives, negotiated policy or agreement (such as the Dutch
covenants), economic incentives, and command-and-control regulations.
12. Sprinz, D. F. and M. Weiss. 2001. ‘‘Domestic politics and global climate policy’’, in
U. Luterbacher and D. F. Sprinz (eds) International Relations and Global Climate
Change. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, Table 4.2. ‘‘Third party leaning
towards Pusher’’ consists, most typically, of providers of renewable energy, leading in-
novators on substitution technologies, and sustainability consulting businesses provid-
ing services on environmental monitoring and eco-investment portfolios; ‘‘Draggers/
laggards’’ are typically polluting industries or pollution-inducing consumers; and
‘‘Pushers/leaders’’ are typically victims of environmental impacts, environmental
NGOs, and ‘‘green’’ parties.
13. Mitrany, David. 1946. A Working Peace System, 4th edn. London: National Peace
Council; Mitrany, David. 1975. ‘‘The prospect of integration: Federal or function’’, in
P. Taylor and A. J. R. Groom (eds) Functionalism: Theory and Practice in International
Relations. New York: Crane, Rusak. For a more recent review of functionalism in
international relations, see for example Burley, Anne-Marie. 1993. ‘‘Regulating the
world: Multilateralism, international law, and the project of the new deal regulatory
state’’, in J. G. Ruggie (ed.) Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an
International Form. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 125–156.
14. Kaul, I., I. Grundberg, and M. Stern (eds). 1999. Global Public Goods: International
Cooperation in the 21st Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15. Usui, M. 2003. ‘‘Sustainable development diplomacy of the private business sector:
An integrative perspective on game change strategies at multiple levels’’, International
16. Cutler, A. C., V. Haufler, and T. Porter. 1999. Private Authority and International
Affairs. New York: SUNY Press, p. 339.
17. Haas, Ernst B. 1990. When Knowledge Is Power: Three Models of Change in Interna-
tional Organizations. Berkeley, CA and Oxford: University of California Press, p. 3.
18. Hocking, B. and D. Kelly. 2002. ‘‘Doing the business? The International Chamber of
Commerce, the United Nations, and the Global Compact’’, in A. F. Cooper, J. English,
and R. Thakur (eds) Enhancing Global Governance: Towards a New Diplomacy?. To-
kyo: United Nations University Press.
19. Gleckman, H. 1995. ‘‘Transnational corporations’ strategic responses to sustainable
development’’, in Fridtjof Nansen Institute (ed.) Green Globe Yearbook of Interna-
tional Cooperation on Environment and Development. New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, pp. 93–106.
20. Ibid., p. 100.
21. Ibid., p. 106, note 18.
22. See for example Finger, M. 1994. ‘‘Environmental NGOs in the UNCED process’’, in
T. Princen and M. Finger (eds) Environmental NGOs in World Politics: Linking the
Local and the Global. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 186–213; Mori, S. 1999.
NGOs and Environmental Governance. Tokyo: Tsukiji-shokan (in Japanese).
23. Doherty, A. 1994. ‘‘The role of non-governmental organizations in UNCED’’, in B. I.
Spector, G. Sjostedt, and I. W. Zartman (eds) Negotiating International Regimes: Les-

sons Learned from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.
London, Dordrecht, and Boston: Graham and Trotman/Martinus Nijhoff.
24. UN General Assembly. 2002. Dialogue Paper by Business and Industry. A/CONF/. . . ./
Add. 7. Note by the Secretary-General for PrepCom IV, 27 May–7 June 2002.
25. UN General Assembly. 2002. Dialogue Paper by Non-governmental Organizations.
A/CONF/. . . ./Add. 4. Note by the Secretary General for PrepCom IV, 27 May–7 June
2002.
26. Holliday, C. O., S. Schmidheiny, and P. Watts. 2002. Walking the Talk. Sheffield:
Greenleaf Publishing.
27. Ibid. This book was authored by Charles Holliday Jr (former WBCSD chairman), Sir
Philip Watts KCMG (of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group), and Stephan Schmidheiny
(now WBCSD’s honorary chairman). Schmidheiny was the principal author of Chang-
ing the Course and a founder of the Business Council for Sustainable Development
(predecessor of the WBCSD) 10 years ago.
28. See note 3 above, and also www.foei.org/.
29. See www.earthsummit2002.org/msp/.
30. Gordenker, L. and T. G. Weiss. 1996. ‘‘Pluralizing global governance: Analytic ap-
proaches and dimensions’’, in T. G. Weiss and L. Gordenker (eds) NGOs, the UN and
Global Governance. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner, esp. pp. 34–35.
31. Mitchell, D. 2001. ‘‘International institutions and Janus faces: The influence of inter-
national institutions on central negotiators within two-level games’’, International
32. Such arguments are related to Lynn Wagner’s study on coalitional types and expected
outcomes. Wagner, L. M. 1999. ‘‘Negotiations in the UN Commission on Sustainable
Development: Coalitions, processes and outcomes’’, International Journal, Vol. 4,
No. 2, pp. 107–131. See also Usui, note 15 above.
33. Fomerand, Jacques. 1996. ‘‘UN conferences: Media events or genuine diplomacy?’’,
Global Governance, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 361–375.
34. Wapner 2000, note 9 above.
35. Haas, P. M. 2002. ‘‘UN conferences and constructivist governance of the environ-
ment’’, Global Governance, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 73.
36. About ‘‘global corporatism’’, see Ottaway, M. 2001. ‘‘Corporatism goes global: In-
ternational organizations, nongovernmental organization networks and transnational
business’’, Global Governance, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 265–292.
37. Young, O. R. 1989. International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Resources
and the Environment. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, Chapter 2.
38. That bureau was reformed after Rio into a more proactive and larger-scale World In-
dustry Council of the Environment (WICE). The ICC meant to see this in competition
with the BCSD for a while.
39. The ICC homepage is clear and loud about its preferred rule of the game based on
self-regulation: ‘‘Self-regulation is a common thread running through the work of the
Commissions. The conviction that business operates most effectively with a minimum
of government intervention inspired ICC’s voluntary codes.’’ See www.iccwbo.org/.
40. The WBCSD is mandated to be ‘‘the leading advocate for sustainable development
in the world business community’’, and to ‘‘work on various areas of policy research’’
to investigate ‘‘how industry can become more sustainable’’ and/or ‘‘where business’s
involvement can make a difference’’ for SD (quoted phrases from www.wbcsd.ch/).
Major financial support, as well as personnel and research data, come from the mem-
ber corporations, more than half of which are major European-based environment-
conscious MNCs. See Broadhurst, A. I. and G. Ledgerwood. 1998. ‘‘Environmental
256 USUI
diplomacy of states, corporations and non-governmental organizations: The worldwide

web of influence’’, International Relations, Vol. XIV, No. 2, pp. 1–19, at p. 9.
41. See www.wbcsd.ch/.
42. At the Geneva Business Dialogue, Helmut Maucher, the ICC chair, retorted to the
NGO activism, stating that ‘‘emergence of activist pressure groups risks weakening the
effectiveness of public rules, legitimate institutions and democratic processes. These
organizations should place emphasis on legitimizing themselves, improving their in-
ternal democracy, transparency and accountability.’’ See Geneva Business Declaration
1998, available at www.iccwho.org/home/icc_and_united_nations/.
43. ‘‘From the relief of the poverty to the creation of sustainable livelihoods – The busi-
ness contribution’’, speech given by Lord Holm of Cheltenham, chair of the ICC
Commission on the Environment, to the Rockefeller Foundation, 23 September 1999.
See www.iccwbo.org/home/environment_and_energy/sustainable_livelihoods.asp.
44. World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). 2002. Sustainable
Livelihoods: The Business Connection. Johannesburg: WBCSD, downloadable from
www.wbcsd.ch/.
45. World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). 2002. Investing
for Sustainable Development – Getting the Conditions Right. Johannesburg: WBCSD,
IUCN, World Bank Institute, Deutsche Bank, and Leadership for Environment and
Development (LEAD), downloadable from www.wbcsd.ch/.
46. The UNED UK Committee served as a multi-stakeholder forum on domestic and in-
ternational policy matters related to the environment and development. Its members
comprised individuals/experts selected from all the nine ‘‘major groups’’ of NGOs
as defined by Agenda 21 (including the ICC and the WBCSD as well). See www.
unedforum.org/.
47. See www.earthsummit2002.org/msp/. The project was undertaken in collaboration with
Novartis (Switzerland), BP Amoco plc, and the Ford Foundation. Minu Hemmati, who
worked as MSP project coordinator, has produced a large volume of practical guide on
MSP processes: Hemmati, M. 2002. Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Governance and
Sustainability – Beyond Deadlock and Conflict. London: Earthscan.
48. Quoted from www.earthsummit2002.org/ic/.
49. Asset specificity means that a company is tied to locality-specific natural resources,
community people, and infrastructural facilities so that it can not easily become foot-
loose.
50. Bausch, K. 2001. The Emerging Consensus in Social Systems Theory. New York:
Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.
51. Andriof, J., S. Waddock, B. Husted, and S. S. Rahman. 2002. Unfolding Stakeholder
Thinking: Theory, Responsibility and Engagement. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing.
52. Payne, S. L. and J. M. Calton. 2002. ‘‘Towards a managerial practice of stakeholder
engagement: Developing multi-stakeholder learning dialogue’’, Journal of Corporate
Citizenship, Vol. 6, June, pp. 37–52.
53. Windsor, D. 2002. ‘‘Stakeholder responsibility: Lessons for managers’’, Journal of
Corporate Citizenship, Vol. 6, June, pp. 19–35.
54. Eweje, G. 2001. ‘‘Corporate social responsibility and developing countries: Natural
resource exploitation in Nigeria, South Africa, and Zambia’’, unpublished PhD thesis,
University of London, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, esp. Chapter 8.
55. Haufler, V. 2002. ‘‘Industry regulation and self-regulation: The case of labour
standards’’, in A. F. Cooper, J. English, and R. Thakur (eds) Enhancing Global Gov-
ernance: Towards a New Diplomacy?. Tokyo: United Nations University Press, pp.
162–186.
56. OECD. 2002. Text of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, adopted 27
June, available at www.oecd.org/.
57. MMSD (Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development) Project. 2002. Breaking
New Ground: The Report of the MMSD Project. London and Sterling, VA: Earthscan,
for the IIED and the WBCSD.
58. For example, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 1999. Sustainable Forest
Management. Issue paper commissioned by the World Bank, available from www.
worldbank.org/; Rugge, I. 2000. Progress in Timber Certification Schemes Worldwide.
London: Forests Forever.
59. Kolk, A. 1996. Forests in International Environmental Politics: International Orga-
nizations, NGOs and the Brazilian Amazon. Utrecht: International Books.
60. Mayers, J. and S. Bass. 1999. Policy That Works for Forests and People, Policy That
Works Series No. 7. London: International Institute for Environment and Develop-
ment; Sears, R. R., L. M. Davalos, and G. Ferraz. 2001. ‘‘Missing the forest for the
profits: The role of multinational corporations in the international forest regime’’,
Journal of Environment and Development, Vol. 10, No. 4, pp. 345–364.
61. Bass, S., X. Font, and L. Danielson. 2001. ‘‘Standards and certification: A leap forward
or a step back for sustainable development?’’, The Future Is Now, Vol. 2, November,
pp. 21–31, available from www.iied.org/.
62. Ibid., esp. p. 30.
63. See for example UN General Assembly. 2001. ‘‘Cooperation between the United
Nations and all relevant partners, in particular the private sector’’, Report of the
Secretary-General to its 56th Session, Item 39 of the Provisional Agenda (Towards
Global Partnerships), A/56/323; Holliday and Pepper, note 11 above; Holliday,
Schmidheiny, and Watts, note 26 above.
64. Bendell, Jem. 2000. ‘‘Civil regulation: A new form of democratic governance for the
global economy?’’, in Jem Bendell (ed.) Terms of Endearment: Business, NGOs and
Sustainable Development. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing in association with New
Academy of Business, pp. 239–254.
65. Ibid., pp. 252–253. The International Organization of Consumer Unions (IOCU),
founded in 1960 and now renamed CI (Consumers International), has a membership of
more than 273 organizations in as many as 121 countries. The ISO’s Consumer Policy
Council (COPOLCO) has been given new terms of reference (since 2000) to study
means of assisting consumers in developing countries to benefit from standardiza-
tion, and to develop means of improving their participation in international standard-
ization. The CI has long led the campaign for NGOs to be accorded the right to par-
ticipate in ISO Technical Committees, and the right has been granted as of October
2001.
66. Elkington, J. and S. Fennell. 2000. ‘‘Partners for sustainability’’, in Jem Bendell
(ed.) Terms of Endearment: Business, NGOs and Sustainable Development. Sheffield:
Greenleaf Publishing in association with New Academy of Business, pp. 152–153.
67. Usui, note 15 above. This argument is inspired by Nils Brunsson’s theory of ‘‘organi-
zation of hypocrisy’’ – see Brunsson, N. 1989. The Organization of Hypocrisy: Talk,
Decisions and Actions in Organizations. Chichester, New York, Brisbane, Toronto,
and Singapore: John Wiley & Sons. A similar argument is developed in characterizing
the relationship between the WBCSD and the ICC by Usui, ibid.
68. Prahalad, C. K. and S. L. Hart. 1999. ‘‘Strategies for the bottom of the pyramid:
Creating sustainable development’’, draft dated August 1999, accessible through the
website of the WRI Management Institute for Environment and Business, www.
wri.org/meb/.
258 USUI
69. The table is drawn from ibid.; WBCSD, note 44 above; G8 Renewable Task
Force. 2001. Final Report. www.renewabletaskforce.org/; WSSD/PrepComIV list of
partnerships/initiatives.
70. Prahalad and Hart, note 67 above.
71. WBCSD, note 44 above.
72. WBCSD, note 45 above.
73. See UN General Assembly, note 63 above.
74. Business Partnership for Development (BPD). 2002. Putting Partners to Work – Report
on BPD. www.bpdweb.org/.
75. See www.uneptie.org/pc/cp7/; UNEP. 2002. Cleaner Production: Global Status Report.
Draft as of May 2002 available from the Environmental Management Center, Mumbai,
India, www.emcenter.com/cpglblstatus/. The UNEP Seventh High-level Seminar on
Cleaner Production (April 2002) also recommended that this CP network should de-
velop a synergy with various existing MEAs and that UNEP should play an expanded
role in establishing such linkages.
76. The quoted phrases are from the PrepCom IV chairman’s explanation. Initially, Type 2
partnerships/initiatives were confined to ones that were new and developed specifically
in the context of the WSSD, although such restrictions were subsequently softened
considerably. See www.johannesburgsummit.org/htm/documents/prepcom4docs/bali_
documents/.
77. See UN General Assembly, note 63 above.
78. See UN Global Compact Office. 2002. The Global Compact: Report on Progress and
Activities. www.unglobalcompact.org/un/gc/unweb.nsf/.
79. For example, ‘‘WSSD tuned into partnership market’’ – a criticism voiced at www.
cseindia.org/.
80. Haas, note 17 above, esp. pp. 78–80.
81. Ibid.
82. Susskind, L. E. 1994. Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global
Agreements. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, Chapter 5.
83. Ibid., pp. 124–125.
84. Haas, note 17 above, p. 192.
85. Stigler, George. 1971. ‘‘The economic theory of regulation’’, Bell Journal of Econom-
ics, Vol. 2, pp. 3–21.
86. Oye, K. A. and J. H. Maxwell. 1995. ‘‘Self-interest and environmental management’’,
in R. O. Keohane and E. Ostrom (eds) Local Commons and Global Interdependence.
London and New Delhi: Sage Publication, pp. 191–221.
87. French, H. F. 1997. ‘‘Learning from the ozone experience’’, in L. R. Brown et al. (eds)
State of the World 1997. New York: W. W. Norton for the Worldwatch Institute.
Mitchell, R. B. 1993. ‘‘Intentional oil pollution of the oceans’’, in P. M. Haas, R. O.
Keohane, and M. A. Levy (eds) Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective Inter-
national Environmental Protection. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press; Mitchell,
R. B. 1994. ‘‘Regime design matters: International oil pollution and treaty compli-
ance’’, International Organization, Vol. 48, No. 3, pp. 425–458.
88. Usui, M. 1999. ‘‘Multilateral environmental diplomacy: Science-politics and industry-
politics interface and issue linkages in the emerging system of multilateral negotia-
tions’’, Cross-cultural Business and Cultural Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 179–196.
89. Oye and Maxwell, note 86 above.
90. The multilateral negotiation to build the prior informed consent (PIC) regime for pes-
ticides export to developing countries was protracted until the mid-1980s, with the
leading coalition of UNEP, the WHO, and PAN (Pesticides Action Network) strug-
gling against the blocking coalition of the FAO and GIFAP (a Brussels-based agro-
chemical industry association). Paarlberg, R. L. 1993. ‘‘Managing pesticide use in

developing countries’’, in P. M. Haas, R. O. Keohane, and M. A. Levy (eds) Institu-
tions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection. Cam-
bridge, MA and London: MIT Press.
91. DeSombre, E. 2000. Domestic Sources of International Environmental Policy: Industry,
Environmentalists and the US Power. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
92. Kanie (Chapter 5 in this volume) refers to this as the ‘‘second image reversed’’ mode
of domestic-international interaction.
93. OECD. 1996. Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (TRPRs): A Tool for Environ-
mental Policy and Sustainable Development: Guidance Manual for Governments,
available at www.oecd.org/.
94. The portal used to be freely accessible to the public at www.johanesburgsummit.org. It
is now available on www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships.
95. Lord Holm of Cheltenham serves also as co-chair of the WBCSD Working Party on
Corporate Social Responsibility, co-chair of the ICC Environment and Energy Com-
mission, and is also director of the LEAD. UN organizations, other IGOs, UN-defined
major non-governmental groups, and some governments participate in the Advisory
Committee of the CASDP (www.casdp.org). The CASDP-administered Partnerships
Central Portal (www.partnershipscentral.org) is still under construction, but already
carries some 130 projects as of March 2004.
96. Holliday, Schmidheiny, and Watts, note 26 above.
97. Piest, Uli. 2003. ‘‘A preliminary analysis of the interlinkages within WSSD ‘Type 2’
partnerships’’, Works in Progress, Vol. 17, No. 1. Tokyo: United Nations University.
98. Holliday, Schmidheiny, and Watts, note 26 above.
99. Mitchell, R. B. and E. A. Parson. 2001. ‘‘Implementing the climate change regime’s
Clean Development Mechanism’’, Journal of Environment and Development, Vol. 10,
No. 2, pp. 125–146.
100. Victor, D. G. 2001. The Collapse of the Kyoto Protocol and the Struggle to Slow Global
Warming. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
101. Different TRECs are evolving in the UK, Europe, Australia, several US states, Japan,
and some developing countries. TRECS received much attention at the First Asia-
Pacific Green Power Conference, Tokyo, March 2003. For the worldwide network for
information exchange on TRECs, see www.treckin.com. There have also been inter-
governmental initiatives such as the G8 Renewable Energy Task Force, which was
established upon the recommendation of the Twenty-sixth G8 Summit Meeting in
Okinawa (July 2000), with a view to increased use of renewable energy sources, par-
ticularly in developing countries. This task force, co-chaired by Sir Mark Moody Stuart
(Royal Dutch Shell), has issued its final report (July 2001) suggesting further consid-
eration of ‘‘tradable renewable certificates’’ (TRCs) at both national and global levels.
See www.renewabletaskforce.org/.
Conclusion
12
Conclusion: Institutional design
and institutional reform for
sustainable development
Peter M. Haas, Norichika Kanie, and Craig N. Murphy
Introduction: The WSSD and sustainable development
The WSSD marked a step in an ongoing effort to reform international

environmental governance to promote sustainable development, and
maintained momentum towards sustainable development by averting an
erosion of the Rio goals. Since environmental governance – or at least
what is now called environmental governance, and was called environ-
mental cooperation at the time – entered the international agenda in
1972 at the UNCHE, the UN system has developed a wide array of in-
stitutions and regimes to address many aspects of environmental threats.
Unlike the post-war financial and commercial regimes, which were or-
ganized around a small number of formal institutions with fairly clearly
demarcated norms and rules, environmental governance has evolved in-
crementally over the last 30 years, and now encompasses a wide array of
international institutions, laws, and regimes. In addition it now includes
many actors who were not represented in earlier periods of governance.
The debates over sustainable development and institutional reforms to
improve the prospects for sustainable development are sure to continue
for the foreseeable future. It is now widely recognized and appreciated
that the principal characteristic of international issues is their complexity.
Yet traditionally international institutions have been designed according
to an organizational logic that addresses problems individually. Sustain-
able development requires a reorientation of collective understanding
263
264 HAAS, KANIE, AND MURPHY
and of formal institutions to focus on the key intersecting and interacting

elements of complex problems. This volume hopes to contribute to that
ongoing dialogue. This chapter looks at how well this system has per-
formed, and potentials for its reform.
From environmental protection to sustainable development
International environmental governance was the buzzword for 20 years,

but has now been supplanted by sustainable development, with a new
array of governance techniques designed to advance it. Initially environ-
mental protection operated in a delicate balance with the goal of eco-
nomic development. In the preparations for the 1972 United Nations
Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) environmental pro-
tection was wedded to economic development under the substantive
linkage of environment and development.1 Development economists
from the North and South concurred that environmental protection re-
quired financing from economic development, and that economic growth
would not spawn development unless it took heed of the environment as
well. While there was a substantive core amongst academic and élite
economists who agreed to the compromise, its fuller acceptance at the
UNCHE rested on a tactical linkage to satisfy the developing world’s
demands for financial assistance. Since the UNCHE there has been the
expectation – seldom fulfilled – that additional development costs in the
developing world for environmental protection would be paid by North-
ern ODA and multilateral development finance, if not the private sector
itself.
In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development re-
leased the seminal report, Our Common Future.2 The report served as
the justificatory document for the 1992 UN Conference on Environment
and Development, and put forward a new doctrinal approach to eco-
nomic development that ‘‘meets the needs of the present without com-
promising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’’.
Sustainable development urges a simultaneous assault on pollution, eco-
nomic development, unequal distribution of economic resources, and
poverty reduction. It argues that most social ills are non-decomposable,
and that environmental degradation cannot be addressed without con-
fronting the human activities that give rise to it. Thus sustainable devel-
opment dramatically expanded the international agenda by arguing that
these issues needed to be simultaneously addressed, and that policies
should seek to focus on the interactive effects between them.
The core of the new sustainable development agenda reflected new
thinking among economists and the development community about the
INSTITUTIONAL DESIGN FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 265
linkages between issues on the international agenda.3 Yet critics won-

dered how the agenda was to be defined (namely what does not count
as an element of sustainable development?) and by what policies these
aspirations were to be achieved. After all, the justification for these ele-
ments was not always clear, and it seemed that many of the items on
the sustainable development agenda had been added capriciously or to
bolster political support without substantive warrants.4 Critics also con-
tended that the new agenda threatened to divert attention from the
fundamental goals of fighting poverty, reducing military expenditure,
increasing respect for human rights, and promoting democracy. Con-
versely, though, the broad agenda helped to offer the prospect of tactical
linkages between small policy networks in the international development
community which lacked sufficient autonomous influence to be able to
shape agendas or policies.
Sustainable development has two core components. The first is sub-
stantive, as discussed above, that stresses the need for an integrative
approach to economic development which includes environmental pro-
tection along with other goals of growth, social equity, and, according to
some advocates, democratization. The second is procedural. Sustainable
development and Agenda 21 call for radically broader participation in
decision-making. Sustainable development is no longer the pure do-
main of national sovereignty. Agenda 21 called for multiple stakeholder
participation (‘‘major groups’’) at multiple levels of international dis-
cussions, including NGOs, scientists, business/industry, farmers, workers/
trade unions, and local authorities, as well as indigenous people, women,
and youth and children.
Collective governance is necessary in order for governments individu-
ally to pursue sustainable development. Paula Dobriansky, US Under-
Secretary of State for Global Affairs, announced in September 2001 that:
governance is a foundation for sustainable development . . . effective multilat-

eral treatment of transboundary and global environmental threats rests on ca-
pacity building, effective institutions, public access to information, informed and
science-based decision-making, public participation and access to justice and
enforcement.5
Governance and sustainable development
Governance is now performed by a multitude of actors operating at dif-

ferent levels of the international system.6 This book presents two major
findings consistent with current consensus from studies of globalization.7
First, many new actors are involved in international and global gover-
nance.8 Second, there is a distinct set of governance functions which must

be performed in order for countries to be able to develop sustainably. An
important research challenge is to develop a fuller taxonomy of which
actors perform which functions, and who is best at performing which. The
WSSD stressed the value of partnerships between states and multiple
other actors in conducting sustainable development projects as repre-
sented in the so-called ‘‘Type 2’’ (non-negotiated) partnership outcome.9
The partnerships would not be able to be effective unless actors fill in the
functions that are appropriate for each of them.
Multiple actors interact at different levels of the international system.10
Since the 1992 Earth Summit NGOs have proliferated in number, and in
the extent and intensity of their political involvement in environmental
governance. NGOs are active in agenda-setting, sounding alarms about
new problems, public education and mobilization, and verification and
informal enforcement of international environmental regimes.11 NGOs
may also provide expertise. Many NGOs are also subcontracted by
foreign aid agencies and international financial institutions to conduct
training and administer conservation projects in developing countries.
International institutions, at the global and regional levels, play an im-
portant role in providing a venue for states to coordinate policies and
transfer resources to other actors.12 Infrequently, but often enough to be
significant, international institutions contribute to social learning by other
members of the international community.13 Scientists, particularly trans-
national networks of scientists, have been active in agenda-setting, envi-
ronmental monitoring and issuing early warnings, interest formation, and
policy-making.14 Private sector firms are increasingly recognized as vital
partners in sustainable development, as they are responsible for foreign
investment and own and develop the technology that will ultimately en-
able more sustainable development.15 International law, as well, can ex-
ercise an influence over the choices of states.16
Effective governance rests on the performance of multiple governance
functions. Some functions are formally performed: that is, by the direct
commitment of some body to a clear actor to perform the designated
function or functions. Others may be performed indirectly: that is, the
functions may be observed but are not the consequence of intended
action by those contracting some set of activities to be performed by the
relevant actors.
This volume has been seeking to identify the elements of global envi-
ronmental governance and improve their effectiveness.17 Its findings re-
ceived a positive hearing at side events at WSSD preparatory meetings
and at the WSSD.18 The authors have found the actors and functions
shown in Table 12.1 to be core elements of the current global environ-
mental governance apparatus.
Table 12.1 Matrix of functions

Function Formal/direct Informal/indirect
Issue linkage 0 Intergovernmental 0 Scientists
negotiations 0 Business/industry
0 New information
provided by epistemic
communities
0 Through financial
mechanisms (GEF)
0 IOs (GEO/WEO)
Agenda-setting 0 IOs and member states 0 NGOs
0 Media
0 Scientists
Developing usable 0 Scientists 0 Scientists
knowledge 0 NGOs
Monitoring 0 IOs 0 NGOs (particularly in
0 Committees nominated developing countries)
by MEA secretariat 0 Scientists
0 MEA signatory
governments
Rule-making 0 Negotiations by national 0 Business/industry (de
governments facto standards)
0 NGOs (principled
standards)
Norm 0 Epistemic communities 0 NGOs (equity and
development environmental
preservation)
0 Business/industry
(efficiency)
Policy verification 0 Governments 0 NGOs
0 IOs
Enforcement 0 Hard law 0 NGO campaigns
0 WTO and MEA rules
Capacity-building 0 Official technical 0 Business/industry
(technology assistance (national and ( joint venture)
transfer) local governments)
0 Business/industry
0 Science community
(education/training)
Capacity-building 0 IOs 0 Business/industry
(organizational 0 NGOs
skills) 0 Science community
(education/training)
Promote vertical 0 IOs 0 NGO
linkage 0 National and local 0 Scientific community
governments
Financing 0 Governments (ODA) 0 By business/industry
0 Regional development
banks
0 Multilateral bodies
The following points elaborate some of the most salient aspects of

governance as performed by this wide array of new actors.
0 Issue linkage, such as linking different activities contributing to envi-
ronmental degradation, or linking environmental issues to the full sus-
tainable development agenda. This function has been provided by
negotiations on comprehensive sustainable development issues (such
as the WSSD), by new scientific information, by international organi-
zations and coordination between functional organizations related to
sustainable development (including MEA secretariats), and by finan-
cial mechanisms such as the GEF. In this regard the decision in the
WSSD to include the Convention on Desertification in the GEF proj-
ect is expected to promote a closer linkage with other regimes.
0 Environmental monitoring and early warning of new threats. Interna-
tional organizations, MEA-related committees, and signatory govern-
ments to MEAs have provided monitoring. Informally, this is a role for
scientists and grass-roots NGOs.
0 Rule-making, including sponsoring negotiations, and providing policy
advice. Officially national delegates to negotiations do this. NGOs can
also share formal rule-making by providing principled standards (such
as the precautionary principle). Business and industry make rules by
providing de facto standards.
0 Norm development, such as the ability to establish higher-order sys-
temic norms that cut across all areas of multilateralism, trump other
principles of governance, and can be defended as aspirations in other
settings (i.e. sovereignty, respect for market principles, sustainable de-
velopment). Providing such a function is a role for epistemic commu-
nities. Informally NGOs develop norms on equity and environmental
preservation, and business and industry develop norms on efficiency.
0 Policy verification, which is a function for governments, although
NGOs and international organizations (IOs) may collect information
on government compliance and circulate it as part of a strategy of
naming and shaming.
0 Enforcement, such as through direct/legal application of sanctions, lia-
bility, and indirect shaming, or NGO campaigns.
0 Capacity-building (public education, technical training, technology
transfer, and improving the national administrative influence of na-
tional environmental authorities). Technology transfer can include
the establishment of information clearing-houses about best available
technologies and best environmental practices. This function has been
provided by national and local governments through official technical
assistance, business and industry, and the science community. Business
and industry can also provide the function informally through joint-
venture projects. The capacity-building function also rests on interna-
tional organizations and NGOs when it comes to organizational skills.
0 Developing vertical linkages. Establishing principles and norms for

sustainable development is a function of NGOs and IOs. Once such
broad shared aspirations are established, discussions of issues will take
account of such higher-order ideas, both in terms of presumptive poli-
cies and in terms of which IOs will be regarded as appropriate venues
for addressing sustainable development issues. Developing environ-
mental advocacy at or against the WTO is one example of developing
new principles under which specific approaches can be nested.
0 Linking international and domestic arenas and narrowing the gap be-
tween the two is the function that international organizations and
national and local governments can provide. NGOs and scientists may
narrow the remaining gap.
0 Financing. National and multilateral official financing institutions as
well as the private sector provide financing for governance.
Some activities may have multiple indirect effects. For instance, by pub-
licizing issues norms and standard-setting may be achieved. By verifying
and providing resources one may achieve compliance. By mobilizing civil
society governance efforts may promote agenda-setting and framing, and
thus define new national preferences which narrow the range of feasible
negotiated outcomes. Educating élites and governments may have similar
effects.
Institutional reform
The present international environmental governance system is organized

around a core consisting of UNEP, established in 1973. But over the
years many other organizations have acquired environmental respon-
sibilities, including the World Bank, the IPCC, the UNCSD, and the
GEF, as well as numerous non-state actors; and widespread frustration is
often expressed at the Byzantine operation of the current environmental
governance system. Those who are poorly informed about it tend to dis-
miss the ability of this patchwork quilt of governance arrangements to
govern effectively, because of the failings of some of its more visible ele-
ments, but, as argued in this volume, the governance system is best
understood and evaluated as part of a governance system of many inter-
connected and interactive elements.19 Thus far, comprehensive agenda-
setting and regime development have been far more successful than has
compliance.
UNEP began in 1973 as the ‘‘conscience’’ of the UN system. It was re-
sponsible for developing environmental norms and rules for the UN sys-
tem. UNEP tried to induce other international institutions to recognize
environmental externalities, to urge the creation of national authorities,
and to build the profile and influence of top national environmental
authorities. Convening the UNCHE had the effect of triggering institu-

tional reform, as most governments were forced to create new domestic
authorities to prepare for the conference. Annual (and later biannual)
UNEP meetings served to create transgovernmental linkages between
environmental bureaucrats, many of whom found they had more in com-
mon with counterparts in other countries than with those at home. They
could commiserate about their relatively weak and marginalized posi-
tions vis-à-vis other ministries/bodies within their own governments, and
exchange information about how to improve domestic influence to pro-
mote their functional responsibilities in their own governments.
UNEP has also performed a number of concrete governance functions.
It coordinated projects with other UN agencies, and mobilized funding
from the UNDP to finance environmental projects throughout the UN
system. UNEP helped to train national officials in new environmental
protection and sustainable development techniques, as well as providing
scientific equipment for monitoring environmental quality. UNEP helped
conduct research in new ecological management policies. It helped gen-
erate mass environmental consciousness by sponsoring educational cam-
paigns. One of its most important tasks has been global environmental
monitoring. UNEP helped sponsor and administer over 70 international
treaties for a variety of transboundary and global environmental prob-
lems.
One of UNEP’s first major projects was the Earth Watch programme,
which in fact took over a decade to become fully operational.20 UNEP
is now capable of collecting and disseminating environmental monitoring
data on the quality of many major global ecosystems, and publishes the
Global Environmental Outlook.
After the UNCHE, UNEP was the only international institution re-
sponsible for environmental protection. Since then, however, most inter-
national institutions have assumed some environmental responsibilities.
The international environmental governance system has not been sig-
nificantly overhauled in three decades, and many critiques have been
raised about UNEP and the overall environmental governance system.
To some extent, UNEP’s success has led to its own obsolescence, because
it is no longer equipped to conduct its activities or to serve as the UN
system’s conscience on environmental issues now that the system has be-
come so robust and decentralized.
Critics suggest that UNEP is now too small, too poor, and too remote
to coordinate and promote sustainable development effectively.21 Its
secretariat only has between 250 and 300 professionals, and many of the
best officials have been lured away to jobs in other international insti-
tutions since those bodies have come to assume environmental and sus-
tainable development responsibilities; its headquarters in Nairobi is
remote and expensive for delegates to attend meetings (or for UNEP of-
ficials to attend meetings elsewhere); and the budget is inadequate to
cover the ambitious array of programmes assigned to it by member gov-
ernments. In addition, most of the UNEP budget is based on voluntary
contributions to programme-based trust funds, so the organization lacks
discretion in the use of its money. Such a lack of discretion is often par-
ticularly troublesome when member states are late or irregular in their
payments.
Recent evaluations of environmental governance more broadly sug-
gest that there are administrative overlaps in the international system, as
institutions have assumed new responsibilities for the environment, and
inefficiencies in the system. Financial support comes now from the World
Bank, the GEF, and the UNDP. UNEP has little influence over these
large international financial institutions.
At the national level institutional barriers inhibit comprehensive
policy-making and sustainable development. The functional narrowness
of most decision-making units at the national level and the separation
of funding authorities from those with operational responsibilities pre-
vent national administrations from formulating and pursuing comprehen-
sive sustainable development efforts.
UNEP was created to perform many environmental governance func-
tions, and had more assigned to it as it grew. UNEP is now widely criti-
cized, often justly, for its inability to perform adequately all aspects of
such an ambitious mission. It is somewhat remarkable that it has accom-
plished so much.
Over the years many reform proposals have been offered.22 UNEP
pursued internal efforts at streamlining its activities and achieving syner-
gies amongst its various projects in its 1990 System-wide Medium-term
Environmental Plan (SWMTEP). The 1997 Task Force on Environment
and Human Settlements, instigated by UN Secretary-General Kofi
Annan, suggested strengthening UNEP by elevating it to a specialized
agency (and thus making it entitled to a fixed and regular budget) and
by improving its ability to coordinate activities with other specialized
agencies, although with no clear guidelines about how such coordination
was to be achieved in the absence of strong political will by member
governments or the heads of the agencies. This prompted the task force
to make the recommendation that an ‘‘issue management’’ approach be
set up under the United Nations. This approach would be used to address
issues that cut across the mandates of specific institutions concerned
with environment and sustainable development, such as UNEP and the
UNDP. Under this proposed reform the High-level Advisory Board on
Sustainable Development would be discontinued and supplanted by the
establishment of an environmental management group to be chaired by
the executive director of UNEP. The group would assist in the coordina-
tion of activities between UNEP, the UNDP, and other UN agencies, and
‘‘adopt a problem-solving, results oriented approach that would enable
United Nations bodies and their partners to share information, consult
on proposed new initiatives and contribute to a planning framework and
develop agreed priorities and their respective roles in the implementation
of those priorities in order to achieve a more rational and cost-effective
use of their resources’’.23 A revitalized UNEP has also been supported
by UNEP’s 1997 Nairobi Declaration on the Role and Mandate of the
United Nations Environment Programme.24
More dramatic proposals have called for the creation of a new world
environmental organization (WEO) or global environmental organiza-
tion (GEO) which would possibly replace UNEP, and would certainly
have stronger and more centralized resources and influence.25 Propo-
nents have called for creating a centralized WEO/GEO assigned many of
the responsibilities currently distributed throughout the UN system.26 It
would be responsible for articulating environmental policy and sustain-
able development policy for the international community, have resources
to verify compliance, and enforce sanctions on those in non-compliance.
Such a GEO might even have the legal authority and staff to be able to
advocate for the environment in WTO trade and the environment arbi-
tration panels, or even claim authority to adjudicate such disputes on its
own. In addition it would consolidate the vast array of environmental
regimes (or multilateral environmental agreements – MEAs) in one
place, easing the administrative burden on governments trying to keep
up with the vast array of international environmental obligations, as well
as bolstering the political influence of environmental officials within their
own governments because they would be collectively housed in a cen-
tralized environmental embassy. The GEO initially received a favourable
reception from Germany and three other countries. Yet the proposal has
met with institutional resistance from institutions that would lose re-
sponsibilities, and with disinterest by much of the UN community.
A hybrid version of a GEO combined with a more streamlined UNEP
has also received recent attention to encourage ‘‘a new governance
approach’’ based on partially decoupled links amongst formal institu-
tional bodies.27 Some redistribution of authority would occur, as a GEO
would be established to develop policy, to coordinate the MEAs, and
to counterbalance the WTO. The GEO would work loosely with other
international institutions and promote non-state participation. UNEP
would continue to coordinate international environmental science man-
agement. The United Nations University sponsored an interlinkages ini-
tiative in 1999 which stressed possible synergies between environmental
agreements.28
Various visionary schemes have also been proposed. The Club of

Rome and others have suggested transforming the Trusteeship Council
into an environmental or sustainable development body. In 1992 Gus
Speth raised the prospect of a massive North-South bargain for sus-
tainable development.29 Mahbub Ul Haq’s proposed focus on human
security offers a similar grand systemic focus that would reorganize all
institutional efforts.30
The preparatory process for the WSSD clearly demonstrated the ex-
tent to which many governments were willing to undertake extensive
institutional reforms. The February 2002 Cartagena meeting issued a
declaration on international environmental governance which made it
clear that governments wished to retain UNEP as the centre of the gov-
ernance system, around which other efforts would revolve.31 This meet-
ing concluded a series of six often wishy-washy preparatory meetings
held at the ministerial level by the Intergovernmental Group of Min-
isters.32 The Cartagena Declaration suggested that ‘‘the process [of
institutional reform] should be evolutionary in nature . . . A prudent
approach to institutional change is required, with preference given to
making better use of existing structures.’’ Moreover, the ministers
proposed:
0 sustainable development requires better coordination between minis-
tries at the national level
0 the increasing complexity and impact of trends in environmental deg-
radation require an enhanced capacity for scientific assessment and
monitoring and for provision of early warnings to governments
0 environmental policy at all levels should be tied to sustainable devel-
opment policies
0 NGOs, civil society, and the private sector should be involved more
extensively with all areas of decision-making within and between
governments
0 LDCs should be treated ‘‘on the basis of common but differentiated
responsibility’’33
0 capacity-building and technology transfer are vital elements of gover-
nance
0 retain UNEP/Nairobi as a meeting centre
0 strengthen UNEP with regular financing – elevate it to a UN special-
ized agency with ‘‘predictable’’ funding
0 the clustering approach to MEAs should be considered.
The ministers also proposed that a new global ministerial environment
forum (GMEF) should be the cornerstone of the international institu-
tional structure of international governance for the environment and
sustainable development. The GMEF idea remains vague and the speci-
fic architecture of the GMEF remains to be seen, as well as how an in-
stitution which would rotate between governments would interact with

formal institutions with fixed secretariats. At the very least it needs to
clarify its primary mission, its relationships with the COPS of the MEAs,
whether the GMEF gets a permanent secretariat, and the locations for
its meetings.
The WSSD also asserted the importance of the MEAs, and the need to
keep them intact from WTO challenges. Many governments are narrowly
organized so that responsible ministries are incapable of recognizing the
consequences of their actions for other ministries, or of coordinating ef-
fectively to prevent them. Many foreign ministries are still structured
along the lines of pursuing traditional notions of national interest, and
lack trained personnel or stable channels of information flow to be able
to engage effectively in international discussions about environmental
protection or sustainable development. For instance, it was not until the
late 1990s that the USA established environmental positions in all for-
eign embassies and an office of global affairs was created within the State
Department. Even so, the funding for these new institutions to fulfil their
functions adequately has not been forthcoming. There is a further need
for introducing environmentally trained personnel into the traditional
lines of activity of most governments in order to enssure that environ-
mental consequences of policies are anticipated and averted. The World
Bank provides a useful model of how a handful of environmental experts
in line positions can encourage more sustainable development projects.
Political analysis of climate and potential for reform
While ongoing pressures for institutional reform are likely to come from
NGOs and an internationally organized academic network,34 the incon-
clusive preparatory conferences leading up to the WSSD should give us
pause about the political prospects of state support for multilateral
institutional reform for sustainable development. The negotiation on
Chapter 10 of the Johannesburg Summit Plan of Implementation shows
that there exists a will in the international community to discuss sustain-
able development institutions, but little political momentum exists to
move it forward. In fact, around 10 undecided paragraphs in Chapter 10
had to be deleted at the end of the negotiation in Johannesburg. To
create a new international governance system supporting sustainable
development would, at minimum, require the agreement of the major
industrialized countries whose economic activities do the most to harm
the global environment and whose financial resources would be needed
to overcome the development losses that might otherwise be suffered by
new manufacturing giants and the states waiting to follow them into the
industrial world.
The USA, in particular, has recently tended to impede efforts to
strengthen or deepen multilateral governance in almost all realms. The
recent Bush administration has clearly signalled a retreat from multi-
lateralism, as well as a profound disinterest in multilateral environmental
governance and sustainable development. While domestic groups of aca-
demics and NGOs may support sustainable development reforms, the
overall administration is uninterested.
The EU seems supportive of the idea of sustainable development, al-
though it has not been able to pass a carbon tax or adopt measures which
entail significant economic costs for its members. G7 and G8 summits
have adopted declarations endorsing sustainable development, although
such proclamations are vague and lack details. The collective purpose
of the industrialized countries is currently mobilized behind combating
terrorism rather than promoting sustainable development, and there is
some degree of institutional exhaustion in the wake of the WSSD. The
Netherlands and Scandinavia continue to support reforms. Domestic
progressive elements within Canada and Italy may support multilateral
institutional reform and sustainable development, but they are too small
a coalition to sway the industrialized bloc. Germany and France are
strong advocates of institutional reform and the establishment of a world
environmental organization. Japan remains supportive in principle, but is
blocked by bureaucratic decision-making processes and current financial
exigencies.
The developing world remains suspicious of some of the policy goals
pursued by the industrialized world, and is adamantly opposed to any
reforms that would entail the movement of the headquarters of the prin-
cipal international institution away from a developing country. The G77þ
China has had difficulty in mobilizing collective pressure in the United
Nations, and remains loath to exercise any confrontational tactics.
Finance and the limits to effective sustainable development

An enduring problem is finance.35 Estimates of the costs of accomplish-
ing the full list of Agenda 21 initiatives for sustainable development were
in the order of $625 billion per year, or twice the annual level of ODA.
Since then ODA has declined, leaving the gap even larger. Groups are
increasingly looking to private sources of DFI to make up the difference.
Private capital flows have replaced ODA as the principal source of ex-
ternal financing for most developing countries. Current patterns of DFI,
though, reveal that flows go largely to a small number of mid-level in-
dustrializing countries, leaving most of the developing world starved for

capital for sustainable development. Moreover, there remain few politi-
cal pressures on firms to invest in sustainable sectors’ activities, or to en-
sure that their firms and affiliates apply the cleanest technologies or best
available practices. Some rays of hope are evident, though. MNCs tend
to apply common practices worldwide which reflect the regulatory ex-
pectations in their home countries, so that local regulations and over-
sight may in fact make little difference for actual corporate practices.36
Secondly, successful firms are becoming increasingly concerned about
their environmental reputations, at least in countries with mobilized en-
vironmental populations and with a concerned consumer movement in
their home markets. Examples of this latter case include NGO boycotts
against forest products from countries that pursue non-sustainable timber
practices.
Conclusion: Lessons and policy guidance
Much progress has been made in international environmental policy

since Stockholm. The system remains fragile, however, and requires con-
tinual support and new recruitment to bolster its many policy networks
and maintain the pressure on governments for continued environmental
protection. The current political climate does not bode well for massive
reform efforts. Indeed, the enemy of the good is the great. Given an as-
sessment of limited political will within the next five years or so, the
authors suggest that some streamlining of the international governance
system may be the most politically tractable option for encouraging sus-
tainable development. These proposals seek to reform international
governance structures that satisfy the major functions of international
governance while providing for participation by the principal actors
involved in international governance. Financing remains problematical,
and further research is necessary on the international division of labour
in terms of who performs which functions most effectively.
According to current organizational thinking, decentralized informa-
tion-rich systems are the best design for addressing highly complex and
tightly coupled problems.37 Thus, international governance for sustain-
able development may be best served through a decentralized architec-
ture coordinated by an electronically sophisticated hub that is capable of
quickly accessing usable information and transmitting it to the appropri-
ate institutional nodes in the network. Concerns about redundancy and
efficiency are red herrings for such design principles. Redundancy am-
plifies the political influence of policy networks involved in governance,
and also assures that the governance system persists even if one of the
nodes suffers political setbacks. Redundancy in funding sources may also

compensate for episodic shortfalls in financing from principal funding
sources. Similarly, efficiency is a principle that obscures the symbiotic in-
fluences between the elements of the network. Such decentralized sys-
tems do not cede full autonomy to states or markets: rather they seek to
engage states and markets with actors and policy networks which are
sensitive to possible abuses of unfettered free markets.
UNEP’s initial responsibility was overloaded. It is now recognized
that UNEP cannot perform all its tasks, and the authors feel that it
should concentrate on the science function and coordinate scientific ac-
tivities throughout the UN system. UNEP would oversee environmental
monitoring, and provide the information to the international community
through a variety of channels. If monitoring activities were clustered
across environmental media it would be possible to gain economic effi-
ciency and also to accelerate the flow of timely early-warning informa-
tion. Because most environmental monitoring done in the context of
multilateral environmental agreements has taken place on the regional
level, and given the assessment of the current political environment and
limited political will, accumulating experience at a smaller scale may
facilitate bigger changes when the political environment changes. In this
sense, regional institutions such as UNEP’s regional offices may serve as
a starting point for reform. Some knowledge is organized regionally and
not globally, such as for regional seas.
At present, UNEP lacks the resources to perform all its functions
effectively and to pressure states to pursue environmentally sustainable
policies. UNEP has a comparative advantage in the UN system for its
scientific expertise, and should be preserved as a monitoring and envi-
ronmental assessment body. UNEP should also help develop rosters
of experts for use by governments, international organizations, NGOs,
and the private sector for assessing new environmental risks as they are
identified. UNEP also has long-standing experience with coordinating
loose, decentralized networks around the world. Thus it may still be ca-
pable of serving a coordinating function to ensure that the multiple ele-
ments of MEAs are coordinated, to anticipate any gaps, and to keep
members of international policy networks in touch with one another.
It would serve as an air-traffic controller for issues on the international
environmental agenda, as well as for the multitude of associated ongoing
studies and negotiations.
A GEO should be established to fulfil the policy and technology-based
functions that provide institutional support for multilateral environ-
mental governance. A GEO would consolidate environmental policy re-
search, technology databases, and clearing-houses; conduct training; and
centralize the secretariats that administer current environmental regimes.
Centralizing these secretariats would facilitate the creation of a broader

global policy network across specific environmental issues, and justify the
creation of national environmental embassies to represent states and
participate in future negotiations. A GEO could also serve as a legal ad-
vocate for environmental protection and regulations to counterbalance
the WTO by collecting a roster of international environmental lawyers
to participate in WTO panels. The GEO should have high-profile annual
ministerial meetings to address all environmental issues to ensure wide-
spread involvement in environmental policy networks and galvanize
rapid responses to new alerts. Ongoing efforts would continue to be ad-
dressed through the existing secretariats and conferences of parties. The
GEO could even have a panel of environmental inspectors available to
verify compliance by states and firms with multilateral environmental
agreements.
The GEO location would probably be in Bonn or Geneva. Creative
organizational structures are possible for such an organization so that it
can enjoy legitimacy and also maximize its contact with civil society.
Several institutional examples exist from which lessons may be borrowed.
The IUCN and the ILO provide for tripartite representation and voting
on delegations. A bicameral structure would greatly enhance the legiti-
macy of the institution and advance the mission of engaging civil society.
States could vote in one chamber and non-state actors could vote in the
other; although the legal meaning of decisions taken in each chamber
might not be equivalent. The division between the EU and EP is similar.
The now defunct UN Commission on Transnational Corporations had
standing observers from business, labour, and academia.
The authors also recommend a few detailed reforms to accompany this
grander institutional design.
0 Greater involvement from the scientific community, NGOs, industry,
and civil society more generally should be encouraged at all levels of
governance.
0 Scientists should be encouraged to develop consensus in the absence
of political oversight. Science advice should be decentralized, but
monitored.
0 Create a High Commissioner for the Environment, such as already
exists for human rights and refugees. This should be a high-profile in-
dividual capable of commanding normative respect by virtue of his or
her own individual reputation.
0 Create an NGO capable of verifying state and industry compliance
with environmental MEAs, akin to Amnesty International. Promote
tripartite boundary-spanning engagement with problem-solving com-
mitments and synergize them towards further deepening and widening
of existing environmental regimes.
Governance occurs through complex synergies between networks of

actors across all levels of international politics. Current governance ar-
rangements remain a crazy quilt of overlapping activities, about which
many environmental analysts in governments and NGOs express mis-
givings. It is probably too complex to grasp easily, yet should not be dis-
missed because a cursory view treats such arrangements as incoherent –
fragmented institutions are not necessarily incoherent. Gus Speth em-
braces this decentralized arrangement, stressing its potential for innova-
tion.38 The authors suggest that more attention be paid to clarifying the
key actors and the governance functions they perform for addressing
particular environmental threats. Only then can the environmental, so-
cial, and economic aspects of sustainable development be integrated in a
concrete manner.
Notes
1. UNEP. 1981. Development and Environment: The Founex Report: In Defence of the
Earth, Basic Texts on Environment, UNEP Executive Series 1. Nairobi: UNEP.
2. World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future.
New York: Oxford University Press, p. 8.
3. Pronk, Jan and Mahbub Ul Haq. 1992. Sustainable Development: From Concept to
Action. The Hague: Ministry of Development Cooperation, New York: UNDP, and
Conches, Switzerland: UNCED; Holmberg, Johan (ed.). 1992. Making Development
Sustainable. Washington, DC: Island Press; Nelson, Joan and Stephanie J. Eglinton.
1995. Global Goals, Contentious Means, Policy Essay No. 10. Washington, DC: Over-
seas Development Council.
4. Lele, Sharachchandra M. 1991. ‘‘Sustainable development: A critical review’’, World
Development, Vol. 19, No. 6, pp. 607–621; Tisdell, Clem. 1988. ‘‘Sustainable develop-
ment: Differing perspectives of ecologists and economists, and relevance’’, World De-
velopment, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 373–384; Bernstein, Steven. 2001. The Compromise of
Liberal Environmentalism. New York: Columbia University Press; Timberlake, Lloyd.
1989. ‘‘The role of scientific knowledge in drawing up the Brundtland Report’’, in Stei-
nar Andresen and Willy Ostreng (eds) International Resource Management. London:
Belhaven Press.
5. www.state.gove/g/rls/rm/2001/5083.htm. See also Dowdeswell, Elizabeth. 2001. ‘‘Design
for the real world: Ideas for achieving sustainable development’’, text of a speech de-
livered at Harvard University, 12 December, mimeo.
6. According to the Commission on Global Governance, governance is the sum of the
many ways in which individuals and institutions, public and private, manage their com-
mon affairs. See Commission on Global Governance. 1995. Our Global Neighbourhood:
The Report of the Commission on Global Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
p. 2; O’Brien, Robert, Anne Marie Goetz, Jan Aart Scholte, and Marc Williams. 2000.
Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social
Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
7. For instance see Slaughter, Anne-Marie. 1997. ‘‘The real new world order’’, Foreign
Affairs, September/October, pp. 183–197; Keohane, Robert O. and Joseph S. Nye. 2000.
‘‘Globalization’’, Foreign Policy, Spring, No. 118, pp. 104–119; Schaeffer, Robert K.
1997. Understanding Globalization. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield; Held,
David, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton. 1999. Global
Transformations. Stanford: Stanford University Press; Hoffmann, Stanley. 2002. ‘‘The
clash of globalizations’’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 4, pp. 104–115; Slaughter, Anne-
Marie, Andrew Tulumello, and Stepan Wood. 1998. ‘‘International law and interna-
tional relations theory’’, American Journal of International Law, Vol. 92, No. 3, pp. 367–
397.
8. Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink. 1998. Activists Beyond Borders. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press; Reinecke, Wolfgang H. and Francis M. Deng. 2000. Critical
Choices. Toronto: IDRC; Florini, Ann M. (ed.). 2000. The Third Force. Washington,
DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Wapner, Paul. 1996. Environmental
Activism and World Civic Politics. Albany: SUNY Press.
9. See www.un.org/esa/sustdev/partnerships/partnerships.htm for the full list of registered
partnership projects.
10. See Chapters 4 and 5 in this volume.
12. See Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 in this volume.
13. Haas, Peter M. and Ernst B. Haas. 1995. ‘‘Learning to learn’’, Global Governance, Vol.
1, No. 3, pp. 255–284; Social Learning Group. 2001. Social Learning and the Manage-
ment of Global Environmental Threats, 2 vols. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
16. See Chapters 1, 4, and 5 in this volume.
17. See www.ias.unu.edu/research/multilateralism.cfm. See also UNU Inter-Linkages web-
site at www.geic.or.jp/interlinkages/index.html. The result of the ongoing project is
going to appear as two UNU volumes in 2004.
18. See UNU/IAS report ‘‘International Sustainable Development Governance: The Ques-
tion of Reform: Key Issues and Proposals Final Report’’, August 2002. Tokyo: UNU/
IAS.
19. For a similar analysis of compliance, see Victor, David G., Kal Raustialla, and Eugene
Skolnikoff (eds). 1998. The Implementation and Effectiveness of International Environ-
mental Commitments. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
20. Gosovic, Branislav. 1992. The Quest for World Environmental Cooperation. London:
Routledge; Fritz, Jan Stefan. 1998. ‘‘Earthwatch twenty-five years on’’, International
Environmental Affairs, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 173–196.
21. For summaries of these critiques see Downie, David L. and Marc A. Levy. 2000. ‘‘The
United Nations Environment Programme at a turning point’’, in Pamela Chasek (ed.)
The Global Environment in the Twenty-first Century. Tokyo: United Nations University
Press, pp. 355–375; Gehring, Thomas and Matthias Buck. 2002. ‘‘International and
transatlantic environmental governance’’, in Matthias Buck, Alexander Carius, and
Kelly Kollmann (eds) International Enviromental Policymaking. Munich: Okom Verlag,
pp. 21–43.
22. Dodds, Felix. 2000. ‘‘Reforming the international institutions’’, in Felix Dodds
(ed.) Earth Summit 2002. London: Earthscan; Charnovitz, Steve. 2002. ‘‘A world envi-
ronment organization’’, Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, Vol. 27, No. 2,
pp. 323–362.
23. General Assembly Document A/53/463, para. 11. Although proposed in 1998, these
reforms remain largely unimplemented.
24. Dodds, note 22 above; Charnovitz, note 22 above.
25. The second volume from this project, edited by W. Bradnee Chambers, investigates
closely the proposals for a WEO or GEO. The discussion shown here regarding a WEO/
GEO is a kind of summary, and for more detailed account see the second volume.
26. Esty, Daniel. 1994. ‘‘The case for a global environmental organization’’, in Peter
B. Kenen (ed.) Managing the World Economy. Washington, DC: Institute for Interna-
tional Economics, pp. 287–310; Biermann, Frank. 2001. ‘‘The emerging debate on the
need for a world environment organization’’, Global Environmental Politics, February,
pp. 45–55; Biermann, Frank. 2000. ‘‘The case for a world environment organization’’,
Environment, Vol. 42, No. 9, pp. 22–31; German Advisory Council on Global Change
(WBGU). 2001. World in Transition 2. London: Earthscan.
27. Esty, Daniel C. and Maria H. Ivanova (eds). 2002. Global Environmental Governance.
New Haven: Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; Haas, Peter M. 2001.
‘‘Pollution’’, in P. J. Simmons and Chantal de Jonge Oudraat (eds) Managing Global
Issues. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
28. See www.geic.or.jp/interlinkages/.
29. Speth, Gus. 1992. ‘‘A post-Rio compact’’, Foreign Policy, No. 88, Fall, pp. 145–161.
30. Haq, Mahbub Ul. 1995. Reflections on Human Development. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
31. Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme ‘‘Global Ministerial
Environment Forum’’. S.S. VII/I. International Environmental Governance. UNEP/GC/
21.
32. UNEP/IGM/5/2 and Earth Negotiations Bulletin, Vol. 16, No. 20. IGM-NYC Final
Summary, www.iisd.ca/linkages/unepgc/iegnyc/.
33. ‘‘Common but differentiated responsibility’’ was agreed as Principle 7 of the Rio Dec-
laration on Environment and Development (A/CONF.151/26) in 1992.
34. Biermann 2000, note 26 above; Biermann 2001, note 26 above; Esty, note 26 above;
Biermann, Frank and Udo Simonis. 1998. A World Environment and Development
Organization, SEF Policy Paper No. 9. Berlin: SEF; Ulfstein, G. 1999. ‘‘The proposed
GEO and its relationship to existing MEAs’’, paper presented at the International
Conference on Synergies and Coordination between Multilateral Environmental
Agreements, United Nations University, Tokyo, 14–16 July; UNU/IAS Report, note 18
above.
35. Gwin, Catherine. 2001. ‘‘Development assistance’’, in P. J. Simmons and Chantal de
Jonge Oudraat (eds) Managing Global Issues. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, pp. 154 and 158.
36. Hoffman, Andrew J. 2001. From Heresy to Dogma: An Institutional History of Corpo-
rate Environmentalism. Stanford: Stanford University Press; Leonard, H. Jeffrey. 1988.
Pollution and the Struggle for the World Product. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press; Gladwin, Thomas and Ingo Walter. 1980. Multinationals Under Fire. New York:
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Acronyms
AAG Association of American Geographers

ACC UN Administrative Committee on Coordination
ACEA European Automobile Association
AGBM Ad Hoc Group on the Berlin Mandate
AGGG Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases
AIC advanced industrialized country
ANPED Northern Alliance for Sustainability
AOSIS Alliance of Small Island States
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
AWIP Another World Is Possible
BASD Business Action for Sustainable Development
BCSD Business Council for Sustainable Development
BIRPI UN International Bureau for the Protection of Intellectual
Property Rights
BPD Business Partners for Development
CAN Climate Action Network
CASDP Center for Advancement of Sustainable Development Partnerships
CBD Convention on Biological Diversity
CCAMLR Committee for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living
Resources
CDM Clean Development Mechanism
CEO chief executive officer
CFC cholorofluorocarbon
CGIAR Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
CGP Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership
282
ACRONYMS 283
CI Consumers International
CIDIE Committee on International Development Institutions on the
Environment
CIESIN Center for International Earth Science Information Network
CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Flora and Fauna
CMS Convention on Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals
COP/MOP conference/meeting of the parties
CP cleaner production
CSD Commission on Sustainable Development
CSO civil society organization
CSR corporate social responsibility
CTE WTO Committee on Trade and Environment
DAC OECD Development Assistance Committee
DFI direct foreign investment
DOEM Designated Officials for Environmental Matters
DSB WTO Dispute Settlement Body
EAEC East Asian Economic Caucus
ECOSOC UN Economic and Social Council
EIT economy-in-transition country
ELCI Environment Liaison Center International
EMEP European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme
EMG Environmental Management Group
EP European Parliament
EPA Environment Protection Agency (USA)
ESC Economic Security Council
EU European Union
FAO Food and Agricultural Organization
FAR IPCC first assessment report
FCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
FIELD Foundation for International Environmental Law and
Development
FoE Friends of the Earth
FoEI Friends of the Earth International
FPO for-profit organization
FSC Forest Stewardship Council
GATS General Agreement on Trade in Services
GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
GAVI Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization
GC Global Compact
GCLP AAG Global Change and Local Places Research Group
GDP gross domestic product
GEF Global Environment Facility
GEO global environmental organization
GESAMP Group of Experts on Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution
GHG greenhouse gas
284 ACRONYMS
GMEF global ministerial environmental forum

GO governmental organization
GRI Global Reporting Initiative
GWP Global Water Partnership
IA implementing agency
IACSD Inter-Agency Committee on Sustainable Development
IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency
IAECG Inter-Agency Environmental Coordination Group
IBLF Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum
IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
IC implementation conference
ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization
ICC International Chamber of Commerce
ICES International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
ICJ International Court of Justice
ICLEI International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives
ICSU International Council of Scientific Unions
IDA International Development Association
IDCP International Declaration on Cleaner Production
IEO International Environmental Organization
IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development
IFC International Finance Corporation
IFF Intergovernmental Forum on Forests
IGBP International Geographic-Biological Programme
IGO intergovernmental organization
IIASA International Institite for Applied Systems Analysis
IIED International Institute for Environment and Development
ILO International Labour Organization
IMCO Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization
IMF International Monetary Fund
IMO International Maritime Organization
IMO International Monetary Organization
INGO international non-governmental organization
INGOF International Non-governmental Forum
IO international organization
IOC Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission
IOCU International Organization of Consumer Unions
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IPF Intergovernmental Panel on Forests
IPR intellectual property rights
IR international relations
ISO International Organization for Standardization
ITTA International Tropical Timber Agreement
ITTO International Tropical Timber Organization
ITU International Telecommunication Union
ACRONYMS 285
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural

Resources (World Conservation Union)
IWC International Whaling Commission
LDC less developed country
LEAD Leadership for Environment and Development
LMO living modified organism
LRTAP Convention on Long Range Transport of Atmospheric Pollution
MAI Multilateral Agreement on Investment
MARPOL International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from
Ships
MEA multilateral environmental agreement
MEDPOL Mediterranean Pollution Research and Monitoring Programme
MMSD Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development Project
MNC multinational corporation
MOU memorandum of understanding
MSC Marine Stewardship Council
MSD multi-stakeholder dialogue
MSP multi-stakeholder partnership
NAFTA North American Free Trade Area
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NEPP national environmental policy plan
NGO non-governmental organization
NGOWG NGO Working Group on the World Bank
NSSD national strategy on sustainable development
ODA official development assistance
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
PAMs policies and measures
PAN Pesticides Action Network
PAR pledge and review
PFI privately financed infrastructure
PIC prior informed consent
POP persistent organic pollutant
PRTR Pollutant Release and Transfer Register
REO regional environmental organization
SAM Sustainable Asset Management
SAR IPCC second assessment report
SBSTA subsidiary body for scientific and technical advice
SBSTTA subsidiary body on scientific, technological, and technical advice
SCOPE Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment
SD sustainable development
SDIN Sustainable Development Issues Network
SEPAC South-East Pacific
SMO social movement organization
SPM IPCC summary for policy-makers
SPS Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement
SR IPCC special report
286 ACRONYMS
SRI socially responsible investing

SWMTEP UNEP System-wide Medium-term Environmental Plan
TAR IPCC third assessment report
TBT Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement
TFAP Tropical Forestry Action Program
TNC transnational corporation
TOISD Tour Operator Initiative for Sustainable Development
TR IPCC technical report
TRC tradable renewable certificate
TREC tradable renewable energy certificate
TRIMs Trade-Related Investment Measures Agreement
TRIPs Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights
TSP Tea Sourcing Partnership
TWN Third World Network
UNCED UN Conference on Environment and Development
UNCHE UN Conference on the Human Environment
UNCSD UN Commission on Sustainable Development
UNCTAD UN Conference on Trade and Development
UNCTC UN Center on Transnational Corporations
UNDP UN Development Programme
UNECE UN Economic Commission for Europe
UNED UN Environment and Development
UNEP UN Environment Programme
UNEPO UN Environment Protection Organization
UNESCO UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
UNFCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNFIP UN Fund for International Partnership
UNGASS UN General Assembly Special Session
UNHCR UN High Commissioner for Refugees
UNICEF UN Children’s Fund
UNIDO UN Industrial Development Organization
UNU United Nations University
UNU/IAS United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies
UNITAR UN Institute for Training and Research
UPU Universal Postal Union
VEM voluntary environmental management
WBCSD World Business Council for Sustainable Development
WEDO world environment and development organization
WEF World Economic Forum
WEHAB WSSD Water, Energy, Health, Agriculture, and Biodiversity
WEO world environmental organization
WG working group
WHO World Health Organization
WICE World Industry Council of the Environment
WICEM World Industry Conference on Environmental Management
WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization
ACRONYMS 287
WMO World Meteorological Organization

WRI World Resources Institute
WSF World Social Forum
WSSD World Summit on Sustainable Development
WTO World Tourism Organization
WTO World Trade Organization
WWF Worldwide Fund for Nature
List of contributors
Norichika Kanie governance issues in both Japanese

Associate Professor, Department and English, with particular focus on
of Value and Decision Science, climate change.
Graduate School of Decision
Science and Technology, Tokyo Peter M. Haas
Institute of Technology, 2-12-1 Professor, Department of Political
Ookayama, Meguro-ku, Tokyo Science, Thompson Hall, University
152-8552, Japan of Massachusetts, Amherst,
MA 01003, USA
Norichika Kanie is an associate
professor at the Tokyo Institute of Peter M. Haas is a professor of
Technology (TITech), Japan. He is political science at the University of
also a visiting researcher at the Massachusetts at Amherst. He
Institute for Global Environmental received a PhD in political science
Strategies. Before joining TITech he from the Massachusetts Institute
was an associate professor at the of Technology. He has published
Faculty of Law and Policy Studies, extensively on international
University of Kitakyushu. He environmental subjects, including
received his PhD in media and pollution control in the
governance from Keio University, Mediterranean, pollution control in
after studying in the UK and the the Baltic and North Seas, UNEP’s
Netherlands. His research interests regional seas programmes,
include global environmental stratospheric ozone protection, and
governance and multilateral international environmental
diplomacy. He has published institutions. He has also published
extensively on environmental works on international relations
288
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS 289
theory, focusing on the interplay Yasuko Kameyama

between knowledge and power in Senior Reseacher, National Institute
international policy coordination. for Environmental Studies, 16-2
Onogawa, Tsukuba, Ibaraki
Laura B. Campbell 305-0053, Japan
Director, Environmental Law
International, 740 West End Satoko Mori
Avenue, Suite 112A, New York, Associate Professor, Meisei
NY 10025, USA University, 2-1-1 Hodokubo,
Hino-city, Tokyo 191-8506, Japan
Dana R. Fisher
Assistant Professor, Department of Craig N. Murphy
Sociology and Columbia Earth Professor of Political Science,
Institute, Columbia University, 813 Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA
IAB; Mail Code 3355, 420 West 02481-8203, USA
118th Street, New York, NY 10027, Jonathan R. Strand
USA Assistant Professor, Department of
Harris Gleckman Political Science, University of
Programme Officer, Financing for Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 Maryland
Development (FFD) Coordinating Parkway, Box 455029, Las Vegas,
Secretariat, United Nations Nevada 89154-5029, USA
Department of Economic and Social Mikoto Usui
Affairs (DESA), FFD Coordinating Professor Emeritus, Tsukuba
Secretariat Room DC2-2162, United University, 1-10-5 Shintomi-cho,
Nations, New York, NY 10017, Kashiwa-city, Chiba 277-0856, Japan
USA
Jacob Werksman
Toru Iwama Environmental Institutions and
Professor, Department of Law, Governance Adviser, United
Seinan-Gakuin University, 6-2-92 Nations Development Programme,
Nishijin, Sawara-ku, Fukuoka-city, ESDG/BDP, 304 East 45th Street,
Fukuoka 814-8511, Japan New York, NY 10017, USA
Index
Administrative Committee on Coordination dynamics 177–182

(ACC) 23, 29 engagement in environmental
Agenda 21 governance 176–196
attempts to implement 86 Human Dike protest 186–194
barriers to implementation 99 international NGOs 178–182
major groups 161 protest movements 178–182
NGO involvement 161 protesters 188–192
resource limitations 105 protests at international meetings
Annan, Kofi 228 182–185
Another World Is Possible protest 187–194 Pyramid Laboratory 237–240
role of transnational corporations
Bush, George W. 71 203–214
Business Action for Sustainable social movement organizations 185–192
Development 224–225, 250 stakeholder engagement 231–232
business see transnational corporations stakeholder theory 230–231
transnational social movements
Chambers, Bradnee 6–7 178–182
Chang, Ilse 186 Climate Action Network 165–166, 182
Chirac, Jacques 6 Clinton, Bill 71, 78
civil society Commission on Sustainable Development
Another World Is Possible protest (CSD)
187–194 NGO involvement 160–164
business-civil society partnerships proposals for reform 28–29
235–237 role in environmental governance 20
business-society bifurcation 217–218 strengths and weaknesses 163–164
corporate public diplomacy 222–229 Cooper, Andrew 93
corporate social responsibility 230–231
disassociation index 164–185 DeSombre, Elizabeth 247
290
INDEX 291
Dobriansky, Paula 265 moves towards sustainable development

Doherty, Ann 224 264–269
multi-stakeholder processes 98, 101–102,
ECOSOC 106, 229–243
access for NGOs 158–160 multilateral institutions 7–8, 15–22
role in environmental governance 17, 26 policy advice 129–131
environmental governance policy integration 96–97
achievements in 3 policy linkages 93–98, 100–104
Administrative Committee on political interaction 88–90
Coordination 23, 29 political potential for reform 274–275
basic science 124–126 power of knowledge 92–93, 99–100
business-civil society partnerships private business sector 216–252
235–237 proposals for a WEO 30–31
business-government interface 10–11 proposals for world environmental
centralized policy-making 76 organization 73–77
civil society engagement 176–196 provisions for science in MEAs 120–123
coordinating institutions 22–24 Pyramid Laboratory 237–240
coordinating treaty organs 29–30 regime design 243–251
corporate game change strategies regional environmental organizations
218–221 71–82
differences in national regimes 204 resource limitations 105
domestic-international linkage 87–90 restructuring multilateral institutions
financial constraints 275–276 24–30
financing science 132 role of CSD 20, 28–29
forces through NGOs 90–92, 9899 role of ECOSOC 17
forestry management 233–234 role of GEF 8, 21, 35–49
horizontal linkages 243–244 role of ICJ 17–18
horizontal restructuring 26–30 role of IPCC 137–152
ICC environmental diplomacy 223–225 role of NGOs 9–10, 266
idealized bargaining model 81 role of regional organizations 79–81
implications of civil society protests role of transnational corporations
194–196 203–214
industry sector 216–252 role of treaty organs 21–22
institutional linkages 93–98, 100–104 role of UN General Assembly 16–17
institutional reform 263–279 role of UN Secretariat 18
institutionalization of NGO role of UN Security Council 17
involvement 157–173 role of UN specialized agencies 18–19
inter-institutional coordination 23–24 role of UNDP 28
inter-treaty organs 23–24 role of UNEP 19–20, 27–28
International Environment role of WTO 21
Organization 25–26 science policy 115–133
international organizations with science-politics interface 4–5, 9
environmental functions 74–75 scientific functions 118–124
international relations 88–90 scientific monitoring 126–129
intra-institutional coordination 22 scientific uncertainty 115
lack of information network 104 second image reversed mode 88
language barriers 104–105 stakeholder engagement 231–231
links between policies and funding 30 stakeholder theory 230–231
matrix of functions 11, 267 target group approach 95–96, 101
mobilizing networks of scientific tourism 234–235
expertise 131–132 transnational social movements 178–182
292 INDEX
environmental governance (cont.) additional roles 138

Trusteeship Council 25 channel for epistemic community
two-level games mode 88–89 146–148
UN organs 16–21 forum for political agreements 145–146
usable knowledge 116 forum for scientific agreement 148
vertical linkages 8–9, 86–109, 243–244 historical background 138–140
vertical restructuring 25–26 legitimacy 138–139, 143–145
voluntary environmental management limitations to authority 130
206–208, 211 official mandate 141
World Bank institutional coordination 22 provider of scientific knowledge 142–143
WSSD Type 2 outcomes 240–243, public information role 150
248–251 publications 140
roles 140–150
Framework Convention on Climate Change scientific uncertainty 147
(FCCC) 137, 138, 142, 144 stakeholder expectations 140–150
accreditation process 164–165 structure 139–140
Human Dike protest 186–194 tool for negotiators 149–150
NGO involvement 164–166 tool for obtaining research funding
participation modalities 164–165 149
strengths and weaknesses 166 use of social scientists 4–5
forestry management 233–234 working groups 144
International Atomic Energy Agency
Gleckman, Harris 224 (IAEA) 21
Global Environment Facility (GEF) International Chamber of Commerce
background history 35–37 (ICC) 223–225, 227–228
financial resources 48 International Council for Local
GEF Council 41–45 Environmental Initiatives 103
GEF Instrument 38–40 International Court of Justice (ICJ)
managing conflicts 38–45 role in environmental governance 17–18
operational methods 37–38 role in intellectual property rights 63
operational problems 39–40 International Organization for
primary responsibilities 37–38 Standardization (ISO) 212
project-level operations 45–46, 48–49 international relations
promoting synergies 38–45 conceptualizing interactive diplomacy 90
relationship with COPs 41–44, 47–48 forces through NGOs 90–92
relationship with implementing hegemonic power 94–95
agencies 44–45, 49 idealized bargaining model 81
role in environmental governance 8, 21, institutional linkages 93–98
35–49 policy linkages 93–98
strengthening capacity 76 second image reversed mode 88
structural reform 46–47 target group approach 95–96, 101
Gunningham, Neil 247 two-level games mode 88–89
Haas, Ernest 53 Joint Group of Experts on Scientific

Human Dike protest 186–194 Aspects of Marine Pollution
(GESAMP) 130
industry see transnational corporations Juniper, Tony 186, 187
Inter-Agency Committee on Sustainable
Development 23 Keohane, Robert 53
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Kyoto Protocol 71, 100, 101, 137, 144, 148,
Change (IPCC) 251
INDEX 293
Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Salim, Elim 1

Development Project 232 science policy
Mitchell, David 226 basic science 124–126
Mitchell, Ronald 246, 251 financing science 132
Montreal Protocol 100, 146, 245, 246 IPCC as provider of scientific
knowledge 142–143
Netherlands mobilizing networks of expertise 131–132
greenhouse gas negotiations 92–93 monitoring 126–129
Human Dike protest 186–194 national capabilities 124
national environmental policy plan 101 policy advice 129–131
policy integration 96–97 political legitimacy 117
target group approach 95–96, 101 provisions for science in MEAs 120–
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) scientific functions 118–124
access to UN system 158–160 scientific uncertainty 115
action against transnational usable knowledge 116
corporations 209 WEO scientific organization 150–152
Another World Is Possible protest Sinclair, Darren 247
187–194 Speth, Gus 273
business-civil society partnerships Stigler, George 245
235–237 Strong, Maurice 99
Climate Action Network 165–166, 182 sustainable development see environmental
coordination of activities 161–162, 168 governance
extent of involvement in environmental
governance 172–173 transnational corporations
funding for protesters 191–192 adaptive developments 227–229
Human Dike protest 186–194 balancing corporate interests and
implications of civil society protests interstate system 213
194–196 Business Action for Sustainable
institutionalization in policy Development 224–225
functions 157–173 business-civil society partnerships
institutionalization of public policy 235–237
dialogue 171–172 business-society bifurcation 217–218
involvement in FCCC 164–166 certification schemes 232–235
involvement in the CSD 160–164 corporate game change strategies
involvement with World Bank 167–171 218–221
multi-stakeholder dialogue 162–163 corporate social responsibility 230–231
observers at international meetings 184 domestic markets 204–207
participation in international features of VEM systems 208
meetings 193 ICC environmental diplomacy 223–225
role in environmental governance 266 incentives for environment-friendly
scientific monitoring 128 policies 244–248
transnational networks 165–166 International Organization for
transnational social movements 178–182 Standardization 212
vertical linkages 90–92, 98–99 international markets 207–213
international policy options 213–214
Palmer, Sir Geoffrey 25–26 multi-stakeholder processes 229–243
Piest, Uli 249 networked minimalism 222–229
Pronk, Jan 193 NGO activities 209
Pyramid Laboratory 237–240 organizational theory 225–227
pro-poor initiatives 238–239
Ruggiero, Renato 5, 74 proposal for WEO 209–210
294 INDEX
transnational corporations (cont.) usable knowledge 117

public diplomacy 222–229 withdrawing from Kyoto Protocol 71, 137
Pyramid Laboratory 237–240
stakeholder engagement 231–232 Victor, David 251
stakeholder theory 230–231 voluntary environmental management
Stiglerian thresholds 244–247 206–208, 211
UN system 210
voluntary environmental Waltz, Kenneth 88
management 206–208, 211 World Bank
voluntary standards 232–235 50 Years is Enough campaign 181–182
WSSD Type 2 outcomes 240–243, institutional coordination 22
248–251 NGO involvement 167–171
non-institutionalized pressures 169–170
Ul Haq, Mahbub 273 participation modalities 167–168
UN Conference on the Human relationship with GEF 44–45, 49
Environment 15 strengths and weaknesses 170–171
UN Development Programme (UNDP) World Economic Forum 187–193
relationship with GEF 44–45, 49 world environmental organization (WEO)
role in environmental governance 28 arguments against 76–77
UN Environment Programme (UNEP) capacity-building function 76
Cleaner Production network 241 centralized policy-making 76
centralizing role 133 implications of civil society protests
institutional reform 269–272 194–196
inter-institutional coordination 23 inadequacies of present system 71–74
Mediterranean Action Plan 129 international organizations with
proposals for strengthening 27–28 environmental functions 74–75
proposed future role 277 international policy options 213–214
relationship with GEF 44–45, 49 lessons from other global
role in environmental governance 19–20 organizations 51–52
scientific monitoring 126, 128 need for scientific organization 150–152
structural problems 157 organizational problems 226–227
United Nations proposals for 272, 277–278
Global Compact 241–242 questions regarding form and function 72
International Environment recommendations for 5–7, 30–31
Organization 25–26 regional stepping-stones 77–79
NGO access to UN system 158–160 transnational corporations 209
role of Secretariat in environmental World Intellectual Property Organization
governance 18, 27 (WIPO)
role of UN General Assembly in acceptance by stakeholders 65
environmental governance 16–17 classification treaties 59–60
role of UN Security Council in compliance over intellectual property
environmental governance 17, 27 rights 63
transnational corporations 210 dispute resolution 63–64
UNU/IAS research project 6–7 effectiveness 61–65
USA functions 61
formation of NAFTA 78 government participation in treaties 62
hegemonic power 94–95 historical background 56–57
lack of interest in sustainable intellectual property rights protection
development 275 57–59
regional environmental organization 79 knowledge management 64–65
scientific uncertainty 147 mandate 61
INDEX 295
measuring effectiveness 52–53 dispute among member states 55–56

overview of effectiveness 51–52 future policy regime 56
registration treaties 59 governance participation 54
societal values 60–61 historical background 53–54
World Summit on Sustainable Development managing social issues 56
(WSSD) 1, 6, 178, 224 mandate 54
Cartagena Declaration 273 measuring effectiveness 52–53
moves towards sustainable development overview of effectiveness 51–52
263–264 problem-solving capability 55
Type 2 outcomes 240–243, 248–251, 266 role in environmental governance
World Trade Organization (WTO) 21
acceptance by NGOs 56 Seattle protests 179, 182, 187

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United Nations University Press is the publishing arm of the United

Nations University. UNU Press publishes scholarly and policy-oriented

United Nations University Press

United Nations University Ofﬁce at the United Nations, New York

Cover design by Meah Rhee

Printed in Hong Kong

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Emerging forces in environmental governance / edited by Norichika Kanie and

List of tables and ﬁgures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii

1 Multilateral environmental institutions and coordinating

2 Consolidating global environmental governance: New lessons

3 The effectiveness of the WTO and WIPO: Lessons for

4 The case for regional environmental organizations. . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

5 Global environmental governance in terms of vertical

Science-policy interface for environmental governance

6 Science policy for multilateral environmental governance . . . . . 115

7 The IPCC: Its roles in international negotiation and domestic

NGOs and environmental governance

8 Institutionalization of NGO involvement in policy functions

9 Civil society protest and participation: Civic engagement

Business/industry and environmental governance

10 Balancing TNCs, the states, and the international system in

11 The private business sector in global environmental

12 Conclusion: Institutional design and institutional reform for

List of contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

10.1 Selected factors that create differences between national

There is consensus that the current system of international environmen-

devoid of positive features that are worthy of recognition and preserva-

As the debate over international environmental governance reform

A. H. Zakri, Director, UNU-IAS

manuscript together. These include Keizo Takemi, Kiyoshi Yamada, and

Norichika Kanie and Peter M. Haas

Throughout the process leading up to the 2002 World Summit on Sus-

environment, and sustainable development, extends well beyond the

In 1999 the United Nations University, in collaboration with over 15 dif-

of the project interacted with each other at a workshop and on other

Overview of the book

important is how to translate the decisions taken at global level to

(CSOs), and the environmental governance structure. This nexus is

views towards business/industry partnership in environmental gover-

Since the UN Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, new, di-

functions and insufﬁcient coordination among different institutions.

Existing multilateral institutions

The UN organs – principal organs such as the General Assembly, the

environmental matters. The ﬁrst is its decision in 1993 to establish

tage Committee), which was established by this convention to implement

Serious Drought and/or Desertiﬁcation, Particularly in Africa (the De-

In 1994 the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in the

mechanisms on the other hand.26 These treaty organs, comprising the

Coordinating institutions/bodies and mechanisms

A newly emerging need for coordination of policies between environ-

CBD’s secretariat and that of the Protocol Concerning Specially Pro-

Proposals for restructuring and revitalizing multilateral

institutions, a clear division of their responsibilities, and the avoidance of

Establishing a new UN principal organ

. . . any legislative organ must be large enough to be considered reasonably rep-

Establishing a new UN specialized agency

International Environment Organization (IEO).39 The structural basis