Authors: Lawrence E. Susskind
ISBN-13: 9780195075946, ISBN-10: 0195075943
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: February 1994
Edition: 1st Edition
Lawrence E. Susskind is Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program at Harvard Law Shool. His research and teaching focus on environmental management and the resolution of environmental disputes.
Solutions to environmental problems require international cooperation, but global environmental treaty-making efforts, including the 1992 U.N.-sponsored Earth Summit in Brazil, have not accomplished much. International cooperation has been hampered by the conflicts between the developed nations of the North and the developing nations of the South; by the fact that science cannot accurately predict when or how environmental threats will materialize; and by the problem that the United Nations treaty-making system was never meant to handle threats to the environment.
Lawrence Susskind looks at the weaknesses of the existing system of environmental treaty-making and the increasing role of non-governmental interests in environmental diplomacy. Environmental Diplomacy argues for "nearly self-enforcing" agreements that ensure compliance without threatening sovereignty and maintains that new institutional arrangements are within reach. Susskind builds on the work of the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School and the International Environmental Negotiation Network to offer guidelines for more effective global agreements that provide for sustainable development.
Abbreviations | ||
1 | What Is This Book About? | 3 |
2 | The Weaknesses of the Existing Environmental Treaty-making System | 11 |
Knowing How to Measure Success | 13 | |
Three Serious Obstacles to Global Cooperation | 18 | |
An Inadequate Legal Structure | 24 | |
Fundamental Flaws in the Convention-Protocol Approach | 30 | |
The Earth Summit as an Illustration | 37 | |
3 | Representation and Voting | 43 |
Why Countries Participate | 44 | |
Only Countries Vote | 46 | |
The Majority Does Not Rule | 48 | |
"Unofficials" Have Key Roles to Play | 49 | |
Who Represents Future Generations? | 53 | |
The Power of the Secretariat | 58 | |
There Is No Consensus-Building Process | 61 | |
4 | The Need for a Better Balance Between Science and Politics | 62 |
There Will Always Be Uncertainty | 66 | |
Giving Science Its Due | 68 | |
Adversary Science Undermines Trust | 71 | |
Are There Really "Epistemic Communities" of Scientists? | 73 | |
Ongoing Roles For Scientific Advisers | 76 | |
No Regrets and the Precautionary Principle | 78 | |
Contingent Agreements Are the Answer | 80 | |
5 | The Advantages and Disadvantages of Issue Linkage | 82 |
A Lesson in Negotiation Arithmetic | 87 | |
The Theory of Linkage | 91 | |
Dealing with the Threat of Blackmail | 92 | |
Managing the Complexity | 94 | |
Linkage Guidelines | 97 | |
6 | Monitoring and Enforcement in the Face of Sovereignty | 99 |
Technical and Legal Difficulties | 99 | |
A Theory of Compliance | 107 | |
Getting Around the Sovereignty Problem | 113 | |
Nearly Self-Enforcing Agreements | 117 | |
Do We Need the Green Police? | 120 | |
7 | Reforming the System: The Salzburg Initiative and Other Proposals for Change | 122 |
The Salzburg Initiative | 123 | |
Synchronizing Worldwide Expectations | 139 | |
A New Three-Stage Process | 141 | |
What We Need from the United Nations | 147 | |
Appendix A: Selected Global Environmental Treaties | 151 | |
Appendix B: Declaration of the Right to Nature Conservation, Environmental Protection, and Sustainable Development | 176 | |
Notes | 181 | |
Selected Readings | 189 | |
Index | 195 |