Regional Governance and Environmental Problems

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Balsiger ◽  
Stacy D. VanDeveer
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
Environmental Cooperation ◽  
Mountain Ranges ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
International Environmental Politics ◽  
Regional Agreements

Only recently has international environmental politics scholarship focused more explicitly on “regionalism” as a distinct phenomenon, one which has received much more sustained attention among specialists in international security and international political economy. By the early twenty-first century, regional environmental governance had become commonplace. Since the term “region” has had different connotations in different disciplines, the analytic and empirical scope of studies of regional environmental governance has varied considerably. As such, analyses of regional environmental cooperation have incorporated both constructivist views of regions that transcend the nation-state grid, and rescaling arguments placing greater emphasis on subnational governments, transboundary mobilization, and the importance of ecoregional initiatives. Regional agreements increasingly point to some sort of ecoterritoriality, state actors are increasingly complemented by nonstate or substate actors, and the thematic scope increasingly expands beyond purely environmental issues to encompass broader notions of sustainable development. There are three typical types of regional agreements: interstate regional environmental governance, ecoregional environmental governance, and ecoregional sustainable development governance. Interstate regional environmental governance is most typical of regional economic organizations with an environmental mandate that covers single or multiple environmental issues. Meanwhile, ecoregional environmental governance is widely seen in agreements for mountain ranges, regional seas, or river basins. Case studies on marine and mountain regional environmental governance illustrate that various regional arrangement remain in quite different states of institutionalization. Yet they also illustrate the growth of ecoregionalism in transnational environmental governance.

scholarly journals Regional environmental governance: the NAFTA case

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (No. 10) ◽  
pp. 454-466
Author(s):  
E. Cihelková
Keyword(s):  
North American ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Trade Agreement ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
Complex Nature ◽  
Agenda 21 ◽  
Environmental Cooperation ◽  
The North ◽  
Regional Agreements ◽  
Environment And Development

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 elaborated the idea of sustainable development. A comprehensive document called the Agenda 21 provided an explanation how to achieve a sustainable economic development. Along the tools presented in the document, there emerged in practice a new regionalism which is based on the preferential trade agreements. Currently, regional agreements are of a more complex nature, so that they may include environmental cooperation, too. The aim of this paper is to illustrate, on the case of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a possible approach of regional agreements to environmental cooperation. The paper is divided into four sections. The first one summarizes a general approach to addressing environmental issues within the integration groupings. The second tries to answer the question of whether the NAFTA confirms the general approach to the regional environmental governance. The third deals with the meaning and the failure of the regional governance for the assessment of the cross-border impact of the NAFTA/NAAEC on the environment. The fourth and last section gives an answer to whether the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), as the environmental part of the NAFTA, is a good basis for the effective environmental governance in North America.    

scholarly journals THE FIRST ANTROPOCENE UTOPIA

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOSÉ ELI DA VEIGA
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
International Relations ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Decision Criteria ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Agenda 2030 ◽  
Governance Institutions

Abstract This article proposes an aggiornamento of the “sustainable development” ideal. It addresses four controversial terms, which enable us to foresee that “sustainable development” will very likely become the first utopia of the Anthropocene epoch. Taking into account the Agenda 2030, if the decision criteria are based on the rhetoric of international relations, particularly as used within the framework of the United Nations, it can certainly be concluded that sustainable development has already become the great contemporary utopia. However, if global governance is used as the criterion, this may not be the case, since environmental governance institutions are not yet comparable to development governance institutions. Strictly speaking, there is no global governance of sustainability, unless this notion is restricted to environmental issues.

scholarly journals New Environmental Regionalism and Sustainable Development in the European Alps

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 58-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Balsiger
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Recent Trend ◽  
Functional Differentiation ◽  
International Governance ◽  
European Alps ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Mountain Ranges ◽  
The Alps ◽  
Binding Agreement

In the context of increasing fragmentation and functional differentiation in international governance, new environmental regionalism represents a recent trend involving initiatives that seek to territorialize environmental governance at the level of transboundary ecoregions, such as mountain ranges or river basins. This article examines the implications of this trend for sustainable development, which is defined here as a procedural norm for reconciling the tradeoffs between environmental, economic, and social dimensions of wellbeing. This article (1) traces arguments concerning the origins of functional differentiation to research on European state-making; (2) offers two complementary perspectives that generate insights into sustainable development at the transboundary level, one focusing on the intersection of multiple and overlapping functional spaces, and the other focusing on regionalization as the domestic manifestation of regional themes; and (3) illustrates the significance of these perspectives in the case of the European Alps. The article suggests that the Alps serve both as the bounded object of an international legally binding agreement asking its signatories to formalize sustainable development, and as the intersection of multiple overlapping functional spaces. It lends support to claims about the link between rescaling and functional differentiation, but demonstrates that a sympathetic critique of new environmental regionalism need not conclude that the phenomenon exacerbates the fragmentation of international governance.

Michael Clegg (1933–1995): from naturalist to environmental correspondent in the multi-media age

2015 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. G. Moore
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Full Time ◽  
Scientific Background ◽  
The Media ◽  
Multi Media

The coverage of natural history in British newspapers has evolved from a “Nature notes” format – usually a regular column submitted by a local amateur naturalist – to professional, larger-format, presentations by dedicated environmental correspondents. Not all such environmental correspondents, however, have natural-history expertise or even a scientific background. Yorkshire's Michael Clegg was a man who had a life-long love of nature wedded to a desire to communicate that passion. He moved from a secure position in the museum world (with a journalistic sideline) to become a freelance newspaper journalist and (subsequently) commentator on radio and television dealing with, and campaigning on, environmental issues full-time. As such, he exemplified the transition in how natural history coverage in the media evolved in the final decades of the twentieth century reflecting modern concerns about biodiversity, conservation, pollution and sustainable development.

Integrating Environmental Requirements into Vietnamese Sectoral Laws – Roles and Recommendations

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Mai Thanh Dung ◽  
Nguyen Minh Khoa ◽  
Phan Thi Thu Huong
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Environmental Regulations ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Environmental Policies ◽  
Environmental Concerns ◽  
Environmental Requirements ◽  
Environmental Considerations

The need for sustainable development underscores the role and importance of integrating environmental concerns in non-environmental policies because it is evident that environmental regulations only are insufficient to manage all environmental issues. Law enforcement on environmental protection in Vietnam clearly demonstrates this situation. Vietnam’s legal system of environmental protection is incompatible or overlapped with other sectoral laws and in fact many environmental matters have been implemented in accordance with sectoral laws while disregarding environmental considerations due to the lack of specific and explicit environmental provisions or requirements in sectoral laws and regulations. From that situation, the paper emphasizes the need to integrate environmental protection requirements into the sectoral laws of Vietnam and proposes some fundamental criteria and procedures to integrate environmental requirements into sectoral laws.

Movements, Networks, Hierarchies: A Gender Perspective on Global Environmental Governance

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bretherton
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Participatory Process ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Women's Participation ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Transnational Mobilization ◽  
Environmentally Sound

Environmental governance may be distinguished from environmental management by the implication that, in the former, some form of participatory process is involved. Here, the focus is upon the potential for women's movements and networks to influence the principles and practices of global environmental governance (GEG). It is contended that, in principle, women are uniquely placed to oppose the dominant norms informing GEG; and that women's participation would, in consequence, be crucial to the achievement of equitable and environmentally sound forms of governance. In practice, however, a number of factors combine to create divisions between women, and hence to impede transnational mobilization by women around environmental issues. This article examines these issues.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing environmental governance on the GBM basin

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marufa Akter
Keyword(s):  
River Water ◽  
South Asian ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Regional Governance ◽  
Epistemic Community ◽  
Resource Governance ◽  
Lower Stream ◽  
Gbm Basin

River water sharing is an issue that is dealt by the South Asian neighboring countries for the last four decades. Water management of Ganges–Brahmaputra Meghna (GBM) basin is a controversial issue, which is not yet developed as a regional cooperative mechanism. The GBM river basin countries also represent the projection of relative power differences among its upper stream and lower stream countries. Considering the geopolitical context and hydro-politics of the region, the study examines potential scopes for effective regional governance to GBM’s ecological integrity and to share common river water among China, Bhutan, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. The study uses Rittberger et al. (2006) explanatory model (that explains three conditions—Problem, Cognitive and Hegemonic conditions) in the development of multilateral organizations in GBM region. The study deals with the question—what conditions facilitate GBM based water governance among five main riparian countries (upstream and downstream) in resolving the water scarcity challenges in the region. The paper argues that realization of shortage of water and environmental degradation as an interdependent problem, influence of an inclusive epistemic community (cognitive condition) and a hegemonic leadership (power is willing to accept the relative gain of others states for the absolute gain of itself)—are required to foster water resource governance of the GBM for sustainable development of the region.

Sustainable development and the aspirational male consumer: Tengri, making the case for sustainable luxury

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 245-266
Author(s):  
Natascha Radclyffe-Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Social Enterprises ◽  
Fashion Industry ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Virtuous Cycle ◽  
Slow Fashion ◽  
Brand Heritage

Luxury is an industry that defines its value through the quality of its raw materials, which fosters creativity, elevates artisanship and relies on brand heritage and local production to underpin the provenance of its products and justify its pricing strategy and, as such, can be considered as embodying many of the practices of sustainability. Yet, despite public commitments and pledges for better business, both financial and cultural factors have contributed to a lack of progress in implementing the necessary system changes implied by slow fashion, sustainable development and the circular economy. Social enterprises use business to address social and environmental issues. In Tengri’s case, founder Nancy Johnston was inspired by her experiences travelling with Mongolia’s yak herders where she was confronted with the harshness of the nomadic way of life and threats to its continuing existence. She was driven to action when she juxtaposed these conditions with the promoted glamour of the luxury fashion industry, which relies on supplies of ingredients from just such workers. This article explores how Tengri combines social and environmental awareness with luxury product development incorporating the UN SDGs into a sustainable luxury menswear brand in a virtuous cycle of ethical fashion consumption and production.

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