Measuring the Negotiation Burden of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miquel Muñoz ◽  
Rachel Thrasher ◽  
Adil Najam
Keyword(s):  
United Nations ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Environment And Development ◽  
Quantitative Indicators ◽  
Over Time

The Global Environmental Governance (GEG) system has grown significantly since the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. In this paper we analyze ten leading Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), reviewing various quantitative indicators (related to time, resources and commitment) to chart their evolution and to measure the “negotiation burden” that the burgeoning GEG system is imposing on states and secretariats. We find that these representative MEAs have not only grown in size but also have become busier over time, although there are indications that as the GEG system “matures,” it may also be stabilizing. Among other things, we find that the reported budget for these ten MEA secretariats has grown nine-fold in sixteen years, from US$ 8.18 million in 1992 to US$ 75.83 million in 2007. Counting only the most important of meetings, and using the number of meeting days as an indicator of the “negotiation load,” we find that the negotiation load for the leading MEAs has stabilized, averaging around 115 meeting days per year. Decisions also seem to plateau at about 185 per year.

Trends in Global Environmental Governance: The Emergence of a Mutual Supportiveness Approach to Achieve Sustainable Development

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 16-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mukul Sanwal
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Environmental Agreements ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Multilateral Environmental Agreements ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Environmental Negotiations ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Development Objectives

The experience of the last ten years of global environmental negotiations suggests that a new and different approach to international cooperation is required if we are to achieve sustainable development. While multilateral environmental agreements have provided a valuable framework for building a consensus on broad objectives, their implementation requires a focus on the underlying activities that cause environmental degradation. Moreover, globalization encourages the development and use of innovative technologies, leading to a large degree of overlap between global environmental concerns and national sustainable development objectives. These shifts require wholly new perspectives that are based less on determining responsibilities and more on supporting mutually reinforcing transformations. The new approach also looks beyond the state to other stakeholders as contributors to achieving sustainable development.

Moral Foundations for Global Environmental and Climate Justice

2011 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 117-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chukwumerije Okereke
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Global Environmental

Aspirations for global justice have, in the last two decades, found their most radical expressions in the context of global environmental governance and climate change. From Rio de Janeiro through Kyoto to Copenhagen, demands for international distributional justice, and especially North–South equity, have become a prominent aspect of international environmental negotiation. However, claims for international environmental and climate justice have generally been deployed in the form of instinctive gut reaction than as a closely argued concept. In this paper, I outline the ways in which issues of international justice intertwine with notions of global environmental sustainability and the basic premises on which claims for North–South equity are entrenched.

Studying Global Environmental Meetings to Understand Global Environmental Governance: Collaborative Event Ethnography at the Tenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa M. Campbell ◽  
Catherine Corson ◽  
Noella J. Gray ◽  
Kenneth I. MacDonald ◽  
J. Peter Brosius
Keyword(s):  
Biodiversity Conservation ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Convention On Biological Diversity ◽  
Global Environmental Governance ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Over Time

This special issue introduces readers to collaborative event ethnography (CEE), a method developed to support the ethnographic study of large global environmental meetings. CEE was applied by a group of seventeen researchers at the Tenth Conference of the Parties (COP10) to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) to study the politics of biodiversity conservation. In this introduction, we describe our interests in global environmental meetings as sites where the politics of biodiversity conservation can be observed and as windows into broader governance networks. We specify the types of politics we attend to when observing such meetings and then describe the CBD, its COP, challenges meetings pose for ethnographic researchers, how CEE responds to these challenges generally, and the specifics of our research practices at COP10. Following a summary of the contributed papers, we conclude by reflecting on the evolution of CEE over time.

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