Agents of the State: A Century of Delegation in International Environmental Law

Public And Private ◽

Specific Policy ◽

Delegation Of Authority ◽

Private Authority ◽

Private Actors

This chapter examines a century of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) for acts of delegation to international organizations and to private actors. Theories of delegation suggest looking to the state as the likely engine of private authority. With more governing to do, states are enlisting others to help them through the delegation of authority. Drawing on a random sample of 152 multilateral environmental treaties, sampled from all extant multilateral treaties from 1857 to 2002, the chapter asks how often states delegate to private actors, and for what tasks. It shows that delegated authority in MEAs is indeed on the rise but not as a percentage of total governance activities. Instead, there is an overall increase in the amount of governance by both public and private actors. The data also show that states prefer to delegate specific policy functions: monitoring and implementation.

Rethinking Private Authority

10.23943/princeton/9780691157580.001.0001 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Jessica F. Green

Keyword(s):

Green Building ◽

World Politics ◽

The Past ◽

Delegation Of Authority ◽

Private Authority ◽

Global Environmental ◽

Private Actors ◽

Treaty Implementation

This book examines the role of nonstate actors in global environmental politics, arguing that a fuller understanding of their role requires a new way of conceptualizing private authority. It identifies two distinct forms of private authority—one in which states delegate authority to private actors, and another in which entrepreneurial actors generate their own rules, persuading others to adopt them. Drawing on a wealth of empirical evidence spanning a century of environmental rule making, the book shows how the delegation of authority to private actors has played a small but consistent role in multilateral environmental agreements over the past fifty years, largely in the area of treaty implementation. This contrasts with entrepreneurial authority, where most private environmental rules have been created in the past two decades. The book traces how this dynamic and fast-growing form of private authority is becoming increasingly common in areas ranging from organic food to green building practices to sustainable tourism. It persuasively argues that the configuration of state preferences and the existing institutional landscape are paramount to explaining why private authority emerges and assumes the form that it does. In-depth cases on climate change provide evidence for the book's arguments. The book demonstrates that authority in world politics is diffused across multiple levels and diverse actors, and it offers a more complete picture of how private actors are helping to shape our response to today's most pressing environmental problems.

Implementation of International Environmental Law

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197515037.013.28 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Maria Ivanova ◽

Natalia Escobar-Pemberthy ◽

Anna Dubrova ◽

Candace Famiglietti

Keyword(s):

Environmental Law ◽

International Environmental Agreements ◽

National Characteristics ◽

University Of Massachusetts ◽

The University ◽

The Impact ◽

Technical Measures

International environmental law is a key governance instrument for the protection of the environment. Countries take on a range of obligations when they join multilateral environmental agreements. This chapter presents a comparative assessment of the implementation of international environmental law in 13 countries for four agreements dealing with pollution and conservation. It offers an empirical assessment based on the Environmental Conventions Index (ECI) developed at the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and compares performance across four key categories: regulation, management, information, and technical measures. The analysis establishes a baseline for assessing the implementation of international environmental law and explaining the impact of national characteristics, policies, and actions on the fulfillment and effectiveness of international environmental agreements.

Eckstein and the Study of Private Governments

Comparative Political Studies ◽

10.1177/0010414098031004003 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 31 (4) ◽

pp. 444-463

Author(s):

RONALD ROGOWSKI

Keyword(s):

General Theory ◽

Nongovernmental Organizations ◽

The State ◽

Public And Private ◽

Private Authority ◽

Authority Relations ◽

The Way ◽

Capitalist Firms ◽

Authority Structures

Harry Eckstein's Theory of Stable Democracy briefly revolutionized thinking about authority structures in nongovernmental organizations but has left little lasting mark. Indeed, the theory failed as an account of stable democracy but, by emphasizing correctly the commonalities between public and private authority, it pointed the way to a general theory of authority in organizations. Such a theory is now emerging, chiefly from work on authority in capitalist firms. It is time for students of politics again to look beyond the state, as Eckstein argued, to the much wider universe of authority relations.

Equity

The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199552153.013.0027 ◽

2008 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Shelton Dinah

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

Environmental Law ◽

Generational Equity ◽

Perceptions Of Fairness ◽

Sovereign Equality ◽

Potential Impact

If perceptions of fairness or equity affect the level of participation and positive action among heterogeneous states, then they are likely to factor in the long-term success of an environmental regime or agreement. This article assesses the potential impact of equity on international environmental law. First, it examines the various meanings attributed to the term ‘equity’ in international law in general, and in international environmental law in particular; the roles equity has played in multilateral environmental agreements; and how different equitable principles are, or may be, implemented in practice. The article then discusses intra-generational equity and inter-generational equity, sovereign equality and equity, distributive justice in international law, principles for determining equitable allocation, and different ways of implementing principles of equity (substantive rules of equity, procedural rules).

The Role of the State in the Exercise of Transnational Public and Private Authority over Labour Standards

International Organizations Law Review ◽

10.1163/15723747-01701003 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 17 (1) ◽

pp. 41-74

Author(s):

Janelle M. Diller

Keyword(s):

Equal Opportunity ◽

Well Being ◽

The State ◽

Common Interest ◽

International Governance ◽

Decent Work ◽

Public And Private ◽

Collective Interest ◽

Private Authority ◽

Labour Standards

Interdependence among States in an era of globalization exacerbates the increasing emphasis on competing claims of national interest in the global arena. Rising nationalism is a symptom of the weakness of conception of transnational governance that insufficiently coordinates public and private interactions across multiple systems of governance which overlap on matters of common interest such as labour standards. The State-centric system of world governance lacks effective structures to bridge the gap between transnational labour governance (‘TLG’) and national, interstate, and international governance. However, emerging evidence suggests that the State is capable of facilitating inclusive and consensual action with non-state bodies of collective interest at national and transnational levels that helps connect TLG with national and international governance. This review compares differing degrees and methods of State action in selected TLG prototypes and their outcomes relevant to public and private policy choices affecting decent work and equal opportunity for well-being. Particular focus is placed on the State’s role in attributing private authority to non-state bodies of collective interest, facilitating consensual decision-making and regulatory action, aligning TLG with international norms and relevant national law and institutions, and cooperating in TLG with other States, including with or through international organizations. Challenges to effective TLG, such as opting-out, competing structures, and difficulty in leveraging short-term initiatives for longer-term capacity, are examined within the context of the legitimacy and coherence of TLG systems and across phases of governance, including agenda setting, norm development, implementation, oversight, evaluation, correction and revision. Preliminary conclusions call for further theoretical and empirical research to evaluate factors that influence such innovations and the extent to which they lead to durable and effective TLG within and across States that advances decent work and equal opportunity for well-being in globalized markets.

Part I Context, Ch.5 Fragmentation

10.1093/law/9780198849155.003.0005 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Young Margaret A

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

Trade Liberalization ◽

Environmental Law ◽

Investment Protection ◽

Environmental Institutions ◽

International Adjudication ◽

Fragmentation Of International Law ◽

Law Making

This chapter examines fragmentation within the field of international environmental law. There is long-standing scholarly engagement with the fragmentation of international law into largely self-contained ‘regimes’ such as trade, investment, the law of the sea, and human rights. Such regimes are of fundamental importance to the governance of environmental matters. Multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) covering specific issues and sectors now number in the hundreds, and at times their aims and methods may be in opposition, while gaps remain especially in implementation. The chapter begins with a discussion of the functional conception of law-making within ‘regimes’, which has origins in both international relations and international law, and argues that the governance of environmental matters does not always (or even most often) happen in the context of environmental treaties and environmental institutions but also within norms and institutions that are constituted to pursue other functions, such as trade liberalization or investment protection. It then considers how international adjudication and the proliferation of international courts and tribunals have special salience for environmental matters. The chapter also looks at coordinating initiatives, including the proposal for a Global Pact for the Environment.

Part VIII Compliance, Implementation, and Effectiveness, Ch.52 Transparency Procedures

10.1093/law/9780198849155.003.0052 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sparks Tom ◽

Peters Anne

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

Environmental Law ◽

Multilateral Environmental Agreements

This chapter explores how information obligations on states—to collect, report, or publish—are an important aspect of most modern multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). These have developed both alongside and as part of a wider ‘turn to transparency’ in international law, resulting in traditional forms of reporting, monitoring, and verification being incorporated into a more extensive set of transparency relationships. The chapter examines transparency as an increasingly important aspect of international environmental law, both as an end in itself and as a means of achieving other substantive goals. It frames transparency in international environmental law within the wider transparency turn. The chapter then looks at the techniques that are employed in customary and conventional environmental law to realize transparency, focusing on the compliance-centred, emancipatory, and advocative functions it performs.

Part I Context, Ch.3 Origin and History

10.1093/law/9780198849155.003.0003 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sand Peter H

Keyword(s):

Environmental Law ◽

Historical Research ◽

Human Environment ◽

History Of ◽

In Trans ◽

Legal Concepts ◽

Modern Era

This chapter traces the origin and history of international environmental law. The focus of historical research on the emergence of environment-related legal concepts, principles, and institutions has primarily been on the study and comparison of developments at the level of national law. Even so, the interface with international law is easily documented; the emergence of a body of rules of environmental ‘neighbourliness’ has long been observed in trans-frontier relations between states. Most narratives of the historical evolution of international environmental law distinguish three major ‘periods’, ‘epochs’, or ‘phases’: the ‘traditional era’ until about 1970 (that is, preceding the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm); the ‘modern era’ from Stockholm to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (UNCED); and the ‘post-modern era’ from Rio onwards. Ultimately, a striking feature of traditional international environmental law was its territoriality. One much-neglected aspect in this context has been the extraterritorial application of multilateral environmental agreements.

‘Who governs’ Berlin’s metropolitan region? The strategic-relational construction of metropolitan scale in Berlin–Brandenburg’s economic development policies

Environment and Planning C Politics and Space ◽

10.1177/2399654418776549 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 37 (1) ◽

pp. 59-80 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Enrico Gualini ◽

Carola Fricke

Keyword(s):

Economic Development ◽

Metropolitan Region ◽

Institutional Form ◽

Public And Private ◽

Specific Policy ◽

Metropolitan Development ◽

Development Policies ◽

Governance Practices ◽

Private Actors ◽

Policy Arenas

‘Who governs’ Berlin’s metropolitan region—and how? The article addresses this question by inquiring into the way metropolitan space is being constituted in current economic development policies for Berlin–Brandenburg. It follows the hypothesis that no single-unitary understanding of metropolitan space exists in Berlin as expression of an explicit metropolitan project, but rather a heteronomy of policy practices which express diverse and possibly competing ‘implicit’ metropolitan issues and agendas. Accordingly, rescaling in the Berlin metropolitan region is not occurring in a comprehensive political–institutional form, as an ‘explicit project’. The more significant, however, is that rescaling is occurring—as an ‘implicit project’—through policy and governance practices which constitute a variety of understandings of metropolitan space. Metropolitan space appears therefore as an emerging construct defined by strategic-relational interplays between public and private actors and by the selective involvement of their interests and resources in the domain of specific spatial-economic development policies. Analyzing the construction of metropolitan space within specific policy arenas therefore offers a significant perspective on ‘who governs’ metropolitan development and on how this is possibly tied to the emergence of hegemonic understandings of scalar references for metropolitan policies.

International Environmental Law in the Anthropocene: Towards a Purposive System of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

Transnational Environmental Law ◽

10.1017/s2047102513000149 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 2 (2) ◽

pp. 285-309 ◽

Cited By ~ 37

Author(s):

Rakhyun E. Kim ◽

Klaus Bosselmann

Keyword(s):

Life Support ◽

Environmental Problem ◽

Environmental Law ◽

Legal Reasoning ◽

Common Denominator ◽

Law System ◽

Strong Candidate

AbstractOur point of analytical departure is that the state of the global environment is deteriorating despite the accumulating body of international environmental law. By drawing on the recent Earth system science concept of interlinked planetary boundaries, this article makes a case for a goal-oriented, purposive system of multilateral environmental agreements. The notion of ‘goal’ is used here to mean a single, legally binding, superior norm – agrundnorm– that gives all international regimes and organizations a shared purpose to which their specific objectives must contribute. A bird’s eye view of the international environmental law system reveals how the absence of a unifying goal has created a condition that is conducive to environmental problemshiftingrather than problemsolving. We argue that a clearly agreed goal would provide the legal system with a point of reference for legal reasoning and interpretation, thereby enhancing institutional coherence across Earth’s subsystems. To this end, this article concludes by observing that the protection of the integrity of Earth’s life-support system has emerged as a common denominator among international environmental law instruments. Accordingly, we suggest that this notion is a strong candidate for the overarching goal of international environmental law.