Key actors in UN environmental governance: influence,reform and leadership

In the introductory article it was concluded that the effectiveness of the UN environmental institutions studied was quite low. Key actors, especially the US and the EU, play a considerable role in explaining the course of development in these institutions. However, this does not mean that these processes are mainly state-driven as a number of other factors matter. The potential for reform and increased effectiveness is limited as the main actors, the US the EU and G-77/China have very different interests and perceptions as to the future directions of these institutions.

EU accession and the hardening of soft budget constraints: some macro evidence

The hardening of soft budget constraints (SBCs) is a central element in transforming the economies of Central and Eastern Europe into market economies. This paper presents macro evidence on budget hardening of transition economies comparing the performance of EU accession countries relative to non-accession countries. We estimate SBC hardening for 21 transition economies in a partial adjustment model by measuring the reaction of employment to output changes over a 10-year period. The paper finds that accession candidates have reduced excess labour demand substantially relative to non-accession countries.

Japan’s position in international climate policy: navigating between Kyoto and the APP

The emergence of technology-oriented agreements such as the 2005 Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP) may have significant implications for the future of global climate governance, as these agreements could be perceived as an alternative for the existing international climate regime. It is, therefore, important to examine what has moved countries to be involved in these agreements alongside the UN climate regime. This article seeks to identify possible factors contributing to Japan’s participation in both the UN climate regime and the APP, looking at the position of domestic interest groups, the distribution of climate policy-making at the government level and varying international pressures. It concludes that Japan’s participation in both the APP and the UN climate regime flows from a policy-making process that tries to accommodate conflicting viewpoints at the domestic and international levels. To what extent Japan’s participation in both fora can be regarded as constructive will depend on the partnership’s ability to support the implementation of a future climate regime.

UNFCCC negotiations (pre-Kyoto to COP-9): what the process says about the politics of CDM-sinks

One of the most contentious issues in the negotiations aimed at operationalizing the Kyoto Protocol was the treatment of sinks and, particularly, the eligibility of sinks projects in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This paper attempts to analyse the politics underlying these negotiations, drawing on methods of process tracing, key informant interviews, negotiating texts and secondary literature. Tracing the sinks debate and highlighting key lessons about the nature of global environmental agreements and their institutional arrangements is the first step to recounting the history of the politics of one of the major contemporary international environmental debates. The paper shows that the Kyoto Protocol negotiations on sinks and CDM-sinks were multilaterally supported as a practical solution, but went ‘off track’ due to actors’ interests and tradeoffs. As regards future negotiations on forest sinks in developing countries under the framework of the UNFCCC, the paper argues that these are likely to be influenced by similar constraints, and also by the conservation and development agenda of its supporters; as well as the experience gathered on the CDM and the interests and concerns of developing countries. We broadly frame the paper within the literature on global environmental politics.

Measures to enhance the success of global climate treaties

We analyze important forces that hamper the formation of successful self-enforcing agreements to mitigate global warming from an economic point of view. The analysis combines two modules: (a) an integrated assessment model that captures the feedback between the economy, environmental damages and the climate system and (b) a game theoretic model that determines stable coalitions in the presence of free-riding incentives. We consider two types of measures to enhance the success of international environmental treaty-making: (a) transfers, aiming at balancing asymmetric gains from cooperation; (b) institutional changes, aiming at making it more difficult to upset stability of a treaty. We find that institutional changes may be as important as transfers and should therefore receive more attention in future international negotiations.

The European Union in global environmental governance: Leadership in the making?

For well over a decade, the European Union (EU) has proclaimed its leadership role in global environmental governance (GEG). In this article, we examine both the nature of its leadership and the underlying conditions for ‘actorness’ upon which leadership must depend. The EU’s record in the global conferences as well as its influence on the reform of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are also investigated. We argue that the EU has frequently sought to shape international environmental negotiations and promote sustainable development as an organising principle of global governance. Despite its inadequate status at the UN and internal problems, it has had a significant effect on the global agenda. However, due to persistent diplomatic opposition from other coalitions, its real, directly visible influence has been more modest. For genuine directional leadership, which goes beyond the defence of self-interest, the Union will have to make internal policy coherence a greater priority. Moreover, apart from relying solely on its weighty presence in the international system or its potential capabilities, the EU needs to achieve a high level of credibility in order to enhance its powers of persuasion.

EU Fraud: institutional and legal competence

This paper will focus on frauds committed against the budget of the European Union. It will consider the role of OLAF (the European Fraud Prevention Office) which is the lead agency in the fight against fraud. It will consider its powers and its capacity to co-ordinate the activities of anti-fraud agencies in twenty seven member states and the constraints which prevent it from operating in a more effective manner. The paper will also consider the role of other transnational bodies such as Eurojust and Europol and will seek to highlight the degree of fragmentation which exists with a multiplicity of actors involved in policing fraud, a fragmented legal approach and the difficulties this presents in policing sophisticated transnational frauds. The effect of EU expansion on this situation will also be examined and the EU anti-fraud efforts of the Czech Republic will be considered in some detail. The paper concludes that the legal system and the institutions are not yet in place to enable such frauds to be adequately policed.

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Transboundary river basin agreements in the Mekong and Zambezi basins: Enhancing environmental security or securitizing the environment?

Multilateral agreements are emerging as important mechanisms for structuring cooperation in politically and ecologically complex transboundary river basins around the world. While such agreements are offered and legitimized as a means to advance ecological and human security, they instead often promote state-centric environmental securitization. As a result, seemingly progressive agreements grounded in international law are likely to precipitate and mask environmental degradation until it becomes serious or even irreversible, creating both ecological and human security crises at a variety of scales. Case studies of wetland ecosystems in both the Zambezi and Mekong basins reveal the material and discursive linkages between international agreements and security. By drawing on critical approaches that acknowledge both the socially constructed and the multi-dimensional nature of sovereignty, this paper exposes significant institutional barriers to ecologically sustainable transboundary cooperation in the two basins.

An overview of the content and historical context of the international freshwater agreements that South Africa has entered into with neighbouring countries

Southern Africa is at a pivotal point in time for transboundary water cooperation. The number and extent of coverage of existing international water agreements and joint management institutions merits cautious optimism about future water management in the region. Yet, taken alone, a numerical account of water treaties reveals little about the context in which the agreements were negotiated, the nature of the rules and regulations adopted, or the influence of the agreements in addressing problems or enhancing joint governance. Drawing on a database containing all the international freshwater agreements entered into between South Africa and its neighbours since 1910, this article examines trends in the articulation of these treaties and discusses the implications of the rules and regulations they embody. Specific consideration is given to issues of information sharing, water allocation and organizations. This analysis is a first step towards understanding the impact of existing agreements, identifying opportunities for the negotiation of new treaties and enhancing existing systems.

Technology spillovers and stability of international climate coalitions

Cooperation in international environmental agreements appears difficult to attain because of strong free-rider incentives. This paper explores how different technology spillover mechanisms among regions can influence the incentives to join and stabilise an international agreement. We use an applied modelling framework (STACO) that enables us to investigate the stability of partial climate coalitions. Several theories on the impact of technology spillovers are evaluated by simulating a range of alternative specifications. We find that spillovers are a good instrument to increase the abatement efforts of coalitions and reduce the associated costs. In our setting, however, they cannot overcome the strong free-rider incentives that are present in larger coalitions, i.e. technology spillovers do not substantially increase the success of international environmental agreements. This conclusion is robust with respect to the specification of technology spillovers.

Climate change and the credibility of international commitments: What is necessary for the U.S. to deliver on such commitments?

The engagement of the United States is critical to the success of any international effort against global climate change. Although international climate efforts require long-lasting, credible commitments by participating countries, risk of failure to deliver on such commitments rises with the degree of gap that the domestic institutions permit between the executive and the legislature. The U.S. withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol indicated that the Clinton administration’s effort to bring international solutions into the domestic arena before domestic consensus was obtained was counterproductive. The congressional politics over budgetary allocation regarding the Bush administration’s technology policies showed that general preference to a technology-oriented approach to climate change alone did not ensure the credibility of international commitments. These cases revealed that the U.S. climate diplomacy was lacking in domestic institutional mechanisms that bring the executive branch’s deal at international negotiations, and the legislators’ preferences at home, closer together. For the U.S. to take leadership in international climate cooperation, domestic institutional frameworks which reconcile the interests of the two branches are necessary. This paper suggests that such domestic institutional frameworks feature two components: regular channels of communication between the two political branches; and, incentive mechanisms for the two branches to swiftly come to terms with each other.

Researching the use of force: the background to the international project

This article provides the background to an international project on use of force by the police that was carried out in seven countries. Force is often considered to be the defining characteristic of policing and much research has been conducted on the determinants, prevalence and control of the use of force, particularly in the United States. However, little work has looked at police officers’ own views on the use of force, in particular the way in which they justify it. Using a hypothetical encounter developed for this project, researchers in each country conducted focus groups with police officers in which they were encouraged to talk about the use of force. The results show interesting similarities and differences across countries and demonstrate the value of using this kind of research focus and methodology.

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Decision rules,membership and political centralization in the European Union

The decision to enter the European Union is based on a comparison of the costs of staying out and going it alone, and the costs membership. The latter depend on the degree of preference heterogeneity between prospective members and the Union as well as the decision rules employed for “constitutional” decisions. The same calculus guides the decision, by member states, to shift policies up to the Union level, only now the decision rules refer to centrally assigned policies. Preference heterogeneity makes more inclusive rules optimal in either case while at the same time reducing the attractiveness of membership or the centralization of policies to the EU level, respectively. The analysis complements and extends both traditional fiscal federalism literature as well as the more recent political economics literature on federalism.

European criminal law and European identity

This contribution aims to explain how European Criminal Law can be understood as constitutive of European identity. Instead of starting from European identity as a given, it provides a philosophical analysis of the construction of self-identity in relation to criminal law and legal tradition. The argument will be that the self-identity of those that share jurisdiction depends on and nourishes the legal tradition they adhere to and develop, while criminal jurisdiction is of crucial importance in this process of mutual constitution. This analysis will be complemented with a discussion of the integration of the first and the third pillar as aimed for by the Constitutional Treaty (TE), which would bring criminal law under majority rule and European democratic control. Attention will be paid to two ground breaking judgements of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) that seem to boil down to the fact that the Court actually manages to achieve some of the objectives of the CT even if this is not in force. This gives rise to a discussion of how the CT (and related judgements of the ECJ) may transform European criminal law in the Union to EU criminal law of the Union, thus producing an identity of the Union next to the identities prevalent in the Union. The contribution concludes with some normative questions about the kind of European identity we should aim to establish, given the fact that such identity will arise with further integration of criminal law into the first pillar.

The effect of EU structural funds on regional growth: assessing the evidence from Greece, 1990–2005

This paper brings empirical evidence on the impact of EU structural policy on regional income growth. The case of Greece over the period 1990–2005 is taken as an example. This period is characterized by the acceleration of the European integration process, with a central role assigned to the EU structural support to less prosperous regions. Regional growth is approached through the estimation of β-convergence equations using panel methods of estimation. The empirical results reveal a positive impact of structural funds support on regional growth while income convergence is enhanced. In addition, a significant influence of spatial income and unemployment spillovers on regional income growth is evidenced, illustrating the recent growth performance in Greece. Our results leave ample room for European regional policy to operate for the promotion of growth and the reduction of regional disparities.

Excuses in law and in morality: a response to Marcia Baron

In this analysis of Marcia Baron’s account of excuses, I seek to do two things. I try to draw out the nature of the distinction between forgiving and excusing. I also defend the distinction between excuses (like duress), and denials of responsibility (like insanity).

Methodological aspects of the Dutch National Threat Assessment

This paper discusses issues related to measuring organized crime as they have become manifest in the Dutch contribution to the EU Organised Crime Threat Assessment (OCTA). It intends to convey to a wider academic community certain issues of definition, methodology and accountability, understanding the NTA process in terms of the communication of risks in a context of competitive defining institutions.

The Group of 77 in the international climate negotiations: recent developments and future directions

First, we describe and analyze the main set of G77 positions in the climate negotiations and the dynamics behind the emergence of these positions. While it is puzzling that the G77 has managed to maintain itself as a group in spite of internal differences along variables as prosperity, emissions and vulnerability to climate change, we claim that a core element behind this cohesion is that these countries share domestic governance problems as much as poverty and economic underdevelopment. Second, we discuss how recent trends of economic and political development in the third world influence the climate policy strategies of the G77 group in the future. The main factor here is the economicand social progress in states like China, India and Brazil, which separates them from the poorer and less powerful G77 states. Increasing heterogeneity along variables like governance, growth, and importance for the international economy is creating an increasing drive among the most successful G77 states towards bilateral agreements with industrialised powers. We do not foresee a departure from traditional G77 positions and membership by these states in the official climate negotiations or a departure from the Kyoto process, but an increasing reliance on bilateral agreements with industrialized countries that link considerations for energy security and the environment. The ability to gain these advantages without commitments may make these states less interested in adopting commitments for the post-Kyoto period. This is unfortunate for the LDCs and the AOSIS groups within the G77, who probably are most vulnerable to climate change.

The East Asian Seas UNEP Regional Seas Programme

In East Asia, the Action Plan of the Coordinating Body of the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA) aims to protect the marine and coastal environment. COBSEA is funded by member countries and UNEP, member countries discuss common problems and resolve and diagnose cross-boundary degradation of marine environments. Success has come from funding for coral reef community activities and the Global Environment Facility funds for the South China Sea Project. COBSEA is actively engaged in the Global Plan of Action for Land-based sources of pollution and the Swedish Government is funding a programme to integrate marine and coastal activities in East Asian Seas. COBSEA is not always successful because of lack of member countries’ commitment and understanding of marine and coastal degradation by the wider community. COBSEA could easily combine with other agencies or have closer ties with them. It is suggested that the COBSEA member countries decide on a code of practice for donors and the responsibilities of funding recipients.

Police Stress: A Structural Model

A number of existing studies have identified various factors that contribute to stress among police officers. This analysis is unique among these insofar as it employs structural equation modeling to specify, in path model format, the influence of participation in workplace decision-making and other variables on employee stress levels. The findings of this analysis provide new as well as confirmatory statistical evidence regarding the mitigating and direct effects of certain variables on physical stress. This study poses important implications by lending itself to meaningful future comparative research across occupations such as corrections and probation / parole.