Enforcing compliance with international environmental agreements using a deposit-refund system

Whether nations are able to cooperatively manage shared resources through international environmental agreements (IEAs) depends on whether compliance with voluntary commitments can be enforced. Given that nations are sovereign enforcing compliance with IEAs cannot rely on the presence of a strong sanctioning body. Nonetheless, enforcement provisions must be effective in the sense that they will deter non-compliance and credible in the sense that they will actually be imposed. In this paper, we address the problem of enforcing compliance with IEAs by examining one promising mechanism—a deposit-refund system—that exhibits the necessary features for effective enforcement. We analyze a simple model to demonstrate the desirable properties of the mechanism and then consider the effects of imperfect monitoring, uncertainty, partial participation and reputation on the effectiveness of a deposit-refund system.     

Technology investment, bargaining, and international environmental agreements

If countries are to engage in international environmental cooperation, they must bargain over the distribution of gains. When future bargaining over pollution abatement is expected, how should a country decide on public technology investments to reduce the domestic cost of pollution abatement? I find that while countries tend to underinvest because they fail to internalize the global benefits of new technology, the magnitude of the problem depends on a country’s bargaining power. Powerful countries underinvest less frequently, because they expect to reap most of the global benefits from new technology in the international negotiations. I also investigate the effectiveness of a simple reciprocal technology agreement. I find that it can help solve the underinvestment problem, and this beneficial effect is particularly pronounced in the case of powerful countries. These findings imply that changing the bargaining protocol on climate change to the benefit of powerful countries may help secure the necessary technology investments.     

The effectiveness of international environmental agreements

Many argue that international environmental agreements (IEAs) can alter states’ cost-benefit analyses by providing crucial information about the costs of environmental degradation. Thereby, IEAs may help to effectively curb environmental pollution. However, previous attempts to empirically measure institutional effectiveness found it difficult to provide credible estimates because they have missed to produce convincing counterfactuals. This study empirically estimates the effectiveness of one prominent example of an international environmental institution, the Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution agreement (LRTAP). It sets forth a transparent identification strategy in light of latest advancements in the causal inference literature and presents evidence for the non-effectiveness of the LRTAP in changing member states’ behavior in terms of anthropogenic emissions of two substances (NO _x and SO₂). By deriving and illustrating the use of difference-in- differences (DID) design in the context of IEAs, this study provides a general methodological tool kit to drawing causal inferences about the effectiveness of international environmental institutions.     

The political economy of international environmental agreements: a survey

This paper surveys the recent literature on the political economy of the formation of international environmental agreements. The survey covers theoretical modelling approaches and empirical studies including experimental work. Central to our survey is the question how the political process impacts different stages of agreement formation and stability. We distinguish the rules defined during pre-negotiations that govern negotiations, ratification and implementation. Strategic delegation and lobbying are directly relevant during the negotiation and ratification phases. Implementation, the choice of policy instruments at the national level, will also be impacted by lobbying and indirectly influence negotiations. We find that the basic theoretical framework for the analysis of international environmental agreements is largely unrelated to empirical approaches. Furthermore, we observe that models of the political process of agreement formation, like for example sequential game models, are yet to be developed.     

Lessons learnt from two decades of international environmental agreements: law

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - As Patricia Birnie cautiously and prophetically put it in the inaugural issue of this journal (INEA 1, January 2001, p. 74),...     

Signaling in international environmental agreements: the case of early and delayed action

This paper presents a stylized international environmental agreements game with two regions differing in their preference for environmental quality. If side payments are allowed, cooperation can increase the payoffs accruing to both regions. However, cooperation can be impeded by asymmetric information about the regions’ types and only become feasible once a region has credibly revealed its type. We show how in a two-stage game early (delayed) action can act as a credible signal to reveal private information on high (low) benefits. Yet, the cooperative solution with asymmetric information is Pareto-dominated by the outcome with perfect information.     

Interplay management: enhancing environmental policy integration among international institutions

This article investigates how and to what extent the current management of inter-institutional relationships within International Environmental Governance (‘interplay management’) contributes to Environmental Policy Integration (EPI), and identifies options for enhancing EPI among international institutions. To this end, it first develops a framework for the systematic analysis and assessment of interplay management as a means for achieving ‘strong’ EPI, distinguishing four levels and two principal modes of management. On this basis, the article assesses the current contribution of International Environmental Governance to advancing EPI as regards three categories of institutional interaction. The analysis demonstrates the need to fit interplay management to the particular governance conditions of varying interaction situations and highlights the lack of systematic and consistent support for EPI among international institutions. Options to improve this situation include in particular promoting inter-institutional learning and assistance for the benefit of environmental institutions as well as ensuring consideration of and respect for environmental requirements. Adapting the statutes and mandates of individual institutions and developing suitable guidance under general international (environmental) law have the highest potential for implementing these options. In contrast, joint management initiatives and a strengthened international environmental organisation have a much more limited, supplementary potential.     

The self-selection of democracies into treaty design: insights from international environmental agreements

Generally, democratic regime type is positively associated with participating in international environmental agreements. In this context, this study focuses on the legal nature of an agreement, which is linked to audience costs primarily at the domestic level that occur in case of non-compliance and are felt especially by democracies. Eventually, more legalized (“hard-law”) treaties make compliance potentially more challenging and as democratic leaders may anticipate the corresponding audience costs, the likelihood that democracies select themselves into such treaties decreases. The empirical implication of our theory is that environmental agreements with a larger share of democratic members are less likely to be characterized by hard law. Results from quantitative analyses strongly support our argument, shed new light on the relationship between participation in international agreements and the form of government, and also have implications for the “words-deeds” debate in international environmental policy-making.     

Sexual psychopathy, public policy, and the liberal state

This article addresses several interrelated issues. It strives to situate a class of offenders within the liberal state. The disposition of this class allows an analysis of the tensions in liberal theory. It highlights the ways liberalism attributes individual responsibility for criminal behavior and captures the limits of those attributions. It also reveals liberalism's shift away from models of responsibility toward the social control of deviancy. The disposition of this class points toward the therapeutic mask involved in the social control model. Further, the disposition of this class may well serve as a model for isolating and demonizing other disfavored classes, including political dissenters.     

International environmental agreements with agenda and interaction between pollutants

This paper analyzes how the sequence of negotiating agreements on each pollutant affects coalition behavior in international environmental agreements (IEAs) when multiple and correlated pollutants exist. I consider a model in which countries suffer from two pollutants with different externality characteristics and attempt to cooperate by sequentially negotiating on IEAs. The membership outcome depends on the environmental concern, abatement technology, spillover effect and most importantly the correlation between pollutants as either substitutes or complements. I find that cooperation in the first stage can facilitate later negotiations and that countries are prone to cooperate on a pollutant of common concern. Moreover, except for symmetric countries, different negotiation agendas may result in distinctive participation outcomes when pollutants are complements. Therefore, with systematic policy design, the negotiation sequence can serve as another method to encourage participation and cooperation in IEAs.     

Oran Young and international institutions

Current understandings of global environmental governance owe much to the numerous theoretical, empirical, and methodological contributions of Oran Young. Over the course of 50 years, Young has created many of the theories and typologies we use to explain why international environmental institutions form and what types of effects they have and the conditions under which they have them. His contributions have been central to the development of the concepts of institutional dynamics, interplay, and scale. He has made major contributions to environmental policy globally and in the Arctic, both through his own work and by fostering the work of other scholars. This article summarizes the contributions Young has made to the field and introduces the articles in this special issue that honor those contributions.     

Military spending and economic growth: a panel data investigation

Economic Change and Restructuring - The present study examines the worldwide effect of military spending on economic growth for the period 1960–2017 utilizing the dynamic common correlated...     

Uniform administrative requirements for grants and agreements with institutions of higher education, hospitals and other non-profit organizations, and with commercial organizations, foreign governments, organizations under the jurisdiction of foreign governments, and international organizations--DOL. Final rule

The Department of Labor is issuing these regulations pursuant to the requirements of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular No. A-110 (Revised), which provides standards for obtaining consistency and uniformity among Federal agencies in the administration of grants and agreements with institutions of higher education, hospitals, and other non-profit organizations. This rule also applies to the Department of Labor's grants to commercial organizations, foreign governments, organizations under the jurisdiction of foreign governments and international organizations. OMB issued Circular A-110 in 1976 and, except for a minor revision in February 1987, the Circular remained unchanged until revised in 1993. To update the Circular, OMB established an interagency task force to review the Circular. The task force solicited suggestions for changes to the Circular from university groups, non-profit organizations and other interested parties and compared for consistency the provisions of similar provisions applied to State and local governments. The revised Circular and these regulations reflect the results of these efforts.     

Review essay / perfectionist moral theory,the criminal law,and the liberal state

Robert P. George, Making Men Moral: Civil Liberties and Public Morality Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, xvi + 241 pp.     

Risk-sharing agreements to cover environmental damage: theory and practice

Mordernization has witnessed increasingly new industrial sectors which have the potential to create environmental disasters. The insolvency of risk creators in case of such disasters may lead to insufficient compensation as well as to a dilution of preventive incentives. Insurance is a traditional instrument to address these problems, but is subject to limitations such as the lack of information by the insurers on the risk and limited insurance capacity. The risk-sharing agreement is an alternative which is widely used in high-risk sectors but it received relative little attention in academic literature. This paper analyses the potential of risk-sharing agreements in minimizing total social costs of environmental harmful activities, in comparison with insurance. The comparison shows the advantage of risk-sharing agreements in terms of less demanding information requirements, allowing for mutual monitoring and the potential to reduce administrative costs. However, the analysis also shows that a few conditions need to be met for such advantages to be materialized. This paper then discusses a typology of various risk-sharing agreements and illustrates the different categories with examples from the maritime and nuclear sectors. Based on these experiences, this paper explores the possibilities to expand risk-sharing agreements to other policy areas where environmental risks may emerge.     

Managing global change for sustainable development: technology,community and multilateral environmental agreements

The purpose of this paper is to consider how international law has sought to mediate between the promotion of environmentally sound technologies and local community participation. It will be suggested that the paradigm of sustainable development presents the most sensible framework through which to consider these issues. The paper will then present three short case studies centred around various aspects of the ongoing implementation of the Rio Conventions, namely the endorsement of sequestration activities within the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the development of an access and benefit sharing framework under the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity and further encouragement of community participation in the 1994 UN Convention to Combat Desertification. In conclusion, the paper will suggest that community participation must be given comparable status with the promotion of technological advances if long-term success is ever likely to be attained.