Suchergebnisse

The performance of the European Union (EU) in international climate policy improved significantly over much of the 1990s and 2000s with respect to goal achievement (effectiveness) and relevance. However, the failure of the Copenhagen Summit in 2009 represented a major backlash for the EU. This article argues that internal factors -- including in particular the development of internal climate policy -- have mostly enhanced the EU's performance conditions, but can hardly account for the Copenhagen backlash. In contrast, situational and structural changes in the international configuration of climate politics first supported and then significantly impeded a good EU performance in the 2000s. Overall, distinguishing systematically between EU internal factors that are under the direct control of the EU itself and external conditions on which EU influence is more limited allows us to identify the evolution of the external political 'environment' of international EU leadership on climate change, and the failure of the EU to adapt its strategy timely to this evolving environment, as major forces underlying the Copenhagen backlash. Adapted from the source document.

One year after the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Summit, the next conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol in December 2010 adopted the so-called Cancun Agreements. Thereby, the Cancun conference succeeded in keeping the UN climate process alive and averting serious damage to multilateralism more broadly. However, the Cancun Agreements fall seriously short of providing for effective action on climate change. The current weakness of the international framework reinforces the rationale for strengthening domestic EU climate policies. It also requires a further rethinking of the EU's international leadership strategy. Adapted from the source document.

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. Adapted from the source document.

Little attention has so far been paid in regime-theoretical approaches to feedbacks & feedback processes. As a contribution to filling this gap, a feedback mechanism compatible with "rationalist" approaches is developed here. According to this interpretation, the behavioral effects of a regime can lead to changes in the domestic bases of actor interests & can thus influence regime evolution. On the basis of an analysis of the environmental regimes for the regulation of whaling, the protection of the ozone layer, & the prevention of operational oil pollution by tankers, two different qualities of the "reflexive dimension" of international regimes can be distinguished. While some feedbacks can speed up regime evolution even under unchanged "exogenous" conditions & can thus lead to a reinforcing feedback process, stabilizing feedback effects will tend to stabilize the current status quo. When we take into account the reflexive dimension of international regimes, the longer-term effects of regime regulations come into focus. These have hitherto been neglected, but are of great importance when there is a choice to be made between available regulatory options in the process of designing regimes, as well as for an improved understanding of processes of regime evolution. Adapted from the source document.

Analysing the European Union's (EU) role in the negotiations of the 2010 Nagoya Protocol on access and benefit sharing regarding genetic resources, this article argues for the integration of (1) the EU's policy objectives and (2) their achievement in the analysis of the EU's performance and leadership in international (environmental) negotiations. We first develop a conceptual and explanatory framework that highlights the inter-relationship between both aspects. We then establish that the EU pursued conservative policy objectives in the Nagoya process (becoming more moderate in 2006/2007) but was highly successful in achieving its goals. The explanatory analysis provides illustrative evidence of how the degree of ambition of the EU's policy objectives directly affects and indirectly frames goal achievement: while conservative objectives are easier to realize than ambitious ones, factors such as domestic legislation, internal interest homogeneity, universal norms and external policy making procedures may be especially important for achieving ambitious goals. Adapted from the source document.

This article explores the impact of the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity on the complex of international institutions involved in the governance of access to, and benefit sharing from, genetic resources. Conceptually, we develop an interplay management perspective that focuses on the governance of institutional complexes and their internal division of labor by means of collective decisions within the elemental institutions. We seek to understand interplay management with reference to constellations of actors' interests and power, as well as institutional factors (commitments, inter-institutional consistency). We argue that the strength of status-quo forces led to the Nagoya Protocol consolidating and clarifying (rather than changing) the existing interinstitutional division of labor. The analysis demonstrates the difficulty of changing existing inter-institutional balances, yet suggests that a consolidation of an inter-institutional equilibrium can induce important new, pathdependent developments in fragmented governance architectures. Adapted from the source document.

This article develops a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of the interaction between international institutions as a first step towards building a theory of international interaction. It examines how international institutions may exert causal influence on each other's development and effectiveness and suggests that four general causal mechanisms can elucidate the distinct routes through which influence travels from one institution to another. Institutional interaction can thus rely on transfer of knowledge, commitments established under an institution, behavioural effects of an institution, and functional linkage of the ultimate governance targets of the institutions involved. The article also puts forward hypotheses about the likely effects of specific types of institutional interaction for governance within the international system. The causal mechanisms and types of interaction are mutually exclusive models that help analyse real-world interaction situations. They may also serve as a basis for the systematic analysis of more complex interaction situations.

The competitive quest of the Cartagena Protocol & the WTO for authority to regulate international trade in genetically modified organisms (GMOs) exemplifies a typical interaction between international institutions with diverging objectives. This article first develops a conceptual framework for the analysis of institutional interaction that emphasizes disaggregation of complex interaction situations into separate cases of clearly directed inter-institutional influence. These cases can follow different causal mechanisms. Second, applying this framework to the interaction between the Cartagena Protocol & the WTO reveals that existing commitments have driven parties toward a step-wise delimitation of the institutions' jurisdictions. Although the WTO acquired a firstmover advantage by structuring the regulatory field, the Cartagena Protocol showed surprising strength in exploiting the remaining room for maneuver. The structure of international governance thus steers institutions with differing objectives toward a jurisdictional balance that, while reflecting existing power relations, limits the potential for conflict & frames available policy choices. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

This article argues that a World Environment Organization (WEO) does not promise to enhance international environmental governance. First, we claim that the establishment of an international organization alone in a policy field currently populated by regimes cannot be expected to significantly improve environmental governance because there is no qualitative difference between these two forms of governance institutions. Second, we submit that significant improvement of international environmental governance through institutional re-arrangement must rely on a modification of decision-making procedures &/or a change of institutional boundaries. Third, we develop three principal models of a possible WEO. A WEO formally providing an umbrella for existing regimes without modifying issue-areas & decision-making procedures would be largely irrelevant. A WEO integrating decision-making processes of existing regimes so as to form comprehensive "world environment round" of intergovernmental bargaining would be largely dysfunctional & prone to a host of negative side-effects. A 'supranational' WEO including large-scale use of majority decision-making & far-reaching enforcement mechanisms across a range of environmental issues might considerably enhance international environmental governance, but it appears to be grossly utopian. In conclusion, a WEO cannot be at the same time realistic, significant & beneficial for international environmental governance. Available political resources should be invested in advancing existing & emerging sectoral environmental regimes rather than in establishing a WEO. 67 References. Adapted from the source document.

Climate change has taken centre stage in European and international politics. Since the second half of the 1980s, the EU has established itself as an international leader on climate change and has considerably improved its leadership record. The Union has significantly enhanced both its external representation and its internal climate policies. However, implementation and policy coherence, coordination of EU environmental diplomacy, an evolving international agenda, EU enlargement, and a still precarious EU unity remain major challenges. Shifts in underlying driving forces and advances of EU domestic climate and energy policies nevertheless support the expectation that the EU will remain a progressive force in international climate policy for some time. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThis article examines why the European Union (EU) is recognized as a relevant actor in some international institutions, but not in others. Drawing on theories of international institutions and corporate action, it develops a theoretical approach toward EU actorness that demonstrates under which conditions third parties gain an interest in recognizing this actor as a relevant party to international institutions and how the EU can become an actor in its own right. The EU is expected to be recognized as a relevant actor in an international institution if it has acquired action capability in the relevant governance area, while formal status plays an inferior role. This hypothesis is subsequently assessed for six international institutions that vary regarding the degree of EU action capability and the EU's formal status, including the WTO and IMF, FAO and WHO as well as two international environmental regimes. Empirical results confirm the fruitfulness of the theoretical approach.