I. Intro

A. NEW: For your final paper, think about "Behavioral Pathways" or "Causal Mechanisms", that is, the processes by which the treaty makes things different than they would be otherwise. Young describes 6 in detail in The effectiveness of international environmental regimes : causal connections and behavioral mechanisms on reserve. See in particular page 19 on. 

1. Regimes as utility modifiers

2. Regimes as enhancers of cooperation

3. Regimes as bestowers of authority

4. Regimes as learning facilitators

5. Regimes as role definers

6. Regimes as agents of internal realignments

B. These notes build extensively on notes generously provided by Ronnie Lipschutz (UC-Santa Cruz) and Kate O’Neill (UC-Berkeley)

C. Note, also have readings in negotiation section on NGO influence.

D. Nobel Peace Prize to Wangari Maathai for work on environmental protection and sustainable development as the basis for peace.

II. Who can or will protect nature?

A. International cooperation is usually assumed to be answer but …

1. A world government that will be granted police powers to enforce regulations

2. Privatization of regulations so that corporations & other actors are self-regulating

3. A mixed public-private regulatory system in which state, social & economic actors balance & deal with each other

4. Which is what is happening...

B. Efforts to protect the environment take several forms

1. Cars, power plants, mechanized agriculture, city streets & buildings are the way they are, and do the things they do, in reflection of an implicit set of underlying, political assumptions, ideologies, naturalizations ("it’s just that way!")

2. Governance: akin to government, manifest in the many regimes, alliances, coalitions, organizations, etc. seeking to address the collective action/cooperation problem

3. Regulation: the emergence of norms, rules & laws that govern human behavior in relationship to various parts of nature

4. Participatory activism: assorted & widespread practices outside of official institutions aimed at protection, restoration & preservation

III. Types of solutions - lots of involvement of non-state actors

A. International treaties - Again, note that anarchy as absence of government does not mean absence of governance

1. NGOs as source of pressure for agreement

2. NGOs as monitors of agreement - NGO involvement in CSD - modeled on Human Rights experience

3. NGOs as enforcers - Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace have taken direct action, often even when not a violation. Also can take approach of

4. Lobbying & "education" of policymakers

a) In legislative bodies, at all levels

b) Through administrative & legal means

B. NGO-Governmental agreements - Debt-for-Nature swaps; Greenpeace-China work on CFCs

C. Business-government agreements - Merck/INBio agreement

D. Corporations & corporate associations: ISO 14000; Business Council for Sustainable Development

E. Public-private regulatory projects: World Commission on Dams; Forestry Stewardship Council

F. Non-governmental organizations: Greenpeace; WWF; World Resources Institute

G. Networks, alliances, coalitions: Climate Action Network; Int’l Rivers Network

H. Green parties

I. Social movements: anti-dam activists

IV. Global civil society: Wapner

A. Global civil society – "domain of associational life situated above the individual and below the state" but across state boundaries and which results "in a sense of allegiance and societal norms" that influences "the way public issues are addressed … [and as such] plays a role in governing the world polity"
(Wapner, 1997, 66-67, 72, 77).

1. Examples: bowling clubs, scouting groups, homeowner assoc. Can also be seen as locus of non-formal authority, rule & jurisdiction

2. Civil society as an alternative to government (or international treaties) as the source of governance of different issue areas – we can regulate ourselves without government

3. An increasingly thick web of interactions among individuals but across state boundaries that are not controlled by the state may produce, as a consequent, civil society. Elements include:

a) Business travel that has social domino effects

b) Tourism, travel, and exchange programs

c) Scientific and disciplinary conferences

d) Religion and ethnicity also help create some degree of global civil society

e) Transnat’l movements for human rights, indigenous peoples, pop. & family planning, development networks, environmental justice, ecology & environment

f) Local management of watersheds & nature preserves

4. Governs behavior in several ways

a) NGOs and civil society generally influence behavior through unself-conscious processes

b) Also, directly try to influence policies and behaviors of states

(1) Getting things on the agenda

(2) Motivating negotiations to begin

(3) Getting specific policies adopted – like Inuit Regional Conservation Strategy for the Arctic mentioned in Barker and Soyez (GPB, 114)

c) Also, self-conscious and direct action that circumvents the state

(1) CERES principles, Forestry Stewardship Council, other attempts to influence behavior without state involvement

(2) Debt-for-Nature swaps and Merck-INBio agreement

d) "Local" groups are linked into global networks of "knowledge & practice"

V. NGOs (Umbrella term for a whole range of groups (and note self-identification element))

A. Transnational issue networks (Keck and Sikkink): Actors working on an issue who are bound together by shared values, a common discourse, and a dense exchange of information and services

1. Shared set of principled beliefs

2. Reliance on volunteers and activists

B. Resources- formal and informal

1. No legal, economic or physical force at disposal

2. No military or physical force used. Contrast with Earth First! and other monkey wrenching groups.

3. No official mandate or standing. Self-proclaimed protectors of human rights. Decidedly undemocratic. Undemocratic within themselves, but serve an advocacy role that makes system as a whole more democratic. Voice for those who would not otherwise have a voice.

4. Views and norms do not reflect norms of all of global society. They may be in the "best interests" of all but that wouldn't be accepted by all.

5. Small staff and resources. Power comes from the indirect people and pressure resources they can mobilize. "High leverage"

6. Mostly claim moral vs. expert (scientific), legal (government), material (corporate) authority

C. Tactics: Methods for exercising power: Rarely use instrumental influences of sanctions or incentives

1. Broaden scope of conflict: Public audience for initially private conflict. Use credible and impartial information. Hold themselves to demanding standard of evidence and don't publish everything they know. Losing actors broaden scope of conflict in hopes of winning at another level.

2. Shift terms of debate: Make reference to international norms that are also generally accepted by population at large in many countries. More importantly, even those who may not agree with the norms of human rights are hard-pressed to find an alternative principle as a defense that has anywhere near equivalent legitimacy. Symbolism - candle and barbed wire - no legitimate opposites at international level.

a) Environment vs. development is classic case.

b) Shift in terms of debate in practice: Peru case: First say abuses not occurring; Then say abuses needed in emergency; Then say abuses occurred in past but not today. All three legitimize principle that other countries have the right to dictate its relations with its citizens. Debate is discussed in terms dictated by regime. Must justify actions in terms of international HR, even if this is only lip service.

c) Note that if do need to justify, then only need to justify those actions which citizenry knows about and, if this is true, then publicity plays an important role in determining what needs to be justified, since things the citizens don't know about need not be justified.

3. Make principled but pragmatic demands:

a) Clear and specific deadlines

b) Specific calls for action embedded in principles and norms supported by international law

c) Respectful and courteous - undercut ability of opponent to find a means to deny authority

d) Demands are not those that could be made by those within the country, and they carry different weight than they would if called for internally.

e) Regulation; reference to domestic laws, e.g., Mendes article, and to international law as in COICA article

4. Activism, including protest

5. Appeals to norms and creating linkages between norms of powerful and interests of the weak

6. Organizing – strength in numbers – "empates" (boycotts to prevent deforestation)

7. Education campaigns emphasizing benefits and risks, such as that over Alar, bio-engineered foods, toxins, etc. utilize the obfuscation inherent in "occluded technologies."

8. Information/Agenda-setting/ Lobbying of government representatives and convention secretariats

9. NGO engagement in international negotiations & other activities participate in the "depoliticized professional/technical rhetorics of civil engineering, public health, corporate management, scientific experiment, technical design, and property ownership". At meetings: formal and informal roles: draft treaties, occasionally can get on to national delegations; sandbags at the Hague. Whom do you lobby in the global arena?

a) Domestic legislatures to put pressure on international negotiations, organizations

b) Attendance at international meetings to advise, pressure, harass national delegations

c) Organized public campaigns to pressure states or corporations to change behavior

d) Public education & protest to try to change mass attitudes (& generate domestic pressure)

e) But there is no global court system (yet!)

10. Monitoring/ watchdog/ whistle-blowing roles - e.g. hazardous wastes

11. Other actions, not necessarily targeted at state actors: protests; local organizing; fundraising; tree sitting, nature conservation, etc. Even environmental restoration & management & other forms of action all rest on setting "right" the "ungovernmentality" arising from the subpolitical activities of governments & experts

D. NGOs becoming increasingly important actors but face several constraints and dilemmas

1. Resources - people, time, money (contrast with MNCs)

2. Credibility and impartiality as important resources too

3. Local environmental groups mobilized by NIMBY concerns that displace rather than solve environmental problems

4. North-South issues:

a) Western/northern emphases on conservation rather than use - no indigenas allowed within the parks (see Mendes article in GPB), ecotourism

b) Building accountability to local concerns – COICA article addressing environmentalists

c) Different concerns and values - e.g. DDT and malaria, global warming

5. What differences do Southern NGOs face?

a) state structure

b) resources

c) violence - Ogoni, Chico Mendes

6. Backlash NGOs - Global Climate Coalition, Wise Use movement

VI. Multinational Corporations

A. Multinationals extremely powerful and influential in civil society

B. Emergence in IEP

1. Rio: Business Council on Sustainable Development

a) technocratic, private, top-down approach to international regulation

b) cases: ozone, hazardous waste, climate change

c) firms: Shell, BP - already doing emissions trading across corporate divisions

C. Private regimes

1. ISO-14000 – corporate equivalent to CERES principles

2. Corporate norms: application of principles in one country into another – for both ill, and perhaps, good

3. Response to public pressure, or to internal dialogues within corporation

D. Identifying "markets" in which make money by protecting the environment

1. Technologies

2. Recycling

3. Eco-tourism