Strategies for Improving Global Environmental Governance: Challenging the Status Quo

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Strategies for Improving Global
Environmental Governance
Challenging the Status Quo

• Maria Ivanova and Daniel Esty
• Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
• Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy
• Open Meeting of the Human Dimensions of Global
  Environmental Change Research Community
• Rio De Janeiro, October 6-8, 2001

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• No crisis in history has so clearly demonstrated
  the interdependence of nations as the
  environmental crisis.
• -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, 2000.
• A central problem of global governance is that
  however far and fast international economic
  integration proceeds, political authority remains
  vested in national governments and national
  politicians.
• -- V. Cable 1999, Globalization and Global
  Governance.

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Presentation Plan

• Defining global environmental governance
• do we need reform?
• do we need to reform?
• do we reform?
• could and should be engaged?

WHY
WHAT
HOW
WHO
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Premises and Assumptions

• Complexity of environmental problems
• Inability of current regime to address them
  
• Status quo (political and institutional) not a
  constant, therefore not an insurmountable
  obstacle

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Defining Global Governance

• Governance is the framework of social and
  economic systems and legal and political
  structures through which humanity manages
  itself.
• -- World Humanity Action Trust, 2000.

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Why Reform?

• Nature of problems
• Scale, scope and complexity
• Failed collective action
• Lack of incentives for collaboration
• Fragmentation
• Institutional proliferation

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Why Reform?, Continued

• Deficient authority
• Inadequate mandate, funding, political support
• Insufficient legitimacy
• Lack of process and outcome fairness

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What to Reform?

• Institutional structures
• Institutional methods of governing

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What to Achieve?

• Improved problem solving
• Information
• Knowledge
• Capacity
• Improved collective action
• Create a policy space for continuous interaction
  among actors
• Ensure that multi-dimensional issues are
  addressed directly and with full participation
• Uncover the common interests of parties through a
  continuous flow of information

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What to Achieve, Continued

• Enhanced legitimacy
• Proportionality
• Participation
• Equity
• Common but differentiated responsibilities
• Strengthened policy space
• Institutional center of gravity
• Counterbalance and counterpart to economic and
  trade regime
• Division of responsibilities where trade,
  environment, and development intersect

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What to Achieve, Continued

• Improved fairness
• Common but differentiated responsibilities
• Capacity-building
• Finance, technology, information, and knowledge
  transfer
• New global ethic
• Knowledge
• Perceptions
• Values

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How to Reform?
Global

• environmental mechanism
• Data collection mechanism
• Scientific and analytic assessment mechanism
• Rule-making mechanism
• Financing mechanism
• Technology transfer and capacity building
  mechanism
• Civil society participation mechanism
• Compliance and reporting mechanism
• Implementation strategies mechanism
• Dispute settlement mechanism

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Who to Engage?

• Institutions
• Public policy networks
• Civil society
• Governments

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The New Solutions

• Leadership
• Collaboration
• Political will