International Organizations in Global Environmental Governance

Frank Biermann, Bernd Siebenhüner, Anna Schreyögg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9781134031320
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book provides a comparative study of the role of international organizations in environmental governance. Whilst a growing body of literature considers global governance in a number of policy areas, this volume delivers one of the first comprehensive accounts of international organizations in relation to environmental policy.

Providing the reader with key insights within this area of global governance, the book focuses on policies developing in relation to climate change, biodiversity and international environmental funding. Presenting a compelling and up-to-date account of developments within this burgeoning policy area, the volume:

• includes a range of case studies including the World Bank, UNEP and the OECD

• presents quantitative and qualitative research that advances understanding of international organizations in the field of international relations

• delivers contributions from a range of internationally renowned academics and specialists within the field

International Organizations in Global Environmental Governance will be of interest to students and scholars of international relations theory, international economics, environmental policy, organizational theory and environmental studies.

1 Global environmental governance and international organizations

Setting the stage

Frank Biermann, Bernd Siebenhüner and Anna Schreyögg

International organizations in a changing world

The history of international organizations dates back hundreds of years, with a major growth in their number, size and mandate since 1945. While there were merely 37 international organizations in 1909, today more than 250 major agencies are in place, along with hundreds of smaller bureaucracies such as treaty secretariats or United Nations programmes. International organizations, like most other actors in world politics, have been challenged in the last decades through major transformations in the international system, ranging from economic globalization to the end of the bipolar order, global environmental degradation, the information revolution, or the rise of transnational terrorism.

Two transformations, we argue, are particularly relevant for the way in which international organizations function: (1) the general shift from intergovernmental politics to global governance, and (2) the increasing functional differentiation of international decision-making, including the emergence of environmental policy as a distinct field of international politics. It is these transformations and their impacts on international organizations that are at the centre of this book.

From intergovernmental politics to global governance

As for the first transformation, ‘global governance’ is now a key term of the discourse on world politics. Global governance became a rallying call for policy advocates who hail it as panacea for the evils of globalization; a global menace for opponents who fear it as the universal hegemony of the many by the powerful few; and an analytical concept that has given rise to much discussion among scholars of international relations. As is typical for new terms that rise in popularity within a short time in different communities and literatures, no clear definition exists yet. While some see global governance as an emerging new phenomenon of world politics that can be described and analysed, others conceptualize global governance as a political programme or project that is needed to cope with problems of modernity (the affirmative-normative perspective) or that is to be criticized for its flaws and attempts at global domination of weak states by the powerful few (the critical-normative perspective) (for reviews of the literature see Biermann 2006; Dingwerth and Pattberg 2006; Biermann and Pattberg 2008).

We do not propose an exclusive conceptualization of global governance here. All current definitions have pros and cons depending on the context in which they are used. Given the increasing complexity and interdependence of world society in the face of economic and ecological globalization, more effective global regimes and organizations are needed. There is little contestation that this political reform programme can be called ‘global governance’. In addition, today’s international relations differ from the 1950s and 1960s in many respects, and it seems appropriate to denote these new observable forms of international regulation as ‘global governance’. In particular, we see ‘global governance’ as being defined by three new phenomena that make the world of today different from what it used to be in the 1950s (see in more detail Biermann and Pattberg 2008). First, ‘global governance’ describes world politics that are no longer confined to nation states but characterized by increased participation of actors other than central governments, including networks of experts, environmentalist organizations and multinational corporations as well as new agencies set up by governments. Here, intergovernmental organizations are among the most important. Second, global governance is characterized through the rise of new forms of institutions in addition to the traditional system of legally binding documents negotiated by states. Politics is now often organized in networks and in new forms of public–private cooperation negotiated between states and non-state entities. Intergovernmental organizations, again, play a major role in these new mechanisms. Third, global governance is marked by an increasing segmentation of different layers and clusters of rule-making and rule-implementing, fragmented both vertically between supranational, international, national and subnational layers of authority and horizontally between different parallel rule-making systems maintained by different groups of actors. Again, the role of intergovernmental organizations is key in this respect.

This system of global governance poses particular challenges for international organizations. On the one hand, the rising influence of international organizations in itself is part of, and one of the driving forces behind, the emerging ‘multiactor’ global governance and new systems of fragmented, ‘multilayered’ global governance with diffuse authority. Yet international organizations are also affected by the changing context of world politics, in which lines of authority blur, levels of governance change and multiply, and in which the traditional principals of international organizations – the national governments – are accompanied by a variety of other actors that are at times equally influential, even though building on different, and usually informal, sources of power and influence. The chief bureaucrats of international organizations operate today in an environment of network-based interactions that is increasingly shaped not only by governments, but also by new and diffuse new actors as diverse as Amnesty International, the Gates or Turner foundations, scientific networks or CNN.

Functional differentiation of governance

The second major transformation in world politics with particular relevance for international organizations is the functional differentiation of the system. The increased complexity of the modern world has led to a host of new policy issues to emerge on the agenda of international organizations that continuously have to adapt to new developments and policy demands. Central to this book is one newly emerged core policy issue that was not yet salient when most UN agencies were set-up: the local and increasingly global degradation of the environment. Because the charter of the United Nations was negotiated in 1945 and has hardly been amended since then, the word ‘environment’ does not even appear in this constitutive document. Given the complexities of environmental degradation, international organizations became over time differently involved in this emerging policy field. While some, notably the World Bank, are often viewed as part of the problem, others have built up a reputation as proponents of international environmental cooperation.

These responses by international organizations and by the overall system of international organizations to the challenges brought about by the emergence of global governance and of environmental policy as a new policy field form a major focus of the book. The range of cases studied goes beyond intergovernmental organizations in the traditional understanding, but also includes intergovernmental agencies that are not organizations in the traditional sense of international law, such as the UN Environment Programme and the secretariats to major international agreements, as well as non-state hybrid organizations, which have often developed characteristics that make them very similar, in many respects, to traditional international organizations.

In view of the body of literature these studies could build on, it is striking that the theoretical and empirical understanding of international organizations is still limited, especially if compared to the significantly larger research area of the study of international regimes (for a review of international relations literature on international organizations see Bauer et al. 2009). Until a few years ago, the study of international organizations was a rather peripheral subject of research in the study of international relations. Following the general conviction, especially in the paradigms of realism and rational institutionalism, that states are the key actors in international relations, international organizations were often seen as by-products of international cooperation with little autonomy and limited external influence. Surely, they were never entirely neglected. A first peak of interest in international organizations after 1945 focused on a functionalist approach that analysed the emergence of inter- and supranational bodies mainly in Western Europe (e.g. Haas 1958). A second wave of interest emerged in the 1970s, when international relations scholars became more sensitive to the role of international organizations. For example, Cox and Jacobson (1973) and colleagues studied how and to what extent international organizations can take autonomous decisions vis-à-vis national delegates, and Weiss (1975) studied attitudes of staff members of and delegates to international organizations. A related discourse on international organizations emerged in organizational theory, the proponents of which include: Jervis (1976), who used the concept of organizational learning to analyse how perceptions and misperceptions within international organizations shape international politics; Ness and Brechin (1988), who used an organizational perspective on international bureaucracies; or similarly Dijkzeul (1997), who highlighted the fact that international organizations and business organizations have different opportunities of internal evaluation and assessment in human resource management and in their autonomy; and Jordan (2001), who analysed the emergence and management of international cooperation through international organizations.

More recent approaches employ institutional and organizational theories to understand the emergence, growth and behaviour of international organizations (Jönsson 1986; Haas 1990; Haas and Haas 1995; Reinalda and Verbeek 1998, 2004; Barnett and Finnemore 2004; Biermann and Siebenhüner 2009). In this literature, scholars approached international organizations as collective actors in their own right (see Underdal 2001: 27; Barnett and Finnemore 2004: 16–20). Within the discourse on global governance beginning in the 1990s, the predominant focus on states in international relations theory was opened up to also include non-state actors in the analysis. This research addressed, in particular, transnational nongovernmental organizations in areas such as environmental policy or human rights (for example Ghils 1992; Clark 1995; Dingwerth 2007; Pattberg 2005, 2006, 2007). Yet considering the entire discipline, international organizations have remained a rather neglected field in the study of international relations compared with other, more established areas of inquiry. This volume is thus designed to provide fresh analysis to the study of international organizations, in particular in the area of environmental policy.

The volume is based on the premise that the transformation from intergovernmental politics to global governance and the emergence of environmental policy as a distinct arena of conflict and cooperation has brought about three major types of responses from the community of international organizations. These three responses guide the book’s overall structure.

First, many international organizations have had to adjust and adapt to changes in their external context: Part I examines the rise of environmental policy as a major issue of international cooperation and conflict. Second, several new international organizations have been set up in the last decades with the sole purpose of advancing environmental protection, including the UN Environment Programme and the secretariats of multilateral environmental agreements (Part II). Finally, new types of international organizations emerged that are no longer fully within the realm of public actors, such as institutionalized networks of public and private actors, and even entirely private international organizations, such as Greenpeace or the Friends of the Earth (Part III).

Adaptation to global transformations

The first chapters in this volume study how international organizations have adapted their core functions, procedures and policies in order to support the new and emerging issues of environmental policy at all levels. Even during the creation of the League of Nations in 1919, early environmental groups had argued – unsuccessfully – for the inclusion of environmental problems in the League’s mandate (Wöbse 2003). In the United Nations Organization, environmental debates first emerged during the 1949 United Nations Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources (Kilian 1987). However, it was not until the 1960s that the United Nations and other international organizations actively took up the issue and adapted their activities. Facing rising demand for transboundary, coordinated environmental protection measures, a number of international organizations widened their original mandate throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. The International Maritime Organization (IMD), for example, extended its functions in 1967 to cover not only the safety of shipping, but also environmental pollution. A number of environmental treaties on ship-based pollution have since then been negotiated under the auspices of the IMO (Campe 2009). The World Meteorological Organization, originally concerned only with weather and climate research, integrated environmental problems in its work in the 1960s and widened its focus to address global environmental transformations such as the destruction of the ozone layer. In 1970, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development enlarged its mandate and included environmental policy objectives in its work programme, even though questions of economic development remained the core of its activity (Long 2000; Busch 2009b; Lehtonen, this volume). Even the North Atlantic Treaty Organization now covers environmental degradation within its activities, under the umbrella of its Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society, which covers international cooperation on air and marine pollution among many other issues.

While many organizations adopted new functions of actively pursuing environmental policy, others had to react to the perceived environmental harmfulness of their core function. Private environmentalist groups and some national governments pressurized these organizations to develop environmental policies and to withdraw from controversial and environmentally damaging projects. Major international organizations such as the World Bank and other development banks were forced to establish environmental departments and environmental policies (Marschinski and Behrle 2009).

The book offers five in-depth case studies on international organizations and their environmental policies and programmes. At a more general level, Axel Dreher and Magdalena Ramada y Galán Sarasola (Chapter 2) conclude from a quantitative study that almost all organizations analysed – the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, regional multilateral development banks, the World Trade Organization, and the Global Environment Facility – have had a sizeable impact on the natural environment as well as on environmental governance. They analyse, for example, the effects of international organizations on the environment through their impact on carbon dioxide emissions. Projects financed by development banks and agencies in most cases increase emissions, while the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the UN Environment Programme had no significant effect on carbon dioxide emissions. The authors also found a positive correlation between WTO membership and emission reductions through the indirect effect of trade liberalization on domestic emissions.

Christopher Wright (Chapter 3) studies in more detail the role of multilateral financial institutions in shaping the content and institutional design of global environmental governance. Wright analyses the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) role in the emergence of the Equator Principles, a voluntary code of conduct aimed at multinational banks that stipulates how environmental and social concerns should be considered in preparing and implementing project finance loans. According to Wright, the IFC’s direct influence on the Equator Principles manifested itself in three ways. First, it convened and encouraged an initial pool of multinational banks to discuss environmental and social management issues, which eventually led to the launch of the Equator Principles in June 2003. Second, the framework’s specific provisions are directly derived from the IFC’s own environmental and social policies and procedures. Third, by virtue of the Equator Principles, the IFC has effectively become an environmental and social standard-setter in the global project finance market, as signatory banks are expected to harmonize their practices in accordance with any future revisions or updates of the IFC’s policies and procedures. The emergence of the Equator Principles also provides an example of the growing discursive power of multilateral financial institutions. While having their credibility continuously challenged by environmental advocacy groups, the IFC’s policies and procedures nevertheless enjoy considerable legitimacy, and came to define how private multinational banks harmonized their environmental and social practices. Wright argues that this form of knowledge-based power will become increasingly significant, as multilateral financial institutions continue to embrace a development agenda that emphasizes knowledge generation, management and diffusion.

Markku Lehtonen (Chapter 4) offers an in-depth study of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Lehtonen distinguishes diffusion, harmonization and coercion as three key mechanisms that enhance the spread of...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• 1 Global environmental governance and international organizations: setting the stage
• PART I Intergovernmental organizations
• PART II International environmental programmes and secretariats
• PART III New public–private hybrid organizations