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1、1 Soft UN environmental institutions: Do they deliver? By Steinar Andresen steinar.andresenfni.no The Fridtjof Nansen Institute (FNI) www.fni.no Prepared for the IDGEC Synthesis Conference, Bali 6-9 December 2006 Draft version 1 1. Introduction: soft institutions and hard actors This paper is a draf
2、t of the first chapter for a special issue of the journal International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, No. 3 2007. The special issue will summarize some of the main findings from a multiyear research project at the FNI financed by the Norwegian Research Council. The title of
3、the special issue is: ?The role of the UN in global environmental governance: potential for increased effectiveness? Our main focus is on the environment, but the significance of the linkage to development through the concept of sustainable development will be addressed. The first part of the projec
4、t dealt with key UN institutions: The global UN conferenceson development and environment (Gulbrandsen, 2003), UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program), primarily its coordinating functions, (Andresen and Rosendal, 2007), the CSD (Commission on Sustainable Development) (Kaasa, 2005) and the perfo
5、rmance of the GEF (Global Environmental Facility) in China (Heggelund et al, 2005). With the exception of the GEF, these are all ?soft institutions without much regulatory bite. 2 However, they are the true borne children of the UN system and therefore also typical for strength and weaknesses of the
6、 UN. This is a rather narrow focus, but UNEP is the environmental program of the UN, CSD is only institution focussing exclusively on sustainable development and the global conferences have represented a massive effort by the UN to address environment and development. In the first part of the projec
7、t we paid most attention to assessing the effectiveness of these institutions. In explaining their effectiveness, the main focus was on the significance of ?softer explanatory variables as institutional characteristics and leadership (Miles et.al, 2002). In the second (present) part of the project o
8、ur main emphasis is on the role of key actors within these institutions, e.g. the US, the EU, G-77, China and Norway. A large number of analyses of these institutions have been made, but we are not aware of any systematic analysis of the role of these actors within these institutions. The aim of the
9、 special issue is to fill that gap. Also, most analyses of the question of UN reform in this area do not discuss in much detail the interests and position of such key actors. Therefore many suggestions made are characterized more by ?wishful thinking and what should ideally be done rather than what
10、is feasible within real-world circumstances. When learning more about the interests and 1 This paper is not quite finished. Some updates and adjustments will be done. 2 In this paper only the first three of these institutions will be addressed. 2 positions of these actors on UN reform, the possibili
11、ty for reform can be more realistically decided. To the extent that light is shed on these actors in previous analyses, simple stereotypes are usually portrayed. The US is portrayed as the chief laggard, the EU as more progressive with leadership ambitions, Norway as more of a pusher while developin
12、g countries are either dragging their feet or pursuing a different agenda from the North. Our aim is to go beyond these stereotypes and (chapters 2-6) try to explain why these actors pursue the policies they do, compare them and assess their influence on the development of these institutions. On thi
13、s basis we will discuss the room for institutional design and the direction and realism in the call for UN reform (chapter 7). 3 As we explicitly emphasize the significance of these key actors, this begs the question over where the influence of the members ends and where the role of the institution
14、itself starts. (add quote)That is, what are the possibilities and limitations of institutional design? To simplify, within the realist school of thought, the answer is simply that design does not make much of a difference as organizations are no more than epiphenomena, a mere reflection of the will
15、of the most powerful members. However, few realists are preoccupied with soft issues like the environment (Mitchell 2002). Therefore, students occupied with international institutions tend to belong either to the institutionalist or the social constructivist school of thoughts. 4 The former is parti
16、cularly occupied with the significance and role of institutions, while the latter is also occupied with the significance of norms, knowledge and learning. This leads to what seems to be a trivial but we believe often neglected observation: Most students of international environmental institutions be
17、lieve that these play a significant role in deciding the effectiveness of the relevant problems. This may imply a systematic overplay of their importance. That is, if one believes that institutions matters , one will tend to seek ones belief confirmed, and not be as open towards other conclusions as
18、 one should according to textbooks in methodology. Therefore, we would like that realists had taken more interest in these soft issue areas, in order to get a sharper discussion of the fruitfulness of the different approaches. Still, there are considerable variations between scholars as to the signi
19、ficance they attribute to institutional design. Some analysts emphasize the significance of power and underline the fairly modest effect of international institutions and organizations (e.g. Miles et al, 2002). In a similar vein, some observers maintain that too little attention is paid to the role
20、played by the major political and economic actors in explaining effectiveness, or rather lack of such, of international environmental institutions and organizations. The gist of the argument is that you cannot change the root causes of the problem by clever design, when major actors are dragging the
21、ir feet (Najam, 2003). Others are more optimistic as to the significance of institutional design. They do not necessarily downplay political realities, but have a stronger belief that a strong and unified organizationfor example a world environment organizationmay make a positive difference in terms
22、 of effectiveness (Biermann and Bauer 2005). As to our position on this debate, we have some sympathy for both perspectives. On the one hand, we find it important to emphasize the significance of power and the dominant position of strong actors in explaining the effectiveness of international instit
23、utions. 5 To give an illustration, when the United States does not want to play ball in the climate regime, the 3 See appendix 1 for lay out of the special issue. 4 For a discussion of the position of various schools of thought in relation to international organizations, see Bauer, 2006. 5This obser
24、vation is based on findings from Miles et al 2002. 3 chances of an effective international climate policy is strongly reduced . Correspondingly, when the United States (as well as main parts of industry) stood forth as leaders in the strengthening the ozone regime, this explains a significant part o
25、f the high effectiveness of this regime and the related organizations. We therefore believe that overall the design of international institutions and organizations cannot be expected to make much of a difference for their effectiveness. On the other hand, we find it defensive to disregard the opport
26、unities offered by clever design (for example Young, 2006). In dialogue with policy makers and practitioners we can suggest changes that may make some positive difference for the problem solving ability of the organization in question. In the concluding chapter we will get back to how much of the ef
27、fectiveness of these institutions can be explained by the roles and interests of the state and what is the significance of institutional design, including how these institutions interact between each other as well as with others institutions. With this caveat, let us then turn to an assessment of th
28、ese three institutions. 2. Assessment of the UN institutions: How effective? It has become commonplace to define effectiveness in relation to international regimes in terms of output, outcome and impact. Output refers to rules, programs and regulations emanating from the regime while outcome refers
29、to behavioral changein the ?right directionby key target groupsas a result of the regime. Finally, impact refers to the environmental improvements in the relevant issue area following from the regime in question (Miles et al, 2002). Can the indicators of effectiveness from regime analysis be transfe
30、rred to the analysis of UN international institutions? The three institutions we focus here are quite different ?animals. We will deal with what consequences this has for specific measuring rods applied that when discussing their effectiveness. However, they also have important similarities in the s
31、ense that they are all soft and normative institutions. Consequently, the outcome and even more so the impact indicator are much more problematic to apply in the study of such institutions compared to traditional ?classical regimes (Levy et al, 1995). As less can be expected in terms of measurable b
32、ehavioral change flowing from these institutions as a point of departure we have to stop at the output indicator. In other words, we deal more with potential effectiveness rather than actual effectiveness. We also measure effectiveness in terms of goal achievement when goals are specific enough to m
33、easure performance against (Bernauer, 1995). However, this does not mean we will disregard the other indicators completely, not the least because there has been a growing focus on implementation or lack of such in the last decade. UN institutions cannot be ?blamed for possible lack of follow-up by s
34、tates and target groups. Still, if ambitious joint goals are not followed up in practice, it will serve to discredit them, giving support to those claiming that they are no more than ?talk - shows without practical significance. Finally, a brief note on methodology. We have relied heavily on open-en
35、ded interviews in relation to all institutions studied, particularly regarding UNEP, the main focus of our project so far. We have made interviewed both at the UNEP headquarter in Nairobi, in the affiliation in Geneva as well as with relevant MEA Secretariats. Thus, we were able to see the issue fro
36、m various standpoint, alter ego perceptions (Bas Art, 1998). We also asked a number of decision makers as well as some analysts to evaluate progress or lack of such in the different institutions as well as how they explain the turn of events regarding the two other institutions. We believe this give
37、n a more nuanced and realistic picture than many general analyses of that tends to be somewhat stereotype ?pro-or against these institutions 4 2.1 The Global Conferences: Diminishing effectiveness In terms of formal outputs and approach to problem solving, the similarities between the three Conferen
38、ces is striking. They all had a preparatory phase, a main focus on soft political declarations, typically a Conference Declaration and some type of Plan of Action. In quantitative output terms, however, there are significant differences. The 1992 Rio Summit stands out as the most productive one with
39、 three policy declarations, two legally binding conventions and one new institution, the CSD . 6 Stockholm created two declarations and a new institution, UNEP while the Johannesburg Summit only produced two declarations. As to the more important question of the effects of these institutions, this w
40、ill be discussed in terms of 1) agenda setting, 2) participation 3) Comprehensiveness and 4) institution-building . If the Conferences have been able to shape and elevate environment and development on the international political agenda, their potential effectiveness increases. Participation is conc
41、eived of in terms of numbers, level, and scope. The assumption is that the more participants, the broader the participation is and the more high level participation there is, potential effectiveness increases. Similarly, comprehensiveness, in terms of using and integrating knowledge to better unders
42、tand linkages between issue-areas will increase potential effectiveness. Finally, to the extent that these Conferences contribute to domestic and international institution building, their potential significance also increases. These are analytical categories intended to help structure the analysis a
43、nd there are links and overlaps between them. 7 The Stockholm Conference a watershed event? The Stockholm Conference has a very high score in terms of agenda setting. Quite a few international environmental treaties had been singed well before this Conference, but few would disagree that it was due
44、to the Stockholm Conference that environment was elevated on the international political agenda (Epstein, 2006). 113 states were represented as well as a number of international organizations and non-state actors. Knowledge building in the preparatory phase was also crucial as a total of 86 states s
45、ubmitted national reports to map pressing environmental concerns, no doubt vastly expanding the understanding of global environmental problems. This effective agenda-setting spurred institution building nationally and internationally. Many countries went to immediate action as a result of the Stockh
46、olm process and institutionalized environment as a new element of their national priorities by establishing ministries of environment. The Stockholm Conference also strongly triggered international institutionalization as there was hardly an international environmental agreement established regional
47、ly or globally within the next two decades, that did not have some kind of link to the Stockholm Conference. 8 The Conference also contributed to strengthen existing international institutions.9 As to UNEP, we shall have more to say about this later. Suffice it here to conclude that it made sense to
48、 establish such an institution within the UN system to manifest and strengthen the role of the UN in this area not at all self-evident at the time. 6 In addition it is probably fair to say that the GEF was created as an indirect result of the Rio Summit. 7 See also Gulbrandsen, 2003 as well as Wette
49、stad, 1999. 8 For a detailed account of the significance of the Stockholm Conference, see Liner and Sellin (2003, draft). For an overview of the development of establishment of MEAs, see Mee, 2005. 9 It was due to the Stockholm Conference that the International Whaling Commission in 1974 got its Secretary, after some 25 years of existence. Andresen, 1999. 5 Compared to later similar conferences, the score in terms of comprehensivenessand participation was not equally high.10 Although 113 states participated there we