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The interest-based explanation of international environmental policy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

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Despite growing international environmental interdependence, the international system lacks a central authority to foster environmental protection. As a consequence, countries have adopted different policies to reduce international environmental problems. More specifically, costly regulations are not universally supported. In order to explain the success and failure of international environmental regulation, it is necessary to systematically focus on the factors that shape the environmental foreign policy of sovereign states. Since such an approach is missing from the literature, we develop an interest-based explanation of support for international environmental regulation and postulate what impact it should have on state preferences for international environmental regulation. Specifically we apply our framework to two prominent cases of negotiations on atmospheric pollution control, namely, efforts to protect the stratospheric ozone layer and the regulation of transboundary acidification (“acid rain”) in Europe.

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Copyright © The IO Foundation and Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

We thank Cary Coglianese, Kenneth Hanf, Madeleine Hösli, Rudy Lewanski, Martin List, John Odell, Tom Princen, Arild Underdal, Albert Weale, and two reviewers for International Organization for helpful comments. Val Bowers's editorial assistance is greatly appreciated. In addition, Detlef Sprinz gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Institute for the Study of World Politics in Washington, D.C., the Population-Environment Dynamics Project, School of Public Health, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. We gladly accept the responsibility for all remaining errors and omissions.

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15 The LRTAP Convention serves as an umbrella convention for the international regime on the regulation of transboundary acidification (acid rain) in the member states of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Canada and the United States are members of the UNECE as are all European countries.

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18 The study by Boehmer-Christiansen and Skea, Acid Politics, shows an explicit comparative research design, but the number of explanatory factors exceeds by far the number of cases. Therefore, the conclusions are unlikely to be robust unless different research methods are employed.

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24 We refer to the knowledge available to decision makers in the early 1980s rather than since the late 1980s. Only after the conclusion of the Montreal Protocol did it become evident that the thinning of the stratospheric ozone layer disproportionally affects the polar regions.

25 Jones, Robin R., “Consequences for Human Health of Stratospheric Ozone Depletion,” in Jones, R. Russell and Wigley, T., eds., Ozone Depletion: Health and Environmental Consequences (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989), pp. 207–27.Google Scholar

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27 Quoted from Whitney, Craig R., “EC Official Says Europeans Soon Can Shield Ozone Layer,” International Herald Tribune, 6 March 1989, p. 5.Google Scholar

28 Skin cancer may also be caused by other factors. However, given the small number of cases, a multiple regression analysis of the various causes of skin cancer appears not to be feasible.

29 Heimsoeth, Harald, “The Protection of the Ozone Layer,” Environmental Policy and Law 10 (April 1983), pp. 3436.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30 Ibid., p. 35.

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33 UNEP, Working Group for Ozone Layer Protection, “Article II to the Protocol: Control of Use of CFCs, Proposal by the Expert from the Netherlands,” UNEP/WG 110/CRP.5, 23 October 1984.Google Scholar

34 UNEP, Vienna Group, “Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Work of Its Third Session,” UNEP/WG 172/2, 8 May 1987, p. 5.Google Scholar

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36 UNEP, Working Group for Ozone Layer Protection, “Report of the Working Group,” UNEP/WG 78/13, 17 June 1983, p. 3.Google Scholar

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44 Unfortunately, no data are available on the rate of skin cancer in the mid-1970s for Austria or for the Netherlands.

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48 Glas, , “Protecting the Ozone Layer,” p. 150.Google Scholar

49 DuPont is quoted in International Herald Tribune, 29 March 1988, p. 4.Google Scholar

50 Dickman, Steven, “West Germany Strides Towards CFC Elimination by 2000,” Nature 327 (14 May 1987), p. 93Google Scholar. A similar observation has been made by Benedick. In explaining the differences in 1990 within the EC on the policy toward regulation, Benedick remarks that the FRG announced that it will phase out CFCs in 1995 and other ozone-depleting substances before the end of the century. This took place after the federal government of the FRG had concluded that alternatives to the major harmful chemicals were close to commercial feasibility for nearly all applications. See Benedick, , Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet, pp. 164–65.Google Scholar

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58 The interviews of experts were undertaken by Detlef Sprinz as part of a larger research effort on the international regulation of transboundary air pollution in Europe. For details, see Sprinz, “Why Countries Support International Environmental Agreements.”

59 Hettelingh, Jean-Paul, Downing, Robert F., and Smet, Peter A.M. de, Mapping Critical Loads for Europe, Coordination Center for Effects (CCE) technical report no. 1 (Bilthoven: CCE, National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection, the Netherlands, 1991).Google Scholar

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63 It must be noted that the UK objected to 1980 as the reference year since it would have easily fulfilled the obligations with a base year chosen from the early 1970s; personal communication.

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71 They were normally supported by Austria, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.

72 This applies both to the Vienna and the LRTAP Conventions.

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