Initiated in 2002, the International Environmental Agreements Data Base (IEADB) catalogs the texts, memberships, and design features of over 3,000 multilateral and bilateral environmental agreements. Using IEADB data, we create a comprehensive review of the evolution of international environmental law, including how the number, subjects, and state memberships in IEAs have changed over time. By providing IEA texts, the IEADB helps scholars identify and systematically code IEA design features. We review scholarship derived from the IEADB on international environmental governance, including insights into IEA membership, formation, and design as well as the deeper structure of international environmental law. We note the IEADB’s value as a teaching tool to promote undergraduate and graduate teaching and research. The IEADB’s structure and content opens up both broad research realms and specific research questions, and facilitates the ability of scholars to use the IEADB to answer those questions of greatest interest to them.

Recent scholarship evaluates how peace and conflict affect resource sustainability. The authors of this article address how enhanced Turkey-Syria cooperation could impact management of the Ceylanpinar Aquifer, which flows beneath both countries and accounts for over10% of Turkey's transboundary groundwater discharge. Although the Euphrates-Tigris river system apportionment has been critical for bilateral relations, allocation of the Ceylanpinar Aquifer has been neglected. The authors develop a simplified conceptual model to simulate water flow in the aquifer. Taking this model as a reference point, this article explores how political changes may impact aquifer sustainability, and proposes data-integrated modelling for sustainable management.

This article explores the conditions under which regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) adopt climate actions. I test a series of hypotheses to explain when RFMOs move beyond their classic management approaches—assignment of property rights, catch limits, and gear restrictions—to include climate change in their research and management plans. I introduce a new data set that compares fisheries-climate linkages since 1992 in all available RFMO annual reports and meeting minutes. The analysis reveals a series of patterns surrounding linkage politics in RFMOs. Importantly, this study finds that climate linkages in RFMOs do not simply follow scientific knowledge or regional climate vulnerability. Instead, climate action coincides with member country efforts to avoid catch regulations, and secretariat efforts to exhibit organizational relevance. © 2011 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research Summary Business transactions have increasingly been crossing national borders, thereby presenting greater opportunities for white‐collar crime and for the externalization of risk. The global economic crisis, resulting in part from the subprime mortgage scandal, is a prime example of this potential. To develop theoretical perspectives and practical interventions to prevent and respond to the global financial crisis, we consider similar issues of risk and white‐collar crime associated with global transactions in electronic waste (E‐waste). Policy Implications Smart (or responsive) regulation is a promising approach for addressing both E‐waste and the current economic crisis. This response includes crime prevention, third‐party‐ and self‐regulation, and the threat of strong state intervention. Future research should explore the extent to which smart regulation reduces specific forms of white‐collar crime and risk, as well as whether these interventions generalize to other transnational problems.