The politics of multilateral environmental agreements lessons from 20 years of INEA

Abstract

This review article addresses the question: What lessons can we learn from work published in International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics regarding the politics of multilateral environmental agreements? What are the implications of these lessons for those responsible for creating and administering these agreements? Based on an analysis of 147 articles published over the past 20 years, the article explores issues of institutional design, institutional politics, implementation, and effectiveness. It concludes that key conditions for success in this realm include: (a) developing a toolkit that is not limited to rules-based governance, (b) paying attention to matters of implementation, (c) bearing in mind the overall regime complex, (d) developing effective leadership based on credibility and accountability, and (e) allowing for institutional adaptation.

The Water Convention, a multilateral environmental agreement as community of practice

“…In a review of international environmental agreements, Kalfagianni and Young (2022) distilled the following five lessons for the successful creation and implementation of MEAs:…”

“…All this show that the Water Convention community can be considered a successful Community of Practice. To be a successful MEA, it also has to comply to the five lessons that were defined by Kalfagianni and Young (2022). First, the mechanism guiding the MEA must be flexible.…”

“…In a review of international environmental agreements, Kalfagianni and Young (2022) Moreover, research shows that the best institutional design for managing complex environmental and resource management problems is a loose, decentralized and dense network of institutions and actors that can have discussions and take action (Kanie, 2018).…”

A theory of change to improve conservation outcomes through CITES

“…However, elucidating the impact of MEAs on conservation outcomes, against an appropriate counterfactual, is complicated (Young 2017). The nature of issues may vary between contexts and scales (Ostrom 2007) and the effectiveness of actions agreed in MEAs depends on many factors, including political will and the capacity and resourcing of key actors (e.g., public agencies), which can affect the degree of compliance by states (Kalfagianni & Young 2022). There may be time lags between policies and their impacts on the ground (Underhal 2010) and the activities of different actors, including non-state actors (e.g., NGOs and businesses), in both the regulatory and non-regulatory spheres, may influence outcomes in unanticipated ways.…”

“…There may be time lags between policies and their impacts on the ground (Underhal 2010) and the activities of different actors, including non-state actors (e.g., NGOs and businesses), in both the regulatory and non-regulatory spheres, may influence outcomes in unanticipated ways. Such factors, among others (in particular, MEA design), have been suggested as causes of failure (Kalfagianni & Young 2022). Therefore, to inform future design and implementation, there is a need to better understand the conditions under which MEAs are, and are not, effective (Young 2018).…”