Interlinkages and the Effectiveness of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

W. Bradnee Chambers

Interlinkages and the Effectiveness of Multilateral Environmental Agreements
By W. Bradnee Chambers

ISBN 978-92-808-1149-0
252 pages; paper; US$34.00
January 2008

In recent years there has been growing awareness that a major reason for the worsening global environment is the failure to create adequate institutional responses to fully address the scope, magnitude and complexity of environmental problems. Much of the criticism directed at the global institutions has focused on the necessity for greater coordination and synergism among environmental institutions, policies and legal instruments, and the need for approaches that take better account of the inter-relationships between ecological and societal systems. This book seeks to fill the gap in knowledge and policy-making that exists, particularly in international law. In the course of doing so, it examines the essence of the assumptions made about interlinkages and multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), provides a framework for measuring the effectiveness of MEAs and shows how the effectiveness of MEAs can be improved by interlinkages. Moreover, it demonstrates how MEAs that cooperate with treaties outside the environment in other sectors of sustainable development can improve their effectiveness.

W. Bradnee Chambers is the Senior Programme Officer at the United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies (UNU-IAS) in Yokohama, Japan.

Part I: Introduction and overview

Introduction and overview

Part II: Historical overview of the international process to improve coordination and create synergies between intergovernmental sustainable development institutions

From Stockholm to Johannesburg via Malmö: A historical overview of international coordination of environment-sustainable development issues

Part III: Legal milieu of interlinkages under international law

Legal mechanisms and coordination systems for promoting and managing interlinkages between multilateral environmental agreements

Part IV: Theoretical foundations and basis for an analytical framework

Towards an improved understanding of effectiveness of international treaties
Interlinkages theory and effectiveness: The emergence of an analytical framework

Part V: Case study one: Understanding interlinkages as a factor of effectiveness within international environmental law

The interlinkages of plant genetic resources: The Convention on Biological Diversity and FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture

Part VI: Case study two: Understanding interlinkages as a factor of effectiveness of sustainable development law