Obtaining International Environmental Protection through Epistemic Consensus

Oran R. Young , 'Politics of International Regime formation ', International Organization (Vol. 43, No. 3, Summer 1989), pp. 349-76; Oran R. Young , International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Resources and the Environment ( Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 1989); Peter M. Haas , Saving the Mediterranean: The Polilics of International Environmental Cooperation (New York: Columbia University Press. 1990): Eugene 13. Skolnikoff , 'The Policy Gridlock on Global Warming', Foreign Policy (No. 79, Summer 1990). pp. 77-93; and Peter H. Sand , Lessons Learned in Glohal Environmental Governance (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 1990),

Peter Usher , 'Climate Change and the Developing World'. Southern Illinnis University Law Journal (Vol. 14, 1990), pp. 257-64.

Richard N. Cooper , 'International Cooperation in Public Health as a Prologue to Macroeconomic Cooperation', in Richard N. Cooper , Barry Eichengreen. C. Randall Henning. Gerald Holtham and Robert D. Putnam (eds.). Can Nations Agree? Issues in International Economic Cooperation (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. 1989 ). pp. 178-254.

The actual effectiveness of the arrangements created by these two organisations continues to be the subject of much debate. See Sand, op. cit., in note 2; Mark W. Zacher and R. Michael M'Gonigle , Pollution, Politics and International Law (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979); and Simon Lyster , International Wildlife Law Cambridge: Grotius Publications, 1985).

Unep , Register of International Treaties and Other Agreements in the Field of the Environment (Nairobi : UNEP. May 1989).

Mostafa K. Tolba (ed.), Evolving Environmental Perceptions (London: Butterworths , 1988): and Robert Goodland and George Ledec. 'Environmental Management in Sustainable Economic Development', in W.C. Baum and S. Tolbert (eds.), Investing in Development Lessons of World Bank Experience ( Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).

Oecd , The State of the Environment (Paris: OECD. 1985); and Peter M. Haas , 'Making Progress In International Environmental Protection', in Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford (eds.), progress in Postwar International Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, forthcoming).

Unep , The State of the World Environment 1989 (Nairobi: UNEP. 1989): Unep , The State of the World Environment 1987 (Nairobi: UNEP. 1987); Global Environment Monitoring System, Assessment of Chemical Contaminants in Food (London : UNEP, FAO and WHO, 1988); Global Environment Monitoring System, Assessment of Urban Air Quality (London: UNEP and WHO, 1988); and Global Environment Monitoring System, Assessment of Freshwater Quality (UNEP and WHO, 1988). See also World Resources Institute, World Resources 1990-91 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990).

Peter H. Sand , Marine Environmental Law in the United Nations Environment Programme (London: Tycooly Publishing, 1989). p. ix. See also Haas , op. cit, in note 1; and Peter M. Haas , 'Save the Seas: UNEP's Regional Seas Programme and the Coordination of Regional Pollution Control Efforts', in Elisabeth Mann Borgese , et al (eds.), Ocean Yearbook 9 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming).

Several alternative models of learning already exist. See John D. Steinbruner , The Cybernetic Theory of Decision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1974); Hugh Heclo , Modern Social Politics in Britain and Sweden (New Haven, CT: Yale Univeristy Press, 1974) ; Ernst B. Haas , 'Why Collaborate? Issue-Linkage and International Regimes', World Politics (Vol. 32, No. 3, April 1980), pp 357-405; Ernst B. Haas. When Knowledge is Power ( Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989); and Haas , op. cit, in note I, pp. 58-63.

Uncertainty in this regard is used to mean that policy-makers are unable to assess the likelihood of an event's occurrence and hence cannot apply some decision models or heuristics to estimate costs and benefits of alternative lines of action. It implies much more than merely incomplete information. Scientists and members of an epistemic community are less uncertain and better trained at coping with such uncertainty.

Gilbert R. Winham , 'Negotiation as a Management Process', World Politics (Vol. 30, No. 1, October 1977), p. 96.

World Resources Institute , World Resources 1987 (New York: Basic Books, 1987), p. 163.

For a review of ecological thought, see Donald Worster , Nature's Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Edward J. Kormondy and J. Frank McCormick (eds.), Handbook of Contemporary Developments in World Ecology (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981); and Robert P. Mclntosh , The Background of Ecology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

Erich Jantsch and Conrad Waddington (eds.), Evolution and Consciousness (Reading. MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co, 1976).

Robert L. Rothstein , 'Consensual Knowledge and International Collaboration', International Organization (Vol. 38, No. 4, Autumn, 1984 ), pp. 733-62.

Peter H. Sand , 'Protecting the Ozone Layer', Environment (Vol. 27, No. 5, June 1985).

The following account relies on Richard Elliot Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy (Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press, forthcoming); Peter Morrisette , 'The Evolution of Policy Responses to Stratospheric Ozone Depletion', Natural Resources Journal (Vol. 29, No. 3, Summer 1989), pp. 793-820: and Peter M. Haas , 'Ozone Alone, No CFCs: Ecological Epistemic Communities and the Protection of Stratospheric Ozone', International Organization (forthcoming).

United Kingdom Statospheric Ozone Review Group , Stratospheric Ozone 1988 (London : Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1988); House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities, The Ozone Layer - Implementing the Montreal Protocol with Evidence. 1987-88, 17th Report, HL Paper 94 (London : Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1988); and 'The Greening of Margaret Thatcher', The Economist (11 March 1989), pp. 55-56.

D.M. Johnston , 'Marine Pollution Agreements: Successes and Problems', in J.E. Carroll (ed.), International Environmental Diplomacy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1988), p. 204. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources' (IUCN) World Conservation Strategy has been responsible for the creation of over 30 national groups. See Mark Halle and Jose Furtado , 'The Role of National Conservation Strategies in Attaining the Objectives of the World Conservation Strategy', in Peter Jacobs and David A. Munro (eds.), Conservation With Equity: Strategies for Sustainable Development ( Gland, Switzerland: IUCN, 1987).

Mostafa Tolba , 'A Step-by-Step Approach to Protection of the Atmosphere', International Environmental Affairs (Vol. 1, No. 4), pp, 304-09; William A. Nitze , 'A Proposed Structure for an International Convention on Climate Change', Science (10 August 1990), pp. 607-08; and Fen Osier Hampson , 'Climate Change: Building International Coalitions of the Like-minded', International Journal (Vol. 45, No. 1, Winter 1989-90), pp. 36-74.

Norman J. Rosenburg, William E. Easterling III, Pierre R. Crosson and Joel Darmstadter (eds.), Greenhouse Warming: Abatement and Adaptation (Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 1989 ). Atmospheric scientists acknowledged that the present state of knowledge is insufficient to demonstrate the extent of the problem or to generate credible policy relevant advice. They estimated that it would take from 0 to 5 years to produce research that would generate consensus on warming, 5 to 20 years on sea level change and over 10 years for many other aspects of the problem. See also Jill Jager , 'Anticipating Climatic Change', Environment (Vol. 30, No. 7, September 1988).

Michael H. Glantz , 'Politics and the Air Around Us: International Policy Action on Atmospheric Pollution by Trace Gases', in Michael Glantz (ed.), Forecasting by Analogy: Societal Responses to Regional Climatic Change (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 41-72.

Philip Shabecoff , 'Scientist Says Budget Office Altered His Testimony ', The New York Times, 8 May 1989, p. Al; and Philip Shabecoff , 'White House Admits Censoring Testimony', The New York Times, 9 May 1989, p. Cl.

Lynton K. Caldwell , 'International Environmental Politics: America's Response to Global Imperatives', in Norman J. Vig and Michael E. Kraft (eds.), Environmental Policy in the 1990s (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1990), pp. 315-16.

'Count Before You Leap', The Economist (7 July 1990), pp. 21-24.

It is interesting to note that an economic epistemic community might have much greater influence, since it would be able to mitigate uncertainty about the costs of action.

George Rathjens , 'Energy and Climate Change', in Jessica Tuckman Mathews (ed.), Preserving the Global Environment (New York: W.W. Norton & Co , forthcoming).

See James K. Sebenius , 'Negotiation Arithmetic: Adding and Subtracting Issues and Parties', International Organization (Vol. 37, No. 2, Spring 1983), pp. 281-316.

See Oran R. Young , 'Global Environmental Change and International Governance', in this issue of Millennium: Journal of International Studies.