A few weeks ago, this column drew attention to the upcoming Paris Climate Summit (COP 21), which will be held under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) between November 30 and December 11 (UNFCC Paris 2015: the meaning of success. SN 7/10/2015). The conference is intended to bring together world leaders to produce an agreement that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature increase to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
In the above column I focused on the kind of agreements the conference must adopt if it is to be considered a success. I also claimed that, given the nature of the international system, negotiating international agreements is very complicated but is made even more so because of the various perceptions of the nature of the problem and the possible solutions. This is not to say that there has not been substantial progress, and before I proceed further with this discussion on climate change, here I want to provide a brief conceptual and historical backdrop.
There exists a range of complicated theoretical arguments surrounding the nature of and how we should respond to environmental issues. Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons (Science 162, 1968) provides what some call the founding metaphor for an understanding of the basic nature of the problem.
Hardin took as his starting point the Anglo Saxon-type village commons, where all the villagers have an equal right of use – in his example to graze cows. Of course, the commons can only properly support a fixed number of cows if it is not to be over-grazed and become useless to all. If a villager can secretly graze an extra animal or two, he will gain extra income, but the damage that is caused will be shared by all the other villagers. In the absence of serious monitoring and enforcement arrangements, the system provides an incentive for overgrazing that threatens the survival of the entire village.
Hardin’s conclusion is that there is no technological solution: the problem is structural. Applied to international environmental problems, the freedom and usual inclination of each state to prioritise its self-interest threatens the security of all. Freedom in the commons brings ruin, and what is required is agreed upon mutual coercion.
From this standpoint, our international environmental problems are insoluble without some overarching international authority; some kind of a world government with sufficient power to sanction those who break the rules by overgrazing the commons. Of course, no such world authority is in sight and environmental problems are not only with us but appear to be growing more threatening each day.
In the present international context, the problem is how to achieve collective action to deal with common issues in order to secure a good living for this and coming generations. Institutionalists offer a much more promising approach, which holds that the possibility of international cooperation is more significant than Harding suggested.
In this regard, apart from the UNFCC, international efforts to manage what has become known as ‘the global commons’ – the high seas, ocean floor, outer space, uninhabited Antarctica and perhaps most important and problematic, the climate system – have been both substantial and, given the anarchic nature of the international system, relatively successful.
One hundred and eighty-five countries are parties to the 1939 Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary and Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, which was established to reduce the generation of toxic wastes and ensure that their management is environmentally sound. Although it does not deal with radioactive waste, the convention is also concerned with the movement of hazardous wastes, seeks to ensure that their disposal is as close as possible to the source of generation and to assist less developed countries to manage the wastes they generate. (For a more detailed discussion see Salmon, Trevor C. and Mark F. Imber Issues in International Relations. [2008] Routledge: London, New York).
The Antarctic Treaty, negotiated between 1959 and 1961, is considered a breakthrough in extending the idea of managing one of the last uninhabited and unexplored regions of the world on a non-competitive, peaceful and science-led basis.
It provides an enduring lesson for the management of other global commons by de-territorialising, de-militarising and promoting scientific research and not commercial exploitation. Its signatories have adopted over 200 separate agreements on the administration of the Antarctic wilderness, including those relating to the seal conservation, the conservation of other fauna and of flora, marine-living resources, and a moratorium on mining and oil exploration.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty (Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies) was the result of both the USA and USSR wanting to prevent their cold-war confrontation from escalating into outer space. The fear was that nuclear weapons might be deployed in earth’s orbit and on the moon. Article I defines outer space as one of the global commons: ‘outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies … shall be the province of all mankind’.
The treaty also specifically prohibits the placement of nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction in the earth’s orbit, on the moon or other planets or on the seabed. Other articles allow the freedom of scientific research but restrict such research to purposes of international peace, security and promoting international cooperation and understanding.
The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which entered into force in January 1989, has been hailed by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan as “perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date.” A protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer ratified by 197 states – the most widely ratified treaty in United Nations history, it is intended to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of the substances believed to be responsible for ozone depletion.
Perhaps best known to us as the Guyana government invoked it in 2004 in relation to its maritime dispute with Suriname, is the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was finalised after marathon negotiations lasting 12 years from 1970 to 1982. It addressed issues relating to the sea, which covers two-thirds of the earth’s surface.
After much disputation, which was largely due to the fact that the oceans were already in use with various levels of claims, the treaty notably extended national territorial waters from 3 to 12 miles and created a new 200-mile EEZ (exclusive economic zone), which gave coastal states all fishing, undersea drilling and mining rights. Of course, free passage for all ships on the surface of the sea above an EEZ is obligatory (Ibid).
