Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements

by Lawrence E. Susskind

Solutions to environmental problems require international cooperation, but global environmental treaty-making efforts, including the 1992 U.N.-sponsored Earth Summit in Brazil, have not accomplished much. International cooperation has been hampered by the conflicts between the developed
nations of the North and the developing nations of the South; by the fact that science cannot accurately predict when or how environmental threats will materialize; and by the problem that the United Nations treaty-making system was never meant to handle threats to the environment.

Lawrence Susskind looks at the weaknesses of the existing system of environmental treaty-making and the increasing role of non-governmental interests in environmental diplomacy. Environmental Diplomacy argues for "nearly self-enforcing" agreements that ensure compliance without threatening
sovereignty and maintains that new institutional arrangements are within reach. Susskind builds on the work of the Program on Negotiation at the Harvard Law School and the International Environmental Negotiation Network to offer guidelines for more effective global agreements that provide for
sustainable development.

216 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1993

Reviews

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad, fairly simplistic review very light on the subject. Although the final two chapters (especially the Salsburg initiative stuff) make it worth reading.