The most significant way that the international community has sought to govern the global environment is through cooperation among nation-states, creating multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) and international regimes. Some counts put the number of MEAs at more than 400, many of which have come into being since 1972. This chapter introduces this state-led model of global environmental governance (GEG), its basic rules and principles, and the driving forces behind it. In so doing, we address a question that underlies the study of global environmental negotiations: Who, or what, shapes the negotiating outcomes we see in this system, and how?
Studying international environmental cooperation provides insights into exactly how nation-states succeed or fail to work together to address complex transboundary and global problems. International environmental negotiations have been fraught with difficulties, and conflicts of national interests, values, and priorities. These clashes have often led to compromises that have disappointed many. Environmental negotiations are, however, often remarkable for examples of political entrepreneurship, creative compromises, and last-minute solutions. They have attracted attention and participation from a wide range of actors, not only states and their representatives, but also scientists, activists, and business leaders. Despite frustrations and failures that have afflicted some recent negotiations, James Rosenau's description of global governance efforts being “marked less by despair over the past and present than by hope for the future” still resonates (Rosenau 1995, p. 21).
International relations theories of state-led bargaining and cooperation under anarchy have provided important insights into the complex factors that shape negotiation outcomes and regime formation. At the same time, the study of international environmental cooperation has brought to the fore important dimensions of these processes that had hitherto been less visible in this field of study, but have gained in importance across most, if not all, types of global governance regime in recent years. In later sections of this chapter we examine the growing influence of the South in global governance, the role of scientific and technological expertise, and increasing demands for participation by non-state actors, notably civil society and corporate-sector actors. We finish by examining critiques of the state-led system of GEG, while noting the important changes that have happened or been instituted within this system. We begin with a description of the major building blocks of state-led GEG, and the formal (and informal) processes of international law and negotiation that lead to their creation.