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POLICY AND PRACTICE REVIEWS article
Front. Polit. Sci.
Sec. Comparative Governance
Volume 6 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/fpos.2024.1388191
This article is part of the Research Topic Climate Change, Natural Resources, and Human Security in Governance and Society: Vulnerabilities and Adaptation Strategies View all 6 articles
Environmental Ratification Moves
Provisionally accepted- 1 UMR5193 Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarites, Societes, Territoires (LISST), Toulouse, France
- 2 Centre for Environmental Law and Governance, School of Law, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, United Kingdom
For over sixty years, International Environmental Law has produced hundreds of texts aimed at protecting the environment at global to regional scales. Most of these texts do not gather the support of all the States concerned. The reasons for this are analysed here. This retrospective look provides a striking panorama of the current situation. The international and domestic motivations that lead a State to the sovereign decision to ratify or not a treaty, are first recalled and put into perspective in their interdependencies. The analysis of thousands of ratifications of 51 major treaties draws lines of divergence between leading States, follower States, and States reluctant to enter into environmental commitments. On a global scale the latter form a large majority, including most African and Asian states. The States of Northern and Western Europe are among the first to ratify these treaties, followed by other European States. G7 Member States occupy vey contrasting normative positions. Overall, three major moves emerge from this global panorama. First, historical and persistent inequalities in the development of countries have cast an indelible shadow on environmental international multilateral treaties which do not bring the expected fruits of development. Second, in environmental matters, over the past fifteen years the trend consists in establishing agreements of more restricted range (regional, bilateral), with commitments from States on fairly flexible objectives, adaptable to their social and economic context. Third, these agreements are set within the broadly negotiated and thematically inclusive principles of sustainable development.
Keywords: environment, sea, Treaty, agreement, Ratification, Coalitions, international community, sustainable development
Received: 19 Feb 2024; Accepted: 29 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Mazzega. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Pierre Mazzega, UMR5193 Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Solidarites, Societes, Territoires (LISST), Toulouse, France
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