Presenter(s): Brendan Adamczyk—Environmental Studies
Faculty Mentor(s): Ronald Mitchell
Session 4: Preserving Mother Earth
Every country in the world faces a myriad of environmental problems, from air and ocean pollution to the existential threat posed by climate change and many more . In response, many nations create or join international environmental regimes and agreements to affect positive change and influence global environmental policy . This paper examines the theory related to two research questions: how do scholars define the effectiveness of international environmental agreements? And what are the essential metrics by which the structure and effectiveness of a given international environmental agreement can be assessed? I seek to answer these questions by conducting a review of international environmental governance literature from the past three decades using a counterfactual framework—that is, comparing what did occur in the real world with a treaty in effect to what one expected would have happened if that treaty didn’t exist . Ultimately, I conclude that three key elements influence the effectiveness of international environmental agreements: the standards by which one measures effectiveness, the degree to which the language of an agreement utilizes legalization, flexibility, and specificity, and the tools environmental regimes encourage the use of in enforcing agreements . In the face of increasingly urgent environmental challenges, the most promising path for improving effectiveness moving forward is the complete integration of these three essential factors into the treaty writing, ratification, and enforcement processes .