Rules for the Environment; Reconsidering Authority in Global Environmental Governance

摘要

For scholars interested in environmental issues, the fragmented organization of the international realm has long been our crucial problematic; 'the Earth is one, but the world is not' as the opening phrase sounded in the report Our Common Future by the World Commission on Environment and Development (1987). In the work of Hardin (1968) the dilemma of the commons was to be overcome by either enclosure or privatization. In general, scholars have tended to opt for neither of Hardin's possible ways out, and instead went for the possibility of 'cooperation under anarchy'. Almost 15 years ago, Hurrell and Kingsbury framed the question that has driven so many of the debates within international environmental politics: Can a fragmented and often highly conflictual political system made up of 170 sovereign states and numerous other actors achieve the high (and historically unprecedented) levels of co-operation and policy co-ordination needed to manage environmental problems on a global scale? (Hurrell and Kingsbury, 1992, p. 1).