Reviews: Environment and Statecraft: The Strategy of Environmental Treaty-Making, European Cities: Social Conflicts and Governance

Whereas a few writers are optimistic about tackling international and global environmental problems, the remainder vary in their stance from the extremely pessimistic, believing that little can be achieved within the current anarchic international state apparatus, to those who see some hope of agreements being both reached and then implemented.For the former group, the current US administration's unwillingness to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is typical of the narrow sectionalism that puts national short-term interests before the global future, whereas, for the latter, the Montreal Protocol on the reduction of production and consumption of CFCs and similar ozonedestroying gases exemplifies what can be achieved.But which of these two scenarios is most likely to characterise future attempts to tackle contemporary environmental problems which require international agreement?A substantial literature on international relations uses game theory to illuminate and elucidate the problems of reaching agreements between actors (states in most cases) so that they act both in their own and in wider society's best interests.As the well-known prisoners' dilemma shows, without such agreements being imposed on them öbecause otherwise they cannot be sure that others will not free-ride and take advantage of those who put everybody's long-term interests before their own short-term selfish concernsörational individual actions will produce suboptimal results.Within individual states, such agreements can be imposed and enforced, by the state.But the international arena lacks an institution that can ensure cooperation in reaching an agreement over environmental use, let alone enforce any agreements that might be signed.Hence the pessimism.But need it be that way?Is meaningful cooperation not possible, even though states (necessarily) are most concerned with promoting their own (that is, their citizens') interests?According to Scott Barrett, an economist, there are ways forward, if agreements are creatively written.(Of course, this assumes that there is first agreement that a problem exists, that its causes are known, and that viable solutions are availableösomething that is often not the case, as with debates over the science of global warming.)For Barrett, the crucial principle to be adopted in treaty writing concerns the structuring of the incentives: everybody should see that they will benefit and so wish to cooperate in both preparing and then implementing a treaty.He illustrates this with a range of examples.Two stand out: the North Pacific Fur Seal Treaty of 1911, which had only four signatories, and the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which has 175 ratifying signatories.Both are deemed successes at achieving their specific goals and Barrett devotes considerable space to determining why.From that, and consideration of other international treaties and agreements, he concludes that success requires that they be self-enforcing, by which he means that they should be: (1) individually rationalögiven the choices made by other countries, none can gain by withdrawing, having initially been a party to the agreement, and no other can gain by joining, having initially decided to stand apart; (2) collectively rationalöwhereby parties cannot gain by seeking to renegotiate the treaty; and (3) perceived to be fair to all parties.Meeting these criteria seems, and is, a tall order, but Barrett's examples show that it is feasible to devise a satisfactory architecture, both for spatially restricted problems, which involve only a few (usually, though not necessarily, neighbouring) states, and those which are global in their scope.His summary draws ten conclusions which sustain this argument, of which the two most important are that ``The principal task of a treaty is to restructure incentives'' and ``Compliance needs to be enforced, but participation is the binding constraint ... a treaty that sustains real cooperation must deter non-compliance and non-participation'' (page 355).A final chapter analyses the Kyoto Protocol in some detail to show not only how ReviewsEnvironment and Planning A 2005, volume 37, pages 947 ^950

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