Filling
the Environmental Policy Gaps
Despite the many environmental regimes and action plans negotiated in the past quarter century, important gaps still exist in the international environmental policy framework. The framework has not developed in any systematic or strategic way. Rather it is a collection of numerous treaties, each addressing relatively discrete global or regional environmental issues. Superimposed over these binding treaties are a set of broader, nonbinding declarations or resolutions, such as the Stockholm and Rio declarations. No binding set of general environmental principles currently exists. Moreover, some new or particularly complicated environmental issues still await international attention, compounding the policy gaps.
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Despite the potential importance of binding principles, the United States has consistently opposed the development of any general environmental covenant. It argues that any covenant negotiated today would not sufficiently protect the global environment, because developing countries would defend their sovereign right to develop. The negotiation of a binding covenant may indeed magnify the overall influence of developing countries, because they do not generally have the financial and human resources to participate effectively in the contemporaneous negotiations of many separate environmental treaties and instruments. In fact, it may be exactly those fears of negotiating on a level playing field that drives U.S. opposition to a covenant rather than a fear that the resulting principles would be too weak.
Instead of pursuing a binding covenant, the United States seems intent on weakening some of the key proposed principles. For example, the United States is one of the few remaining countries still opposing the precautionary principle (which holds that a lack of scientific certainty should not be used to prevent cost-effective action to address potentially irreversible environmental threats). The U.S. approach to environmental regulation requires that there be proven environmental damage before control measures are taken.
Washington stands virtually alone in rejecting the precautionary principle—a guideline with significant implications for many global environmental issues. Based in part on the precautionary principle, Europe is championing a much stronger regulatory approach to biosafety issues such as the release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). To make matters worse, the U.S. has been threatening to challenge Europe’s precautionary approach to GMOs in the World Trade Organization, basing its argument on the lack of definitive science for justifying GMO trade restrictions.
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Imposing Liability and Providing Compensation. Few international environmental regimes have addressed the question of liability and compensation for harm caused to the environment. The Montreal Protocol, widely viewed as the model for all international environmental treaties, effectively banned the production and use of most ozone-depleting substances. But it did not hold those responsible for ozone depletion legally accountable, nor did it provide for compensating persons or countries that have suffered from ozone depletion. Even where liability issues have been generally acknowledged in international law—e.g., concerning damage caused by transboundary shipments of hazardous wastes—the parties have been deadlocked in trying to operationalize the concept of liability. The U.S. has often opposed international liability in these contexts, ostensibly out of concern that minimum levels of due process and fairness may be hard to ensure in international forums. However, America’s disproportionate responsibility for many global environmental threats and its vulnerability to liability claims also help explain U.S. opposition.
Emphasizing Environmental Restoration. Given how far we have come in damaging the global environment, international environmental efforts in the future will have to be focused more on environmental restoration than protection. Although more expensive and less effective than protecting resources in the first place, restoration may sometimes be the only choice left. Environmental restoration is now a dynamic part of domestic environmental management and will undoubtedly begin to inform future global environmental negotiations. In this country, for example, the increasing trend toward removal of dams, reintroduction of endangered species, and large-scale restoration projects—like the attempt to recover the Florida Everglades—portends a future focus of international cooperation.
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Addressing Persistent Chemicals. In June 1998, negotiations began in Montreal to establish a global convention to eliminate or manage twelve of the world’s worst chemical contaminants, including dioxins, PCBs, DDT, and other pesticides. These chemicals persist in the environment and accumulate in human and animal tissues. Many of them have been linked to cancer and to adverse affects on human endocrine systems. Although most countries concur on how to regulate the twelve chemicals currently identified in the agreement, major differences exist about how to add new chemicals to the list of globally regulated or prohibited substances. Also critical to any global accord will be the decision about whether countries that are the source of existing stockpiles of phased-out chemicals should be responsible for their disposal. The document (to be completed by 2000) has been closely monitored by the chemical industry, which is pressing the United States to narrow the agreement’s purview.
Water Shortages. Most experts agree that access to fresh water may be the most important natural resource issue for the next century. Human health, the environment, and even a country’s national security depend on access to adequate water supplies. But according to a recent UN Freshwater Assessment, humans are already using "about half" of the 12,500 cubic kilometers of water that is readily available. With world population expected to double in the next 50 years and with water consumption historically increasing at twice the rate of population, our global water situation is bleak. To make matters worse, water is allocated unevenly around the globe. Today, 460 million people or 8% of the world’s population live in countries already facing serious water shortages. Regional water shortages may thus exacerbate international conflicts and threaten national security if international management efforts are not successful. A 1997 UN convention on transnational water uses provides a beginning framework for managing these regional disputes, but long-term financial and political leadership from the United States and other powerful countries will be required for the convention to be successful.
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Consumption Levels. The Earth Summit recognized explicitly that achieving sustainability would require addressing both population and consumption. Two years after the Earth Summit, the world’s governments came together at the Cairo Population Summit to negotiate a comprehensive plan to curb population growth, but the North has yet to allow any meaningful dialogue on consumption. The United States, in particular, has blocked international efforts to address consumption levels. Domestically, the U.S. lacks any comprehensive effort to "green" consumption and lags well behind Europe, for example, in adopting green taxes, ecolabeling procedures, "take-back" legislation (requiring industries to take back and dispose of their by-products at the end of their useful life), or other policies aimed at greening consumption. In the next century, no serious effort at achieving sustainable development will be able to avoid tackling the issue of Northern consumption levels and patterns.
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Title/Contents
| Promise of Rio | U.S.
Leadership | Policy Gaps | Major
Treaties | Law Principles
| UN Architecture
Integrating Protection
| Emphasizing Individuals
| Conclusion | Reference
Notes | Environment
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