Introduction
Environmental conservation talks represent a struggle of man against his actions. As Sjöstedt (2008) notes, environmental problems are largely anthropogenic. This means that the environmental degradation we witness today is a result of human activities, which include agriculture, industrial production, transportation, mining, heating of buildings, among others. Unfortunately, pollution does not only occur within the polluter’s borders but permeates to other countries. Often, this means that other countries in the region get to suffer the consequences of the positive economic values that a polluter country gains from emissions. Often, such issues breed conflict, and over the years governments and private actors have adopted negotiations as the ideal way to solve environmental conflicts (Sjöstedt, 2008).
To understand why successful outcomes to environmental negotiations are hard to achieve, one must first understand the special properties that characterize such negotiations. According to Sjöstedt (2008), environmental negotiations attract non-governmental organizations and various transnational actors who ostensibly represent public opinion in the negotiations1. However, the unique properties that call for negotiations usually include
- international environmental conflicts;
- negative consequences brought by an environmental issue;
- manipulation or appropriation of scarce resources by governments, and
- Human activities that drive respective governments to agree or disagree about working together to reduce the effects of the human activities on the environment.
The Main Reasons
According to Christer & Aggestam (2008), diplomacy is the international institution that follows specific fundamental norms for purposes of providing the procedure for intercourse between countries. Some of the norms upheld in diplomacy include:
Co-existence and reciprocity
Simply put, this is the understanding that allows countries to “live and let live”. As Christer & Aggestam (2008 quoting Mattingly,1955), aptly puts it, “unless people realize that they have to live together, indefinitely, in spite of their differences, diplomats have no place to stand” (p. 196). The acceptance by different countries that they are mutually dependent on each other as long as environmental decisions are concerned is significant. However, Christer & Aggestam (2008) notes that each participant in the negotiations process has an equal right to participate. This however does not always mean that the negotiating parties are all equal. The developing countries for example approach the negotiating table as equal negotiators, but it is common knowledge that their decisions cannot be influenced by the developing nations especially considering the influence that the industrialized nations have on international bodies like UNEP. Concerning reciprocity, Christer & Aggestam (2008) notes that negotiators usually expect the equivalent exchange of values.
Also, actions that different negotiators adopt after the negotiations are conditional to responses from other negotiators. This means that players in the international environmental debate expect reciprocal behavior that returns good or ill practices with the corresponding action from others. In cases where parties that negotiated in environmental matters feel that one party is not reciprocating good actions adopted by others, then they tend to act in a manner that will re-compensate the bad actions with equally bad actions. A case in point is the US-Canadian relations regarding cross border pollution. According to Hsu & Parrish (2007), Canada’s Ontario region suffers massive air pollution from stationary pollution sources from the US. Efforts to solve the pollution problem through diplomatic channels mainly pushed by Canada have failed in the past. In the meantime, the pollution costs Canada an excess of $5.2 billion annually in terms of environmental and health expenditure (Hsu & Parrish, 2007). As such, Canadians may have to look for a different way of handling the trans-boundary pollution issue, which does not diplomacy. Such a course of action by Canada would most likely involve the use of extraterritorial laws as a dispute resolving mechanism to bring trans-boundary civil litigation against the US polluters. Admittedly, however, though the trans-boundary may prove a viable resolution mechanism in the short term, it would be a poor substitute to the bilateral cooperation that was made possible by the federal involvement of the Canada-US governments.
A shared language and open communication channels
No one explains this well than Chsiter & Aggestam (2008) who quotes Tran (1987) stating, “Communication is to diplomacy what blood is to the human body. Whenever communication ceases, the body of international politics, the process of diplomacy, is dead and the result of violent conflict or atrophy (p. 8). Communication between negotiators has to be facilitated using a common language that is understood by the negotiating parties. Yet, one cannot rule out miscommunication even when a common language with common expressions and phrases is used on the negotiation table. Quoting Cohen (1981), Christer and Aggesten (2008) state that diplomatic communicators are often cautious of saying either too much or too little because every word or hint of omission is studied by other negotiators are given some meaning. When such is the case, omissions, understatements, and other controversial communication are given different meanings by different negotitaors thus making successful outcomes a hard thing to attain.
Commitment to environmental peace
Diplomats engaged in environmental negotiations are supposed to uphold the interest of the overall environmental good to the exclusion of the immediate and narrow interests of each of the countries they represent. Further, they are supposed to be bound by ethics which state that their actions should ensure the international environment improves in a sustainable manner (Christer & Aggestan, 2008). This however is not always the case especially in instances where the diplomats cannot approach the negotiating table without considering the interests of their respective nations.
Pacta sunt servanda rule
This rule is considered the cornerstone of diplomacy (Christer & Aggestam, 2008). Environmental negotiations usually come up with international treaties that require signatories of the same to uphold the content of the treaties mainly in good faith. The main shortcoming with such treaties is that they are not legally binding but are merely morally or politically binding. According to Klabbers (2006), the pacta sunt Servanda rule in international treaties are increasingly becoming negotiable. This means that the treaties can only be binding to the signatory countries for just as much as those countries are willing to obey the rules therein (Kratochwil, 1989). Rules that come up as a result of a consensual agreement between parties are mainly a result of compromise rather than mutual agreement.
According to Klabbers (2006), when the need for compromise is factored in diplomacy, substantial issues in the negotiations are usually vague. This mainly happens because negotiators cloud the issue through borrowed terms that have no clear or recognized meaning. A perfect example of such terms is “sustainable development”. According to Klabbers (2006), the term was coined to reconcile economic growth and environmental protection during the height of environmental concerns in the 1990s. However, no one can precisely state what the term means in concrete situations. As such, it could be true that contracts, treaties, and legislation formulated by environmental negotiators are not the result of “meeting of minds” but as some form of “reducing disagreement through writing” Allot (1999). When such is the case, this means that the enactment of treaties, legislation, or contracts does not stop disagreements on environment management from persisting.
A different outlook on why international treaties do not usually hold suggests that the diplomats who negotiate the environmental laws are typically strangers. This means that they have different perspectives about the environment and life at large. Their different approaches to the environment are affected by their different cultures, while their ethics towards the environment are influenced by political, social, and economic priorities in their respective countries. According to Honig (2001), when strangers negotiate, the mongrel results are not fully clear since the ‘strangers’ fail to understand what was in their different minds at the time of the negotiation.
Increased actors
Environmental negotiations are affected by the mere number of actors present in such talks. Unlike traditional diplomacy where nations were represented by a specific representative, environmental conservation attracts Non-governmental organizations, the media, and public opinion. Environmental experts also act in the background to advise the various diplomats on what to say do or refrain from. According to Sjöstedt (2008), although this has some advantages, it also serves to make the environmental process more cumbersome. It also makes the process more protracted this making it more difficult to reach an agreement.
Other reasons
As established herein, dialogue or communication plays an important role in diplomacy. However, it is notable that communication cannot occur if negotiators do not take some vital steps in the pre-negotiation phase. Key among them include:
Managing expectations
Often, negotiators start the environmental dialogue with the expectation that a goal must be reached. Often, the initiators of the dialogue fail to clarify that negotiations are just a means to the goal. According to Sjöstedt (2008), this happens when there are no clear objectives when the dialogue process is being initiated. As a result, people’s expectations are not met and this often leads to disappointment. In the run-up to the Copenhagen climate talks that commenced in December 2009 for example, the developing countries largely expected leading developing countries like the US to have succinct commitments towards the reduction of emissions, without which it was largely expected that the Copenhagen talks would only produce a frame work for environmental progress rather than a solution to the pollution problem (Moir, 2009). Considering that the United States had failed to ratify the Kyoto protocol that came into place in 1997, it came as no surprise to many observers that once again, the United States and other developed nations did not approach the negotiation table in Copenhagen with precise emission targets2. If they were enacted, the provisions in the Kyoto protocol could have laid a platform for the signatory countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a five percent margin by the year 2012 (Moir, 2009). However, this would have cost the developed countries in terms of reduced economic production hence the reluctance to ratify the same.
Knowledge and information
International environmental matters are complex thus making analyzing or assessing them difficult. Negotiators usually lack enough knowledge and information to enable them to debate the issue and come up with realistic and acceptable solutions. As Sjöstedt (2008) observes the diplomats lack adequate issue-based knowledge necessary o solve environmental problems and bring for the binding commitments.
The US-Canada Case
Environmental relations between Canada and the US have been enviable by other countries in the world. Not only did the two countries seem to co-exist peacefully despite the many shared environmental resources, but they also seemed to acknowledge that disputes may arise between them. As such, they jointly set up dispute resolving mechanisms which include the International Joint Commission (IJC). IJC’s mandate was indicated as the provision of “trans-boundary oversight, research, and fact-finding for the US and Canadian governments” (IJC, 2009). To prevent trade and environmental conflicts between the two countries, the Commission of Environmental Cooperation (CEC) was formed. Over the years, IJC and CEC have played an important role in environment-related conflict resolution between the two North American countries. Recently, however, Hsu & Parrish (2007) notes that there has been a clear retreat from the bilateral cooperation that has existed between Canada and the US. As such, both the IJC and CEC influence of environmental matters affecting the two countries have drastically reduced (Hsu & Parrish, 2007). As a result, environmental disputes that were easily resolved between the two countries are nowadays taking a more difficult and protracted process (Sewell & Utton, 1986). As such, the two countries have had to initiate tough bargaining into the process which was previously resolved through harmonious deliberation and cooperation.
But what explains the sudden change of tact in the Canadian-US approach? One may ask. Well, according to Sewell ad Utton (1986) both administrations have gone through attitude transformation and have differing viewpoints regarding not only their shared environmental resources but the responsibility that each should shoulder for pollution that transcends their shared boundary.
According to Hsu & Parrish (2007), the declining cooperation between the two North American countries can simply be explained by the US federal government’s regard to international environmental policies and even other international laws. The US has been retreating not only from IJC and CEC but also from other International institutions, bilateral treaties, and agreements. The reason offered for this trend is that becoming a signatory of such internal laws will threaten the democratic sovereignty of the country (Hsu & Parrish, 2007). As a result, it notable that Canadians have become less enthusiastic about bilateral agreements with the US and are even less trusting of any environmental agreements negotiated by the political leaders often believing that such serve the American interests more than they do the Canadians (Nossal, 1981). Further, Hsu & Parrish (2007) envisage a situation in the future where Canadians mat embrace the extraterritoriality trend as used by Americans to solve problems between the two countries.
Notably, acid rain in parts of Ontario and Quebec are a result of emissions from US plants. Despite bilateral efforts to resolve the issue, it is widely thought that the United States doe not prioritize environmental matters as it should. More so, the quality of the Canadian air quality seems to be of little consequence to the United States. Unlike what was suggested earlier that countries in environmental negotiations may apply reciprocity, Canada seems to be doing the exact opposite of what the United States has done. According to Hsu & Parish (2007), Canada has started taking appropriate action to make its environment safer. The country’s appeal to the US to reduce its emission because Canadians especially those residing in Ontario were suffering negative consequences from the same however continuously falls on deaf years. This confirms what has been stated earlier in this essay that communication is core to any diplomacy; without proper communication, no agreement is possible and no outcomes can be attained.
Conclusion
Successful reasons for environmental negotiations are hard to achieve mainly because different countries have different economic, social, and political interests in the use of environmental resources. Simply, most countries especially in the developed world lack the political will necessary to negotiate successfully on environmental matters.
The complexities of the bargaining process also make the attainment of successful outcomes all the more challenging. With lobby groups, the media, and the diplomats coming from different cultures and fronting different environmental agenda’s, finding a middle ground even amid realities like global warming often proves to be a tall order. Overall, however, the distribution of negative values rather than positive environmental values looks like a major effect of the environmental negotiations. Even when negotiators come up with good policy statements, they remain useless pieces of writing which do nothing but gather dust if respective nations do not ratify them. The developed no doubt perceives the environmental deterioration as a cost that can be offset by the monies or values generated by environmental polluting activities.
References
Allot, P. (1999) The concept of International law. European Journal of International law, 10(1) 31-50.
Honig, B. (2001) Democracy and the Foreigner. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Hsu, S. and Parrish, A. (2007) Litigating Canada-US trans-boundary Harm: International Environmental Lawmaking and the Threat of Extraterritorial reciprocity, Virginia Journal of International Law, 48(1), 1-64.
IJC (2009) Treaties and Agreements: About the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. [Online]. Web.
Jönsson, C. and Aggestam. K. (2008) Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution. The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Resolution: SAGE Publications [Online]. 2008. Web.
Klabbers, J. (2006) The Meaning of Rules. [online]. Web.
Kratochwil, F.V. (1989) Rules, Norms, and Decisions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Moir, A. (2009) Managing Expectations: The Run-Up to Copenhagen Climate Talks: Environmental New Website. [Online]. Web.
Nossal, Kim, Richard (1981) The IJC in retrospect. In Spencer et al. (eds) The International Joint Commission seventy years on, Toronto, Centre for International Studies. Vol 9 (87-106).
Sewell, D. and Utton, A. (1986) “Getting to Yes” in United States-Canadian Water Disputes, Natural resources Journal, 201 (1), 201-205.
Sjöstedt, G. (2008) Resolving Ecological Conflicts: Typical and Special Circumstances. The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Resolution: SAGE Publications. 2008. Web.
Footnotes
- The involvement of different actors in environmental negotiations increases transparency reduces room for negotiators to make secret deals or maneuvers and increases the possibility for lobby groups and public opinions voiced through non-governmental organizations and the media to influence the negotiations. However, the many actors often increase the complexity of such negotiations thus making them more cumbersome, protracted, and make attaining the final agreement even more challenging.
- The US opposes any agreement that requires it to participate in non-voluntary or mandatory measures on emission reduction. This has deepened divisions between it and developed countries that ratified the protocol, most notably Canada. In her Defence, the US states that it has a different strategy in handling emissions, which include placing emission limits from power plants in different states.