Critical Role of Inter-Governmental Organizations in Global and Regional Environmental Cooperation.

Abstract

Global environmental cooperation does not occur in a vacuum. It is initiated, encouraged, coordinated, strengthened and monitored by a series of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), with exclusive or partial environmental mandates. The environment as an issue for global governance organizations appeared on the international agenda in the late 1960s. Despite its relatively recent entry, the intersection between environment and development has gone on to become a central focus of global governance ever since, and IGOs have played a critical role in this process. This paper reviews the functions and operation of existing global and regional IGOs as they pertain to global environmental governance. It examines some of the more interesting lines of inquiry into their role in the international political system, both individually and as a collective whole, and how they have been applied in research on environmental IGOs to further our understanding of this set of actors. These include the extent to which IGOs are autonomous actors, how to assess their performance and impacts, how to manage links and overlap between them, and the emergence of regional IGOs, adding a new dimension to this field. Finally, this paper outlines possible future trajectories and reforms for this complex institutional terrain.