Private Environmental Regimes as Tools for Global Governance

Abstract

Even within its own borders, a government’s control over the behavior of its citizens is never complete. Many regions that defy human settlement—the high seas, deserts, and deep jungle—exist without consistent legal enforcement. In these areas regulation tends to be informal, based on habit or tradition, and is maintained voluntarily among those whose success or survival requires mutual accommodation. On the high seas all ships respond to a distress signal. Informal rules, such as first user’s rights, abounded on the American western frontier, as did vigilante justice.

Before, you could do anything. We never even measured how much effluent we put out. It just went right up the chimney. The used barrels and dirty waste went out with the garbage. If an auditor came we just slipped him a mango [payment] and that was all.

But now, whenever there’s a sound or a smell, the neighbors come knocking. They don’t call the regulators, they come knocking…. We need something we can show them. Something credible. So we get certified under these international standards. We want to show that we comply with standards that are as tough as anywhere in the world. And we do it seriously. No one wants to find your factory on some Greenpeace list or read in the newspaper that your plant leaks toxic chemicals.

Environmental Manager at a chemicals plant in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina, October 2004.