The Environment

Abstract

The environment presents a unique set of challenges for global governance, and has generated a set of institutions and regime complexes that is distinct from those found in other issue-areas. Whereas security and trade issues are about direct relationships among states, and development and humanitarian institutions are focused on providing assistance to specific populations, environmental issues are for the most part about the global commons, understood as those things held in common by different countries and peoples. Global commons can be geographical, areas such as the high seas, the atmosphere, Antarctica, and outer space that are not under the jurisdiction of individual states. They can also be things like species of life, which are part of the Earth’s common heritage even if they are physically located within countries. Global environmental governance is about restraining pollution and resource use in such a way that actions by specific countries or their nationals do not prevent access to elements of the global commons by others.¹