International cooperation and international law — lecture #11

This lecture (which is the last of the IP ones, and was held on October 3, meaning that I’m insanely behind on my schedule) dealt mainly with answering the question of why cooperation exists in international relations, in light of Liberalist theories — seeing as Realists don’t really believe in cooperation — but with some Realist critique thrown in the mix. (If I remember correctly, that is. ) A particular emphasis will be on environment changes, international environmental regimes — how effective they are, and why not. (Did that last part make any sense? ) The UN Charter’s position as a normative criteria for the use of force in IP will also be discussed, and if I can be botehred to type it out, I’ll include a case study of the American intervention in Iraq in 2003, which the lecturer used as an example. But, like I said, I might not be bothered to do that, because it’s frankly of secondary importance to me in relation to my exam — and to be honest, even though I pretend otherwise at times, I mainly write these things to facilitate the repetition of this stuff I’ll go through the last two days before the exam. Well, let’s get started then, shall we?

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Why international cooperation?
As we have seen, it is plausible to assume that an increase in the interaction between states (and other actors on the international arena) has taken place in the last decades, and that this increase in interaction has led to states becoming more and more interdependent of each other. This process of globalisation has, like most things, both positive and negative sides to it — it presents us with multiple opportunities, while at the same time being vulnerable. International cooperation can be seen as a strategy for handling collective problems caused by globalisation, as well as for exploiting the opportunities.

Environmental cooperation.
One of the areas in which serious collective problems have arisen, is on the environmental one. Because of supernational environmental problems, a situation of interdependence has come into being, as all states are affected by these problems, and thus it is pointless for one state to take measures to improve things, if their neighbours just keep on polluting. This interdependence is widely recognised, from the Stockholm meetings of 1972, to the 1992 Earth Summit in 1992. Today, there are some 160 international environmental agreements.

The efficiency of international regimes.
First of all, we need to clearify what, exactly, an international regime is. A common definition (Krasner 1983) is that an international regime is a set of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and procedures for decision-making, where the expectations and attitudes of the actors and members converges within a specific area of international relations. Thus, the efficiency or success of international regimes can be found by asking to what extent state behaviour is changed in accordance to the regimes rules, and to what extent the regime is able to solve the problem it’s aimed at.

It is unquestionably so that some regimes are more successful than others. How can we explain this? First of all, we can examine the regime in general: Who participates? To what extent is there scientific certainty? Who opposes the regime? Second, we can take a look at the problem the regime is supposed to solve: How serious is the problem? How is the problem perceived? What changes are required to solve it?

By answering these questions and similar or related ones, we might be able to discover why a regime isn’t working as it should.

Climate.
Climate is determined by several factors. (These were presented by a political scientist, and although I do not question her ability to find reliable information on this topic, I won’t argue if someone more qualified were to disagree with her.) One is the energy supplied by the sun — the sun’s intensity, if you will. Another is the ability of the Earth and its atmosphere to reflect heat and sunshine. And a third one is the chemical composition of the sun. This last factor has changed because of humanly created emitions of various fumes.

Humanly created climate changes.
A growing problem today is the increase in Earth’s mean temperature, which is caused by emitions of greenhouse gases, created by human activity. Of these gases (which include CO2, N2O, CH4, SF6 and various chlorides — it’s been over four years since my last chemistry class, so bear over with me here, will you? ), CO2 is the most important one, being the cause of more than half of the greenhouse effect created by humans. To stabilise the CO2 emissions into the atmosphere at a 1990 level, would imply a 60-70 % reduction of the CO2 emissions.

Environmental cooperation — a chronological summary.
1988: The UN climate panel (the IPCC) is established.
1990: The first report of the climate panel is presented. Its conclusion: CO2 emissions must be reduced.
1992: The first climate convention is held in Rio de Janeiro. Agreement is reached on the goals, but no time-limits or quantifiable commitments are made.
1997: The Kyoto Protocols, containing both set time limits and quantifiable commitments, is signed by several countries.

Kyoto.
However, the binding commitments on emission reductions of the Kyoto Protocols only applied to so-called Annex 1(B) countries (industrialised countries). Developing nation wre not bound to reduce their emitions. Also, the treaty wouldn’t be operative until it had been ratified by at least 55 countries, and until this group of 55 countries included enough Annex B(1) countries for their 1990 emitions to add up to at least 55 % of the total emissions in 1990. This caused the treaty to be close to irrelevant up until its conditions were fullfilled on Febuary 15, 2005.

A “Diet” Kyoto?
In Haag, 2000, the United States refused to ratify the agreement, in spite of Clinton’s signing it the year before. Their reasons for refusing to ratify was that they mad misgivings concerning the scientific certainty of the treaty’s fundamental assumption, and that the developing nations weren’t bound to reduce their emissions, as well. The developing countries, on their side, claimed that the industrialised countries had created the problems, and in addition that it would be impossible for the developing countries to develop without emitting greenhouse gases, as reductions would seriously hinder their economic growth.

In Marrakech, 2001, some uncertainty arose concerning the participation of the Eu, Japan and Russia. But in 2004, it was finally decided that Russia would participate, and so the Kyoto Protocol came into force from Febuary 2005.

(More on this, as well as plentiful statistics related to climate changes, can be found on the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research homepages. Additional data is avaliable from the CDIAC and EDGAR datasets.)

Barriers to an effective climate regime.
First and foremost of the barriers against an effective international climate regime, is the anarchic nature of international politics: Each and every state is primarily concerned with their own military and economic security. Second, there’s the classic free rider problem: Some countries may think that if all other contries do their share of the emission reductions, then they won’t have to. And if enough states think like this, nothing ever happens at all. Third of all, there’s the issue of institutionalised short term prespectives. Electoral systems does not show enough considerations for the interests of future generations, and politicians are (or so some claim anyway) generally more concerned with being re-elected than with solving problems stretching across several years. [This is why I am in favour of a high level of technocracy in societies, by the way.] Third, it is always possible to dig up some obscure (or not so obscure) scientist who rejects the entire problem. Also, there has been some cases of corporations buying off “scientists” to support their claims of global warming being bogus. (George Monbiot often writes quite well on this topic; dig through his archive, and I think you might find some interesting stuff.) Forth, the cost of an international climate regime is considerably higher than those of other regimes, like the international Ozone regime. Fifth, there is an uneven distribution of costs and benefits over time: The costs of preventing the problem won’t be paid by the generation that will reap the benefits of them. [Nor were they, if they are to pay the price of our inability to take responsibility, responsible for their potential problems. Not to mention that they are the ones who'll support the ones who paid the costs when these latter are too old to support themselves. And if the latter didn't care to help the former, why the fuck should the former bother to help the latter? Ridiculous reasoning... ) In other words, today's generations can avoid the negative consequences of the problem. [And just party on...] Sixth, there is an uneven distribution of costs and benefits in space: The South will probably benefit more from stopping the climate changes than the North; the North may actually be able to profit from the climate changes. Seventh and final, these factors all combine into what can be called an “unfortunate triangle” (which, once again, will be Print Screened from the ppt, uploaded, and posted in the Norwegian version.)

Does norms play any role in IP?
Are states willing to set national interests aside in order to conform to international norms or regimes? Realists generally doubt this, while Liberalists and some Reflectionists are more positive to the idea. But why should states do this? First of all, they could do it because they recognised that it would promote their national interests in a longer term. They could also comply to international regimes because they feared international sanctions if they didn’t, or if the international public opinion was strongly in favour of them doing so. Finally, there’s the concept of altruism or idealism, which might motivate states to abandon their own national interest in favour of an international regime.

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I think I’ll stop here; the case study of the intervention of Iraq could probably have been very interesting for you all (read: “you two” ) to read, but I’ve been at this for three hours now, and typing out the case study would take me another three hours or so…