Amandine Orsini

Policy Coherency and Regime Complexes: The Case of Genetic Resources

This study argues that ‘regime complexes’ and ‘policy coherence’ are two faces of the same integrative process. The development of regime complexes co-evolves with the pressures on decision makers to coordinate their policies in various issue-areas. Conceptually, we introduce a typology of policy coherency (erratic, strategic, functionalistic, and systemic) according to its procedural and substantive components. Empirically, by triangulating quantitative and qualitative data, we use this typology for the case of the genetic resources’ regime complex to illustrate the links between regime complexes and policy coherency. Our results suggest that a coherent policymaking process favours integrated regime complexes, while greater exposure to a regime complex increases the pressure to have a coherent policymaking. This study fills a gap in the literature on regime complexes by providing a micro-macro model linking structure to agency.

Technological Choices in International Environmental Negotiations: An Actor— Network Analysis

This article applies the main findings of actor—network theory to the outcomes of international environmental negotiations on technological issues. Taking the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) as a case study, and more precisely its developments on biotechnology and bioprospecting applications, the research identifies three successive stages in the negotiation of technological issues under the biodiversity treaty: (i) their emergence on the agenda of the CBD, (ii) the development of two sociotechnical networks in favor of biotechnology and bioprospecting applications, and (iii) the failure of these networks to influence the international agreement. These successive stages are the result of the mobilization of diverse actor networks, arising from the intersection of technological findings on the one hand and the interests of particular businesses, governments, and environmental NGOs with regard to these technological applications on the other hand. Closer scrutiny of these actor networks reveals that coherence between actors’ intentions and actions is a key element for their successful influence on international negotiations.

From logics to procedures: arguing within international environmental negotiations

Mainstream literature in international relations understands negotiations in terms of power politics and/or bargaining processes between rival national interests to account for states’ negotiating stands. Using definitions and questions initially defined by Thomas Risse, this study of processes at work in the biodiversity regime underlines instead their deliberative dimension and its contribution to positive negotiation outcomes. However, the article also challenges the dominant understanding of deliberation in global environmental politics that focuses on the participation of non-governmental organizations and other interest groups in the ‘public space’. Instead it identifies deliberative elements in the negotiation process proper, stressing in particular the importance of the relationships developed between governmental delegations through series of closed meetings of selected participants. This contribution uses for illustration the negotiations leading to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and to the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization.

Thinking transnationally, acting individually: business lobby coalitions in international environmental negotiations

Firms are key actors interfering with the negotiations of international environmental agreements. However, their ability to engage in collective lobbying via the establishment of business transnational coalitions has received little attention so far. In order to fill this gap, this article conducts a micro–macro analysis of corporate lobbying during the negotiations of two sub-agreements of the Convention on Biological Diversity. In particular, it scrutinises the degree of transnationalisation of two senior business lobby coalitions in these negotiations: the Global Industry Coalition and the International Chamber of Commerce. In contrast to former studies of business lobbying on environmental agreements, the analysis stresses the variety of business interests represented in international negotiations and underlines the bargaining processes taking place inside each transnational business coalition. Transnational business lobby coalitions are found useful for business networking activities, either as tactical tools or as information platforms. Yet corporate lobbying efforts are still conducted predominantly on an individual basis.

Conservation and preservation

Aligning global governance to the challenges of sustainability is one of the most urgent environmental issues to be addressed. This book is a timely and up-to-date compilation of the main pieces of the global environmental governance puzzle. The book is comprised of 101 entries, each defining a central concept in global environmental governance, presenting its historical evolution, introducing related debates and including key bibliographical references and further reading. The entries combine analytical rigour with empirical description. The book: offers cutting edge analysis of the state of global environmental governance, raises an up-to-date debate on global governance for sustainable development, gives an in-depth exploration of current international architecture of global environmental governance, examines the interaction between environmental politics and other fields of governance such as trade, development and security, elaborates a critical review of the recent literature in global environmental governance. This unique work synthesizes writing from an internationally diverse range of well-known experts in the field of global environmental governance. Innovative thinking and high-profile expertise come together to create a volume that is accessible to students, scholars and practitioners alike.

Essential Concepts of Global Environmental Governance

Aligning global governance to the challenges of sustainability is one of the most urgent environmental issues to be addressed. This book is a timely and up-to-date compilation of the main pieces of the global environmental governance puzzle. The book is comprised of 101 entries, each defining a central concept in global environmental governance, presenting its historical evolution, introducing related debates and including key bibliographical references and further reading. The entries combine analytical rigour with empirical description. The book: offers cutting edge analysis of the state of global environmental governance, raises an up-to-date debate on global governance for sustainable development, gives an in-depth exploration of current international architecture of global environmental governance, examines the interaction between environmental politics and other fields of governance such as trade, development and security, elaborates a critical review of the recent literature in global environmental governance. This unique work synthesizes writing from an internationally diverse range of well-known experts in the field of global environmental governance. Innovative thinking and high-profile expertise come together to create a volume that is accessible to students, scholars and practitioners alike.

Business as a regulatory leader for risk governance? The compact initiative for liability and redress under the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety

In March 2008, the six world leading agro-biotechnology companies, presented a private, international instrument for liability and redress to cover the environmental damage caused by genetically modified organisms. The proposal was rejected by governments, who instead adopted a binding supplementary liability and redress protocol to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, with no content transfer from the business initiative. Elaborating on this case study, it is explained how powerful business proposals can turn into a policy failure. Business conflicts are identified as one major explanatory factor. The fragmentation of business interests and the lack of business support for the six major firms’ initiative have discredited the role of corporations as regulatory leaders. Business unity is found to be a decisive, necessary condition for the endorsement of corporate proposals by policymakers.

Boundary Organizations in Regime Complexes: A Social Network Profile of IPBES

Regime complexes are arrays of institutions with partially overlapping mandates and memberships. As tensions frequently arise among these institutions, there is a growing interest geared to finding strategies to reduce them. Insights from regime theory, science and technology studies, and social network analysis support the claim that “boundary organizations�? – a type of organization until now overlooked in International Relations – can reduce tensions within regime complexes by generating credible, legitimate and salient knowledge, provided that their internal networks balance multiple knowledge dimensions. Building on this argument, this article offers an ex ante assessment of the recently created International Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). Results from our network analysis of IPBES point to clear improvements compared with similar organizations, although major deficiencies remain. The contribution of this article is threefold. Methodologically, it introduces new conceptual and technical tools to assess the “social representativeness�? of international organizations. Theoretically, it supports the claim that international organizations are penetrated by transnational networks and, consequently, that the proliferation of institutions tends to reproduce structural imbalances. Normatively, it argues that a revision of nomination processes could improve the ability of boundary organizations to generate salient, credible and legitimate knowledge.

Why and How Should the Commonwealth of Nations Engage in the Access and Benefit-sharing Issue

The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilisation (hereafter Nagoya Protocol), adopted in 2010 during the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, entered into force in October 2014. The idea behind the protocol is that 10 biodiversity, and more precisely the genetic resources of plants and animals, is useful for a number of commercial applications, including pharmaceutical, cosmetic and agricultural. As a result, the protocol proposes a legal basis asking the users of genetic resources to share part of their commercial profits with the providers of these resources. Sometimes, users also take inspiration from traditional knowledge to develop their com- 15 mercial applications. The protocol therefore applies to genetic resources and to the associated traditional knowledge.

Emerging Countries and the Convention on Biological Diversity

A chapter on the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) fits perfectly in an edited volume dedicated to multilateral institutions. Indeed, the CBD is not an international organization, if one defines international organizations strictly as demonstrating autonomy and permanence. It rather follows the definition of an international regime, organized around a core framework convention. More precisely, the CBD was adopted during the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, as the sister convention to the climate convention (see Chapter 13, this volume). While the CBD is not, strictly speaking, an international organization, it presents at least three features that are of particular interest and places the CBD in the category of noteworthy multilateral institutions. Firstly, while in theory just a treaty, the CBD has gained autonomy over time, with a small but active secretariat based in Montreal (and consequently distant from UNEP headquarters) described as a “lean shark” (Siebenhuner, 2009). Secondly, the CBD is one of the most dynamic global environmental treaties (with nearly universal membership, a notable exception being the United States), in contrast to the climate convention. Indeed, the CBD has deepened its work on biodiversity and regularly adopted new protocols, such as the Cartagena Protocol in 2000 or the Nagoya Protocol in 2010, one of the latest multilateral environmental agreements to have been adopted worldwide. Thirdly, the CBD demonstrates dynamism by also recently engaging in the estab-lishment of its own policy-science platform (following the model of the IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) that was created in April 2012 as the IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services).