Better science and worse diplomacy: negotiating the cleanup of the Swedish and Finnish pulp and paper industry

In: International environmental agreements: politics, law and economics, Volume 10, Issue 1, p. 65-84

Abstract

The purpose of this inquiry is to identify how environmental indicators and environmental technology in the science/policy boundary alternately facilitate and encumber international environmental negotiations. In a case involving a dispute between Sweden and Finland over one another's contribution to the organochlorine pollution load to the Baltic Sea, indicators of environmental risk, including measures of allegedly toxic concentrations of organochlorines in Swedish and Finnish chemical pulp wastewater, did not bring the two sides closer to a settlement. Also, ironically, advances in technological solutions to the problem were unhelpful to the negotiation. For many months, the disputants failed to acknowledge that deliberations were slowed down by the parties' pride and confidence in their respective national scientific, technological, and regulatory institutions. In recent years, the problems caused by organochlorine emissions from Swedish and Finnish pulp mills have been all but solved-a comparatively rare transboundary environmental "success story." With the tackling of the problem, the competition between Sweden and Finland's preferred engineering solutions has dramatically faded. Adapted from the source document.