Suchergebnisse

This paper seeks to understand how the collective South, as institutionally represented by the Group of 77 (G77), manages its unity as a negotiating collective despite its many internal differences and in the face of external pressures. Negotiations leading to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) are used as an empirical case study. This is a particularly interesting case because a) it was manifestly South-driven, b) it saw uncommonly intense South-South bargaining within the context of a global environmental negotiation, and c) it also saw intense North-South differences. In focusing on how the G77 managed its internal (South-South) as well as external (South-North) negotiations, the paper uses a negotiation analytical framework to derive generalizable lessons about the collective negotiating behavior of the developing countries' caucus in global environmental politics.

Analyzes the functioning and unity of the Group of 77 (G77), a negotiating caucus of over 130 developing countries in the United Nations system, focusing on the Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD); since 1992, chiefly.

The basic premise of Paul Harris's edited volume is that "understanding U.S. international environmental policy is central to the entire project of global environmental protection" because the United States is the "world's largest polluter [as well as] the world's wealthiest country" (p. 4). To argue that the United States is disproportionately important to international environmental policy (or to international policy on most other issues) is an important, but relatively uncontroversial, case to make; and it is made rather well throughout the chapters in this book.

This year presents us with two important opportunities to influence the direction of sustainable development financing - the UN Summit on Financing for Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. We may ultimately remember both as missed opportunities. We need to take a fresh look at the entire system of financing for development and reorient it towards a sustainable development orientation. This requires focusing on questions of legitimacy, accountability and capacity. Such action would challenge the now entrenched orientation of the regime as a 'financing' regime. It will require a re-examination of the institutions that are entrusted with the agenda and will find nearly all lacking in necessary capacities. An expanded institutional framework that incorporates intermediary and local non-government organizations (NGOs) would be absolutely critical. Finally, institutions (at all levels) will need to be invested in with a different set of performance metrics; measures which gauge the ability of institutions to deliver on their developmental goals, rather than focus only on financial accounting.