Suchergebnisse

An estimated 150 million tonnes of plastics have accumulated in the world's oceans and the problem increases, as waste management and recycling systems are unable to cope with the rising plastic production. Marine plastic pollution has consequences on the global ecosystem, coastal communities, industries including tourism, shipping and fishing and its impacts on food security and human health remain unknown. Negative effects span borders of national jurisdiction and a solution to the problem requires international cooperation. Policies to prevent plastic pollution have been implemented on local, national, regional and international levels. However, efforts to adequately address the problem have failed so far. When faced with such transboundary problems that threaten global public goods in the past, states have formed international regimes through negotiating legally binding treaties to effectively cope with the issue. This thesis examines factors for success and failure of international regimes for the protection of global public goods and investigates two cases of one successful and one unsuccessful international regime to cope with transboundary pollution problems. Results of the analysis of the successful Montreal Protocol show that an advantageous cost-benefit analysis, active leadership of actors pushing for an agreement, support by non-state actors on the domestic level, as well as perceived urgency for action were success factors. The treaty design constituted a necessary condition for success by using the following treaty elements: a) common but differentiated responsibilities, b) trade restrictions, c) financial mechanism, and d) adjustments and amendments. Findings from the Kyoto Protocol case study indicate reasons for failure, namely the disadvantageous cost-benefit analysis, perceived unfairness due to the exemption of developing countries from costs, domestic compliance incapacity, as well as inadequate targets to address the problem. The treaty design was a necessary condition for failure of the ...

Science plays an important role in the emergence, development, and implementation of new environmental regimes. However, there are opposing views regarding the type of knowledge that is considered policy-relevant to address global environmental problems. In intergovernmental negotiations, these tensions are visible in debates about the inclusion of scientific concepts in a negotiated text. This article analyses the case of "ecological connectivity" in the negotiations for an international legally-binding instrument (ILBI) for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ). As a key scientific concept portraying the ocean as one, the term ecological connectivity challenges the status quo and has far-reaching implications for future ocean governance. Our study draws on ethnographic data collected during the BBNJ negotiations and analyses the actors and their different rationales for including the ecological connectivity concept in the treaty text. Our results demonstrate two things. First, state and non-state actors use the ecological connectivity concept to support their interests in the new ILBI, based on different types of rationales: ecologic, socio-economic, juridic, and epistemic. Second, our analysis demonstrates that several actors recognise the limitations of the existing legal order underpinning ocean governance in areas beyond national jurisdiction and are keen to embrace a new legal framework regarding the idea of an interconnected ocean. We conclude that while the ecological connectivity concept runs the risk of losing its meaning in an array of competing political interests, it does have the potential to achieve transformative change in global ocean governance and fundamentally alter the way humans use and protect BBNJ.

MARIPOLDATA is an ERC Starting Grant project running from November 2018 to October 2023. A research team led by the Principal Investigator Assoc. Prof. Mag. Dr. Alice Vadrot develops and applies a new interdisciplinary and multi-scale approach to study new forms of power at the intersection between science, and politics. The project uses ongoing negotiations on a new inter-national legally binding instrument under the United Nation Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) to study these processes in action. The rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to quarantine measures worldwide and resulted in the cancellation or postponement of a significant number of global meetings. The fourth conference on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea - on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Instrument) - was no exception. It is not yet known when it will take place. This greatly affected the international agenda and strategies set for the ocean in 2020. One important pillar of MARIPOLDATA is to investigate the negotiations of a new legally-binding treaty under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, aiming to protect marine biodiversity based on collaborative event ethnography. Since conducting field research (WP1) was impossible, the MARIPOLDATA team developed a survey in May 2020 to assess how the COVID-19 outbreak affects the various parties working on the BBNJ Treaty, and its impacts on the activities carried out towards the conclusion of an agreement. This study targeted all actors interested or actively working on the BBNJ Treaty. Any answers provided were confidential and resulted in a publication in Global Environmental Politics and a special report summing up the findings. This report presents the MARIPOLDATA Corona Survey results from a geographical ...