Effects of funding mechanisms on participation in multilateral environmental agreements In the original publication of the article, there were few mistakes in the text, tables and figure. The corrected text has been presented with this correction.

Farewell editorial

An economic analysis of international environmental rights Abstract This article offers a descriptive and normative economic analysis of international environmental rights. States, sovereignty, international negotiations, and international law resemble legal persons, property, the market, and private law, respectively. Just as the initial entitlement of persons’ property rights is important to increasing welfare when transaction costs are significant, so too is that of states’ sovereignty rights, including those regarding the environment. What is the initial entitlement of these rights? Is this relatively efficient? How are these rights protected? The article considers three possible initial entitlements. First, states’ right to cause transboundary environmental harm and, second, their right to be free therefrom are each rejected due to weak theoretical support and insufficient state practice. These initial entitlements would also be less efficient. In contrast, an initial entitlement consisting of both the prevention of transboundary harm and the equitable use of shared natural resources is supported by theory and practice. This entitlement appears relatively efficient, and the relevant legal instruments reveal an implicit underlying economic logic. These international environmental rights are generally protected by mechanisms that resemble liability.

Inducing state compliance with international fisheries law: lessons from two case studies concerning the Republic of Korea’s IUU fishing Abstract Despite the expansion of international fisheries law, fish stocks are still threatened by illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. An inevitable question arises: What can be done to better induce state compliance with international fisheries law? This article reveals a factor affecting compliance with international fisheries law that had not yet been explored in the compliance studies literature: the processes for implementing that law. It notes that one actor’s implementation processes may enhance other actors’ compliance with international fisheries law if the processes aim to affect others’ behaviour and others conform to them. Accordingly, the purpose of this article is to identify conditions under which the implementation processes have such a socialisation effect. These conditions are explored in two case studies concerning IUU fishing: that existing between the Republic of Korea and the European Union (2013–2015) and that between the Republic of Korea and the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (2011). The case studies show that, from an institutional perspective, the design of transparent implementation processes with dialogue between the actors involved is crucial and, in terms of social context, the international leverage and reputations of the implementing actor and the targeted actor, as well as collaboration with media and civil society, are also significant factors in the processes’ socialisation effect.

Governing complexity: How can the interplay of multilateral environmental agreements be harnessed for effective international market-based climate policy instruments? Abstract Major new multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have entered into force in 2016, including the Paris Agreement (PA) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with nationally determined contributions (NDCs) for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction, the Kigali Amendment (KA) to the Montreal Protocol with a phase-down schedule for HFC production and use in all countries as well as the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) under the International Civil Aviation Organization, an offset mechanism for GHG emissions. Regarding climate change mitigation, these MEAs are implicitly and explicitly linked to each other. However, the interaction effects between them have not yet been studied. We apply document analysis to assess the following question: how does the MEA interplay impact the scope and effectiveness of international market-based climate policy instruments defined in Article 6 of the PA (Paris Mechanisms) regarding NDC achievement? The Paris Mechanisms can generate early reductions in HFCs that lower the KA baseline and thus the entire phase-down schedule, thereby generating long-term GHG mitigation. Reduction in HFC-23—a large, controversial source of carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)—is now mandated through the KA and thus no longer available for international market mechanisms. If it accepts CDM credits predating 2020, CORSIA will not generate demand for emission units generated by the Article 6 mechanisms and thus not impact their effectiveness. Otherwise, CORSIA demand for Article 6 credits enhances effectiveness, provided that ‘double counting’ of credits is prevented through corresponding adjustments.

Do unilateral trade measures really catalyze multilateral environmental agreements? Abstract Unilateralism remains an opaque concept associated with discriminatory or coercive policy implications. Legal controversies about unilateralism have not prevented a continuing proliferation of unilateral trade measures in domestic fishery management regimes to deter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. The widespread application of trade leverage requires a refined study of the confluence of multilateral trade and environmental governance frameworks on novel state activism. This article probes the long-running trajectory of the US Tuna and Shrimp disputes within the cross-institutional context of the World Trade Organization, multilateral environmental agreements and regional fisheries management organizations. It aims to shed new light on the nexus between unilateral trade measures and multilateral environmental agreements as an evolving and mutually adaptive process. Inspired is the critical thinking on elevating trade and environmental partnerships to coherently monitor and discipline trade unilateralism in its indirect role to ameliorate global environmental problems.

Negotiating environmental protection in trade agreements: A regime shift or a tactical linkage? Abstract The prolific literature on the relationship between the trade and environmental regimes suffers from three shortcomings. First, it myopically focuses on multilateral institutions, while the vast majority of trade and environmental agreements are bilateral. Second, when studies consider preferential trade agreements’ (PTAs) environmental provisions, they are often limited to USA and EU agreements. Third, it examines how the trade and environmental regimes negatively affect each other, leaving aside their potential synergies. Conversely, this article assesses the potential contribution of PTAs to international environmental law. Several PTAs include a full-fledged chapter devoted to environmental protection and contain detailed commitments on various environmental issue areas. One possible scenario is that countries that are dissatisfied with traditional settings for environmental lawmaking engage in a process of “regime shifting” toward PTAs to move forward on their environmental agenda. The alternative is that PTAs’ environmental provisions are the result of “tactical linkages” and merely duplicate extant obligations from international environmental law to serve political goals. We shed light on this question by building on two datasets of 690 PTAs and 2343 environmental treaties. We investigate four potential contributions of PTAs to environmental law: the diffusion of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), the diffusion of existing environmental rules, the design of new environmental rules, and the legal prevalence of MEAs. The article concludes that the contribution of PTAs to the strengthening of states’ commitments under international environmental law is very modest on the four dimensions examined.

Identity and equal treatment in negative externality agreements Abstract This paper examines the interaction of two types of provisions in international environmental agreements: an identity-based minimum participation clause (MPC) and an equal treatment provision. While MPCs have been widely studied in the context of multilateral agreements, this paper is the first to formally introduce treaties specifying equal proportional reductions from the no-treaty equilibrium for all participants. Does the presence of these two provisions assist or impede the formation and efficiency of the grand coalition? In cases of equal treatment and heterogeneity of agents, smaller coalitions may result in higher welfare than requiring the grand coalition. Using game theoretic analysis of a set of games, this paper gives a set of sufficient conditions for this welfare result to hold in a one-shot negative externality coalition game and presents examples of when smaller agreements do, and do not, improve upon unanimity. Furthermore, this paper focuses on how the choice of negotiation rules affects the optimal set of signatories. By specifying equal treatment (e.g. a proportional reduction rule) in a treaty, gains to the “narrow but deep” approach may warrant a smaller coalition.

Understanding the limitations of current RFMO climate change adaptation strategies: the case of the IATTC and the Eastern Pacific Ocean Abstract While Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) face many challenges in their pursuit of sustainable resource development, climate change is among the most pressing and least addressed. Research has identified a host of expected or ongoing physical, biological, ecological, and social impacts of climate change on the marine environment, creating a strong climate change adaptation imperative for RFMOs. Through a case study of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC), we describe two serious limitations of current RFMO climate change adaptation strategies: (1) a weakened efficacy of resource management and conservation policies caused by viewing climate change as a general climate stressor rather than a unique environmental challenge, and (2) a reliance on incremental policy reform, problematic because it may not enable a pace or scale of policy change proportional to the sustainable development challenges created by a rapidly changing ocean. We discuss the benefits and drawbacks of incrementalism and outline potential solutions to the environmental and structural challenges facing the IATTC and other RFMOs, including the concept of adaptation pathways.

Strategic cooperation for transnational adaptation: lessons from the economics of climate change mitigation Abstract The literature on climate adaptation has so far conceptualized it as a domestic issue, to be governed somewhere between the local and the national scale. By contrast, scholars have shown little interest in exploring the case of cross-boundary adaptation spillovers, where adaptation by one country affects other countries. Two decades of the economic literature on climate mitigation may contribute to bridge this research gap because the problem structure of climate mitigation resembles that of adaptation with cross-boundary spillovers. With this in mind, we ask the following research question: Are there lessons to be learned by applying a mitigation perspective to the governance of adaptation with cross-boundary spillovers? After reviewing the relevant adaptation and mitigation literature, the paper applies mitigation insights to an adaptation case with cross-boundary spillovers: climate change-induced eutrophication in the Baltic Sea. Insights on coalition structures, side-payments, issue-linkage, and trade sanctions provide novel perspectives on the governance structures in place. To improve cooperation on providing adaptation as a public good, smaller regional governance arrangements could be more effective, European subsidies for pollution control might be redirected, and progress on eutrophication could be made a precondition for cooperation on other areas. These perspectives depart both from the way the Baltic Sea eutrophication problem is addressed at present, and from the way public goods are addressed in the adaptation literature. They show that some lessons can indeed be learned, calling for further research.