Interlinkages and the Effectiveness of Multilateral Environmental Agreements

Contents: Cases. Foreword. Acknowledgements. I. Introduction and overview: 1. Introduction and overview. II. Historical overview of the international process to improve co-ordination and create synergies between intergovernmental sustainable development institutions: 2. From Stockholm to Johannesburg via Malmo: a historical overview of international coordination of environment sustainable development institutions. III. The legal milieu of interlinkages under international law: 3. Legal mechanisms and coordination systems for promoting and managing interlinkages between multilateral environmental agreements. IV. Theoretical foundations and basis for an analytical framework: 4. Towards an improved understanding of effectiveness of international treaties. 5. Interlinkages and legal effectiveness: laying the foundations of an analytical framework. V. Case study one: understanding interlinkages as a factor of effectiveness within international environmental law: 6. The interlinkages of plant genetic resources: the convention on biological diversity and FAO International Treaty on plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. VI. Case study two: Understanding interlinkages as a factor of effectiveness of sustainable development law: 7. The interlinkages of plant genetic resources: the CBD and ITPGRFA and their relationship with the TRIPS Agreement. VII. Conclusions: 8. Conclusions for public international law and treaty management. Appendix. Selected bibliography. Index.

"In recent years there has been growing awareness that a major reason for the worsening global environment is the failure to create adequate institutional responses to fully address the scope, magnitude and complexity of environmental problems. Much of the criticism directed at the global institutions has focused on the necessity for greater coordination and synergism among Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and among policies and laws that take better account of the inter-relationships between ecological and societal systems. This book seeks to fill the gap in knowledge and policy-making that exists and push our understanding on how we approach international environmental law. In the course of doing so, it examines the essence of the assumptions made about cooperation among MEAs, provides a framework for measuring the effectiveness of MEAs and shows how the effectiveness of MEAs can be improved through strengthening their interlinkages. Moreover, it demonstrates how MEAs that cooperate with treaties outside the environment under other pillars of sustainable development can also improve their effectiveness."