Buying compliance?

Unusually, this week’s roster of environment related presentations at Oxford included something on the Stockholm Convention. Specifically, Dr. Veerle Heyvaert from the LSE spoke to the Socio-Legal Dimensions of Environmental Law and Regulation seminar series about ‘buying compliance’ within the Stockholm framework.

The central part of her presentation addressed the relationship between the two major kinds of state involved in Stockholm. Essentially, there are rich developed states that had already sharply restricted or banned most persistent organic pollutants (POPs) covered by Stockholm before negotiations even began. Then, there are developing states that either still used some of the pesticides restricted or produced large amounts of unwanted by-products such as dioxins or furans. The differences between the two are largely centered around ongoing behaviour, financial resources, and institutional capabilities.

Dr. Heyvaert suggested that the major contribution of the rich states is to help pay for the costs of POP abatement in the poor states. She expressed concern that while the latter is seen as binding, the former is somehow seen as voluntary or charitable. While the Stockholm Convention lacks any official mechanism to ensure compliance, it seems more likely that pressure will be put on poor states to stop emitting than on rich states to help pay for it.

Clearly, there are issues of equity involved. From the perspective of international law, however, it seems to me that there is a more fundamental issue at hand. Cases like the Trail Smelter Arbitration of 1937 have helped to make explicit the norm in international customary law that states do not have the right to pollute the territory of their neighbours. As such, states that have already cut back are not in violation, whereas those that continue to emit are. While this may be a neatly expressed legal situation, it doesn’t conform too well with the reality of who can pay and what actions individuals are likely to take. As such, mechanisms such as those in the Stockholm Convention that allow richer states to assist with the costs of cleaning up industrial and agricultural processes in poor states seem to make both equitable and legal sense.

The question is how to apply such arrangements to more demanding cases. Nobody with a choice is going to pump out large volumes of Mirex or Toxaphene. They are among the nastiest chemicals humans have ever dreamed up. As such, there is a limited incentive to free ride on a system that seeks to limit their production and usage, especially when there are effective channels for financial and technical assistance in doing so.

At the base of all this, there is the question of what goes into the equity calculation. You might choose to consider past emissions when deciding who pays what, or you might look only at present practice. You might consider overall wealth or not do so; require states to pay equal amounts, equal percentages of GDP, or use some other formula. What kind of balance you adopt is the stuff of political deal-making, which I suppose is where most international considerations of equity are ultimately addressed in a meaningful way.

Author: Milan

In the spring of 2005, I graduated from the University of British Columbia with a degree in International Relations and a general focus in the area of environmental politics. In the fall of 2005, I began reading for an M.Phil in IR at Wadham College, Oxford. Outside school, I am very interested in photography, writing, and the outdoors. I am writing this blog to keep in touch with friends and family around the world, provide a more personal view of graduate student life in Oxford, and pass on some lessons I've learned here. View all posts by Milan