Discourse and Sovereignty: Interests, Science, and Morality in the Regulation of Whaling

Many environmentalists have argued that existing norms of state sovereignty promote environmental degradation. International legal norms have traditionally defined international common pool resources as open-access resources, allowing governments to make independent decisions about their use. To avoid having this lead to pre dictable overuse and the tragedy of the commons, governments increas ingly have used international treaties to redefine the rights of states in areas of common jurisdictions. States redefine sovereignty through such redefinitions. Given the weakness of international law within an anarchic