UN Conferences and Constructivist Governance of the Environment

In this article I review the history of global environmental conferences and draw political lessons about their broader role in constructing efforts at global environmental governance. I also examine the future of global conference diplomacy for the environment, in particular Rio+10 in Johannesburg in 2002 and the prospects of reaching the goals for sustainable development set at the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Global conferences are oft-used policy instruments, thus deserving careful evaluation and assessment. Jacques Fomerand expresses justifiable skepticism that most global conferences are momentary media events that provide sound bite opportunities without lasting effects on policies or the quality of the environment. (1) Guilio Gallarotti, and Michael Barnett and Martha Finnemore, offer similar skeptical judgments about the potential for effective state-based international governance. (2) Yet Fomerand also points out, as do I, that many conferences provide indirect effects that may be beneficial for inducing states to take more progressive steps toward governance and sustainable development. Governance and Constructivism Governance has recently become a popular catchphrase of international relations. Without the prospects of hegemonic leadership, and in light of the substantial growth of influence of international institutions and nonstate actors, international rule making has become the domain of multiple overlapping actors and regimes, rather than the clearcut leadership by one state or multilateral conformity with a small and homogeneous set of shared rules backed by enforcement mechanisms. Anne Marie Slaughter defines it as "the formal and informal bundles of rules, roles and relationships that define and regulate the social practices of states and nonstate actors in international affairs." (3) Sustainable development requires multilateral governance, because without well-defined rules and expectations most countries are incapable of unilaterally protecting themselves from transboundary and global environmental risks Constructivist scholars of international relations (IR) have been focusing on the institutional, discursive, and intersubjective procedures by which international governance develops. John Ruggie writes that social constructivism rests on an irreducibly intersubjective dimension of human action ... constructivism is about human consciousness and its role in international life.... Constructivists hold the view that the building blocks of international reality are ideational as well as material; that ideational factors have normative as well as instrumental dimensions; that they express not only individual but also collective intentionality; and that the meaning and significance of ideational factors are not independent of time and place. (4) Constructivists look at the mechanisms and consequences by which actors, particularly states, derive meaning from a complex world, and how they identify their interests and policies for issues that appear new and uncertain. It is now widely accepted by most IR scholars that governance increasingly occurs in a decentralized manner, through a loosely tied network of multiple actors, states, functional state agencies, and nonstate actors who interact frequently, sometimes at global conferences. (5) Governance of the environment is no different. Constructivists focus on such distinctive processes as socialization, education, persuasion, discourse, and norm inculcation to understand the ways in which international governance develops. Typically these are complex procedures involving multiple interacting actors that accrue over time and contribute to transformational shifts in perceptions of national identity, international agendas, and the presumptive ways by which national interests are to be attained. UN conferences contribute to governance and sustainable development by establishing and reinforcing some of these constructivist themes in international relations. …