International Responses to Address Environmental Issues Are Constrained by Neo-Liberal Principles Underlying International Environmental Governance
The city and state of the university
Introduction
Nowadays the need for appropriate environmental governance has become more important than in any previous historical period. This is simultaneously the need for proper international environmental law regulation, namely all the stakeholders, including states – policy makers and governments, NGOs, TNOs, interested in providing protection of the environment, rely, at first, on the legal instruments, among which there are ‘treaties, customs, and general principles of international law that create binding legal obligations for States and so on’ (Scanlon & Gulmin 2004, p.11). Taking into account the general definition of governance per se, i.e. ‘the means by which society defines goals and priorities and advance cooperation; it is expressed through legal and policy frameworks, strategies, and action plans’ (Scanlon & Gulmin 2004 p. 3).
In our case good environmental governance has, in contrast to the governance in general, its own targets, among which we could mention those, which derive from the international treaties, namely ‘the requirement to create protected areas in coastal and marine areas, apply ecosystem approach in determining the boundaries of protected areas, avoid ecological isolation and so on’ (Scanlon & Gulmin 2004p.5).
Its own contribution to the establishment of proper environmental governance the neo-liberalism has made, in particular it can extracted from the definition of neo-liberalism, which is thought to be ‘a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade’ (Thorsen and Lie 2009, p.11).
Additionally, among the markets, which have to be created there is environmental pollution market (Thorsen and Lie 2009, p.11), which will be aimed at combating the environmental issues. The environmental governance deals with four main concepts, which are its, in fact, basis for development and improvement. They are following: recognizing decision-making process, in particular economic calculations, of government, business and the public as the part of the ecosystem per se; taking uncertainty seriously so that future consequences are reflected in flexible processes that extend decision making beyond electoral cycle; experimenting with new approaches to regulation, resource management regimes, which can have positive impact on ecological issues (Brooks et al p. 66).
Neo-liberalism action to deploy markets as the solution to environmental problems” in which scarce natural resources are commercialized and turned into commodities’ (Bakker 2004, p.431), is thought to be effective and that is why much nowadays attention is drawn to its perspective impact on the environment, though this vision is not shared by all the scholars working in this field.
In this paper we will pay attention to two different environmental issues of nowadays, i.e. loss of biodiversity, caused directly by human beings’ behaviour, and water, its supply and quality as well as pollution (Top 10 Environmental Issues Facing Our Planet 2013) and to the response by different political institutes and neo-liberalism approach towards such problems.
Main Body
Neo-liberal principles and international economic governance
According to P. Makowski, the neo-liberalism is built on the following main principles: neoliberal vision appeals to the fact that all the conditions for the existence of the society have to be created by themselves and are not given naturally, a primary ambition of the neoliberal project is to redefine the shape and functions of the state, not to destroy it, the politics is treated as a market for promoting certain values, corporations can do no wrong, or at least they are not be blamed if they do, the market can provide solutions to all the problems arising (even if they arise from the market)’ (Principles of Neoliberalism, 2009).
Neoliberal attitude towards international environmental governance
Contemporary neo-liberalism economic theory is thought to be identified with different international trends, among which there is growing prominence and power of big international environmental NGOs (Fletcher 2010, p.172). In general neo-liberalism used to promote the following stages for economic governance concerning the environment (they reflect the general principles of the concept):
The creation of capitalist markets for natural resource exchange and consumption (Fletcher 2010, p.172). Talking about this issue we can come to different conclusion depending on which neo-liberal concept we will follow. It means that there are different approaches to neo-liberalism itself. It can be laissez-faire, when no interference or intervention is possible, however, it could be simultaneously Keynesianism, when the state as a player could appear at certain moment, when the ‘rules of the game’ are now followed.
Secondly, such state of affairs has to lead to proper privatisation of resource control within these markets and commodification of resources so that they can be traded within markets (Fletcher 2010, p.172). That is the situation, when, in theory, the organization privatizing the natural resources, adhere the rules, set for such activity, and behave in the legal way. Though, different obstacles could occur, particularly the breach of the rules. Under such circumstance, the state’s interference is thought to be needful.
Thirdly, the state is to be withdrawn from direct government intervention from market transactions (Fletcher 2010, p. 172), which is among the key liberal principles of state’s non-interference.
Finally, decentralisation of resource governance to local authorities and non-state actors such as non-governmental organisations (Fletcher 2010, p.172). The logical continuation of the previous stage is, of course, putting of the responsibility for control on the decentralized players, among which we usually list NGOs as the key players.
Neo-liberalism in economic aspects functions in accordance with certain principles, which are based on common for this ideology value, i.e. freedom. According to them, the state has to function in certain way, which derives from the principles, and below there are examples of the state’s competence:
Macro-economic policies have to be aimed at keeping inflation low, controlling government borrowing, keeping taxation level low, allowing exchange rates to flow, and interest rates to be determined by the market (Castree 2010, p.11). These are limited only by establishment of the rules of the game, in which everybody is engaged.
‘Managing, monitoring, and auditing measures that focus hard on setting targets, establishing benchmarks, measuring performance, penalizing failure, and rewarding success’ (Castree 2010, p.11). This principle is connected with the previous one and consists in providing the appropriate bodies, which are entitled to control over the adherence of the rules.
Industrial and business policies that remove selective subsidies, trade barriers, investment barriers, and ownership barriers, and incentivize innovation, competition, and entrepreneurial risk taking (Castree 2010, p.11). These provisions are the way to create competition on the market, to improve the quality of the products and services.
Law and order policies that take an uncompromising approach to rule breakers, ‘troublemakers’, and those who otherwise cause social disruption and infringe upon the rights of others (Castree 2010, p.11). Being connected with the sphere of the state’s competence, this provision is applied for punishment those, who have not adhered the rules of conduct as well as to provide appropriate rules – criminal, administrative and so on, in order to make it clear what is wrong and what is allowed.
Response to the international environmental issues
The importance of the environmental issues in question (loss of biodiversity and water quality and supply)
One of the most prominent scholars in the field of neo-liberalism Harvey discussing its consequences on environment has concluded that they are, in general, negative, even though the attitude towards such conclusion is different, for instance Reagan and Bush did not care about the consequences and put much effort in order to make neoliberalism function, whereas Thatcher played important role to limit the use of the CFCc that were responsible for the growing ozone hole around Antarctica (Harvey 2005, p.172). In context of the issues discussed, we can provide an example, which has been taking place since 1970, namely accelerating destruction of tropical rain forests, which causes loss of biodiversity as well as climate change (Harvey 2005, p. 173). Additionally, the author draws our attention to the fact that such economic attitude has led to fastest mass extinction of the species in the Earth’s recent history (Harvey 2005, p. 173). Another example is fish stocks, particularly sardines off California, Chilean sea bass, which have been exploited to such extent that they merely disappeared (Harvey 2005, p.174).
The main problem consists in the fact that neo-liberalization and consequent privatization of natural resources have led to the situation, when establishment of global agreement does not play the role, which it has to play, since it could not prevent over-exploitation of the resources (Harvey 2005, p. 175)
Neo-liberalism approach response
The governance of the international economic system has changed, meaning the neo-liberal worldview has also changed. In particular, this has happened due to sharing of the principles concerning the need for protection of the environment. ‘Modern liberalism is characterised by a greater willingness to let the state become an active participant in the economy. This has often issued in a pronounced tendency to regulate the marketplace and to have the state supply essential goods and services to everyone’ (Thorsen and Lie 2009, p. 5).
The states’ (international) response
Thus, the following ‘insights’ in context on neoliberal theory, which constitutes the basis of the international environmental governance, have been made.
It is known that among the key elements of neo-liberalism is privatizing and propertizing nature, meaning certain firms and organizations obtain direct control over natural resources from the state (Castree 2010, p.14). Though, nowadays position consists in the fact that markets in environmental goods, services, and assets typically require considerable state intervention (Castree 2010, p.29). This is provided with an example of already taken effective measures, concerning passing American Fisheries Act in 1998, which has produced the quota for fishing the economically valuable pollock population, the world’s largest single-species fishery (Castree 2010, p. 29). Such attitude does not contradict with main liberal provisions; moreover, it provides them with the logical way to organize the market by establishing the rules.
Markets in environmental goods, services, and assets must carefully adapt to biophysical obstacles in order to avoid being inhibited by them (Castree 2010, p.30). This is the way to prevent the companies from monopolizing the market. The situation which illustrates the need for such intervention is the water supply and its quality. We can imagine when a firm is responsible for water supply in certain region, simultaneously, there is no concurrency, and hence, the quality of the water is likely to stop being controlled. Thus, nowadays it is a common practice to give license to different legal entities within one region to provide the public with such natural resources.
Over 30 UN agencies have been established so as to deal with environmental matters as well as such organizations as Food and Agriculture Organization dealing, in particular with overfishing (Najam et al 2006) Additionally, lots of multilateral agreements have been passed in order to control the field of international environmental governance.
Those were Convention on Biological Diversity, by which ‘importance of, and the need to promote, international, regional and global cooperation among States and intergovernmental organizations and the non-governmental sector for the conservation of biological diversity and the sustainable use of its components’ was recognized (preamble); Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants as well as Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer. The right to live in a healthy and balanced environment has been recognized by wide range of the judicial body, in particular by the European Court of Human Rights. Also, certain soft law acts, including Stockholm and Rio Declarations have been passed.
Private sector’s response (NGOs and business)
Among the changes in environmental governance we need to mention the strong encouragement of ‘flanking mechanisms’ in civil society (Castree 2010, p.22). The following examples of such state of affairs in context of the declared environmental issues, namely pollution and loss of biodiversity, can be made. In 1989 in Argentina the water management rights were granted to the large private sector company Aguas Argentinas, which, at first, had its aim to eliminate the pollution of water taking appropriate precautionary measures, then the water had to be delivered to the population (Castree 2010, p.14).
The other case took place in Bolivia, in which state control of the water resources was weak leading to the necessity to change such state of affairs. It has been soon granted to the legal entity, which successful dealt with such task. For the legal entities, the activities of which could have negative impact on the environment, so-called ISO 140001 (EMS) has been created, namely the environmental management plan. The application of this EMS can be illustrated by the example of Fredrickson International firm, which applied it in order to ‘identify environmental impacts, reduce them, become more efficient and save money as well as to demonstrate environmental responsibility to all the stakeholders’ (Briggs 2013, p.1)
Among the contemporary response of NGOs, possible within the borders of neo-liberalism, we should mention so-called BINGOs (big international non-governmental organizations), among which it is necessary to highlight Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy (Fletcher 2010, p. 173). Such economic activities, as ecotourism, bioprospecting, and payment for environmental services created the market for the exchange of the natural resources and involved the NGOs to promote ecological values (Fletcher 2010, p.173). Also, their participation has been encouraged in such countries as India and Bangladesh, in which it led to increasing access to safe water (Mohamed-Katerere 2007, p.33)
Conclusion
Thus, we can summarize the previously made statements, having claimed that neo-liberalism had to overcome difficulties and criticism, since totally not controlled market could not satisfy the newly appeared need for the protection of the environment, which is nowadays highlighted at different levels – from the international to the local one. We can conclude that main responses to the environmental issues of nowadays are the state’s limited intervention into the market consisting in the establishment of the rules, according to which the players have to play; TNOs and NGOs’ understanding the need for taking responsibility for the ecological state of affairs resulting in their activity on the natural resources market. We have shown these changes taking two environmental issues, namely water supply and its quality as well as loss of biodiversity, both of which could be resolved within the neo-liberalism concept, though with some modifications, when the state controls the activities of the players.
References
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