environmental issues in international relation

environmental issues in international relation

The Role of Environmental Issues in International Relations

1. Introduction to Environmental Issues in International Relations

When at the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, the ecological movement made a major breakthrough, political scientists contributing to this approach convergence began to study the subject of nature with new concerns. They underlined above all problems of development in their approach to “Development and Civilizing process”. As diplomats and researchers on international relations began to address environmental problems, political scientists began to study these environmental problems from an internationalist perspective, adapting or inventing concepts and theories so that the environment should invade their field of study.

Today’s world is increasingly affected by environmental consequences, alternative courses of action in environmental affairs, protections or restraints. It also affects the way in which various countries and groups of people interact with each other. The study of the place of the natural environment in international relations is not new. Politicians and thinkers have long recognized that nature could offer a way to protect and ensure the survival of a state. Some have thought of the state as a guardian of nature and have invented an international system to protect nature. Others have seen the state as the appropriation of nature and struggles between states a struggle for the control of natural resources; the results being war or international diplomacy. In the middle of the mixture of these two tendencies, many political thinkers have thought that natural borders must be barriers, elected to guarantee the unity of a state or to separate nations which would owe to live independently, respected of neighboring or other nations.

2. The Impact of Environmental Issues on Global Diplomacy

The international dimension of human activities that damage the environment was recognized and discussed in Pacem in Terris (1963) and other documents of the Vatican II. Indirect references to the integrity of creation indicate a range of actions in order to safeguard from pollutants added to the air, water, and soil. In many respects, the diplomats engaged in disarmament negotiations contributed to the development of environmental diplomacy, too. As a matter of fact, one may state that environmental diplomacy has inherited fundamental features of diplomacy in general, which is an art of exerting influence on issues of transnational character by sophisticated means, without: a) involving force, except possibly occasionally and on a small scale; and b) direct political control inside the territory of other sovereign states.

The emergence of environmental diplomacy is another aspect of an ongoing change in the character of international relations and global politics. While one can witness discussion on numerous issues, the focus of international relations has been national security, international trade, investment regimes, and national development strategies (humanitarian law issues and human rights are directly related to these domains). The beginning of specific diplomatic activities can be traced back to the 1960s when environmental pollution incidents (e.g., the release of toxic chemicals into rivers, oil tankers grounding accidents) as well as epic pollution damages (e.g., the Tokyo and the Great Smog) have pushed environmental issues to the agenda of numerous bilateral and multilateral relations.

3. International Agreements and Treaties Addressing Environmental Concerns

Each environmental element is a globally shared resource with certain inherent characteristics common to all such resources, the consequences of an inappropriate international regime for EER are twofold. First, international trade-offs will not provide an optimal level of EER. Second, in addressing EER without a better understanding of the forces working behind the veil, an assumption that the national welfare function reflects the global welfare function will lead to incorrect policy implications as policymakers might indeed reduce the level of EER relative to its prior most policy questions, and the relevance of these questions, in the world of politics. Clearly, to transform environmental policy questions into something of an importance that compels the attention of world leaders, the problem at hand must have some dimension that directly affects national security or national economic interests. The environment, as a determinant of living and economic growth, is able to meet the former but needs no small measure of conceptual reconfiguration to better fit the latter. While some environmental concerns automatically compete in a world of nation states — setting the global climate change process restricts national emissions levels (to stem warming) and sets a global market, interferes with national attempts to trade freely, (to control acidification). The existence of globally shared environmental resources means that there is a market no power of any regime to make transfers on any reasonable basis.

International agreements are usually assumed to result from the creation of common interests among states, either because decision-makers come to perceive the benefits of cooperation or because the power relations induce some states to produce conditions on which all states can agree. Free trade agreements and disarmament treaties are examples of the first type. International law in general is a reflection of certain fundamental norms and values adhered to by states. International historically has been concerned with ensuring a degree of stability in relations among actors. Less obvious than the need for international economic stability simply because the human society and the physical environment. But the need exists, and the environment thus plays an important role in the shaping of the foreign policies of today’s major powers relations among states are limited to those that most effectively protect the security interests of the major powers. In order for a wider range of topics to take on any significance in the international sphere, these topics and the issues they involve must be connected in some way to the security paradigm.

4. Environmental Security and Conflict Resolution in International Relations

Conflict is a part of human progress; a war could provide an opportunity for individual and social imaginations to grow and create. In international relations, disputes on the reality of change and conflict are always available. According to renowned political analyst H. Morgenthau, “conflict is not so much a condition of international life as a specific outlook toward that condition”. Conflict in the field of human behaviors could have some positive effect on society and individuals. Nevertheless, undesirable conflict could produce negative impacts. Conflict is the “kernel of all operational processes in forming policy”. Policy-making processes would not necessarily develop in the accompanied by conflict. The absolute dominance of conflict could lead to the distribution of policy. No matter what the substantiality of international politics is “the interests behind international politics”, not “cooperation or conflict” as such. Therefore, it is crucial to have a durable political structure in order to prevent the development of conflict in society. The most important goal of politics is the struggle to reconstitute the basic conditions of peaceful interpersonal collective behavior.

In the academic literature as well as political discussions, different forms of environmental conflict are experienced together with multiple various entities of environmental conflicts. Just to mention, some researchers underpin the so-called ‘environmental peace theory’, which predicts the equilibrium where shared environmental problems create a basis for collective action by decreasing the potential for other conflicts. Simultaneously, several peace researchers suggest that sooner or later the main issue of both small and large-scale conflicts will be access to weak environmental resources. The social conflict paradigm considers ecological issues to be a new form for ancient political goals. Dominating such an approach, analysts appeal to existing models of political structures and procedures for interpreting and solving environmental disputes.

5. Conclusion: The Future of Environmental Issues in Global Politics

The rise and course of environmental issues in world politics suggest that the global environment shapes the international system of states, acting as a sort of decentralized world government. This idea has been developed by several scholars and is supported by four principal claims. First, the rise of environmental issues is a reaction to the weakness of traditional means for addressing effects of industrialism through public policy and the indirect and incomplete structure of power in the world political order. Second, the issues raised by the environment lend themselves, in general, to solutions requiring concerted action by several public entities, while existing international organizations do not have the resources. Third, the non-governmental organizations can and have filled the gap left by the weaknesses of states and international organizations to conduct activities. Fourth, if the recipients of the concerned policies take account of those that express public opinions in distorted reflection of public welfare, improving hierarchical linkages and reducing the influence of groups, the world environment can act as a decentralized world government that, by offering the public a reward for increasing the overall collective good, stimulates more international cooperation to reduce global environmental problems. By all appearances, the environmental emphasis in world politics will increase as time goes on and the links between the focus on environmental problems and the nature of the state will strengthen and overshadow many of the other areas for conducting international negotiations.

The way these problems have been dealt with indicates the general trend in world politics at the turn of the century and the nature of foreign policy-making. It seems quite clear that as more and more problems escape nation-state control, the more important world politics become, and the more significant world politics become, the stronger the foreign policy capacities of nations will have to be. In relation to environmental problems, four main areas and levels of interaction between countries and world politics can be distinguished. These areas and levels are commonly dealt with as separate entities in existing works of literature, yet in reality, they are mostly interconnected and interdependent. However, since it offers a clear structure and can help in distinguishing the variety of patterns in interactions on the respective levels, it is used here as well. The areas and levels reflect changes in world politics and the nature of the state.