How do nature governance rules affect compliance decisions? An experimental analysis

In an age of unprecedented decline in global biodiversity levels, the task of designing laws that effectively protect nature and biodiversity is urgent. To help address this enforcement deficit, European policymakers have sought to democratise environmental enforcement by conferring citizens and environmental nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) with legal rights of access to environmental information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters, derived from an international treaty known as the UNECE Aarhus Convention (the so-called “Aarhus mechanisms”). However, there has been little systematic empirical research to date on the effectiveness of this new wave of private nature governance laws, and their impacts on compliance decisions. This paper seeks to address this gap. We investigate, by means of a laboratory experiment with student participants, the extent to which different nature governance rules affect individuals' decisions to comply. By nature governance rules, we mean the legal tools used to promote compliance with nature conservation rules, including traditional governance rules such as criminal penalties and civil fines, but also the new generation of private governance rules, in the form of the Aarhus mechanisms. Our findings provide new empirical experimental confirmation that traditional and private environmental governance rules together achieve more effective nature conservation outcomes than traditional governance rules alone. They also suggest, however, that private governance rules may lead to some duplication of enforcement effort by the State and citizens.