Regulatory Roadblocks to Environmental Sustainability

Although tackling climate change and environmental degradation are the common responsibility of the global community for averting catastrophic consequences and the likelihood of serious welfare losses on a global level, the majority of states are not willing to give up their short-term economic interests and to pool their sovereignty to make a comprehensive and coercive international environmental agreement. Therefore, the implementation and enforcement of a comprehensive and coercive international regulatory regime have been stalled in the international fora for a long time. At the same time, private regulations, voluntary environmental assessments and reporting frameworks initiated by business, civic and professional organizations have been proliferating since the beginning of the 1990s. The question is whether these private self-regulatory initiatives of assessing and monitoring environmental performances, especially, of the large corporations are an effective and proper substitute for mandatory multilateral environmental agreements; whether those in terms of global environmental outcomes can counterbalance the unwillingness of the majority of the states to comply with a stringent international regulatory regime.