TREVES, Tullio, PINESCHI, Laura, TANZI, Attila, PITEA, Cesare, RAGNI, Chiara, ROMANIN JACUR, Francesca (eds.), Non-Compliance Procedures and Mechanisms and the Effectiveness of International Environmental Agreements, T.M.C. Asser Press, The Hague, 2009
| Autor | Antonio Cardesa Salzmann |
| Cargo | Post-doctoral Researcher, CEDAT / Universitat Rovira i Virgili |
| Páginas | 1-7 |
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Over the past twenty years, Parties to multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) have increasingly devoted attention to the traditional compliance deficit and, thus, the lack of effectiveness of international instruments in the field of International Environmental Law. Accordingly, one of the characteristic phenomena in the institutional and procedural development of MEAs within this period is the emergence and consolidation of so-called non-compliance procedures. As typical regime-specific enforcement mechanisms, they are set out to raise the general compliance record of States following a pragmatic, managerial approach. Yet, while the enforcement mechanisms of the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer and, more recently, also that of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, have overwhelmingly attracted academia’s attention, comprehensive contributions aiming to encompass the vast array of existing or envisaged non-compliance procedures have been rather scarce1.
Therefore, the volume edited by Tullio Treves, Laura Pineschi, Attila Tanzi, Cesare Pitea, Chiara Ragni and Francesca Romanin Jacur, presenting the results of a common research project of the Universities of Milan, Bologna and Parma, promises to fill an important gap in academic literature.
The coherent methodological approach to the research is indeed one of the strongholds of this volume. It starts from the assumption that the outstanding variety in the configuration of non-compliance procedures and mechanisms does not only depend on the basic substantive obligations established in each MEA, but also on their political and geographical context. According to this approach, what may be considered as the first part of the volume (the first two sections) is devoted to the empirical legal analysis of non-compliance procedures and the practice deployed therein by the treaty bodies, whereas the second part (sections three to five) provides for an inductive appraisal of the characteristic features of these mechanisms.
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Hence, in the first section, several authors set out the formal analysis of the non-compliance procedures adopted, or currently under consideration in universal (chapters 1 to 8) and regional MEAs (chapters 9 to 15). In so doing, they follow a harmonized structure that addresses the basic conventional obligations in each MEA, and the legal basis and negotiating history of the non-compliance procedure, before providing an in-depth assessment of the various institutional and procedural aspects in each such mechanism. The legal analysis is further complemented in each chapter with a brief survey of practice of the treaty bodies involved in the procedure.
Complementary thereto, leading practitioners have contributed to the volume by providing valuable insight into the practice of compliance bodies in the second section (chapters 16-19). In particular, they deal with the activity deployed by the Compliance Committees of the 2000 Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the 1998 Aarhus Convention, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the 1991 Espoo Convention, and also by the Independent Recourse Mechanism established in 2003 within the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. However, in our opinion this second section partially overlaps with the survey of practice contained in the chapters under the previous section. Moreover, it falls a bit short of case-studies. As its title indicates, it only contains a ‘selection’ thereof. Still, it would have been very useful to include further case-studies concerning already well-established compliance bodies, such as the Montreal Protocol’s Implementation Committee. It’s quantitatively significant amount of accumulated case-law might well have made the object of a qualitative assessment of the mechanism’s contribution to that regime’s effectiveness, based on a broad ‘historical’ perspective. Ultimately, such an appraisal would also contribute to the wider evaluation of...
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