Global Environmental Politics: Options for a more efficient governance structure

Project Leader: Dr. Susanne Dröge
Project Assistant: Dr. Marianne Beisheim, Dr. Birgit Lode, Nils Simon

Funding by: Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety

This project is a follow-up of Global Environmental Politics: Options for a more efficient governance structure.

At the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio, governments are going to reassess the institutional structure for sustainable development. In this regard the system of international environmental governance (IEG), which suffers from high institutional fragmentation, unclear division of labor und insufficient funds, may be reformed as well. With the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), a poorly equipped organization in terms of staff and finance is put in the center of IEG, hardly on par with its counterparts operating in economic or development governance.

Reform options currently discussed by the international community cover a wide range from incremental steps to broader transformation, including an enhanced UNEP as well as the foundation of a United Nations Environment Organization (UNEO). In this research project, we analyze different models for reforming the IEG system. We ask which reform options are actually on the table, given the complex governance architecture with its numerous independent entities, and what institutional arrangements would be able to fulfill the envisaged functions of the system.