Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

6
Negotiating the Global Ocean Dumping
Regime: Interest-Based Regime Analysis
For neoliberals, global environmental problems make states dependent
upon one another for the attainment of human well-being and protection
of the environment, and this interdependence almost compels states to
cooperate within regimes. According to this body of theory, military force
is generally not an available means to influence international policy coordination
under conditions of complex interdependence.
Many neoliberals would expect that the United States—or, alternatively,
a group of powerful states—would construct the global ocean dumping
regime, with international organizations playing an insignificant role in the
process. According to a classic neoliberal study, “leadership will not come
from international organizations, nor will effective power” (Keohane and
Nye 1977, p. 240). Other neoliberals would expect entrepreneurial leaders
to play a prominent role in negotiations producing environmental regimes,
whereas structural and (especially) intellectual leaders probably would play
less significant roles.
The formation of the global ocean dumping regime was far from a “governments
only” affair. It was intimately interwoven with the 1972
Stockholm conference, where organizers attempted to secure the environment
a permanent place on the global agenda. As will be documented in
this chapter, the Stockholm secretariat organized the negotiations on the
global ocean dumping regime so that a treaty could be ready for signature
by governments at the Stockholm conference. It was believed that agreement
on this global environmental regime, which was in fact reached within
a few months after the Stockholm conference, would prove governments’
willingness to start protecting the environment.
It will become evident that interest-based analysis captures many but
not all of the elements of how, why, and by whom the global ocean dumping
regime was built. This chapter demonstrates that policy entrepreneurs