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

114 Chapter 7
harmonize costs of pollution control across countries, and thus would neutralize
economic costs imposed on U.S. industry by unilateral domestic regulation,
a strong economic incentive existed to act as a leader in the
regime-building process. In short, realists could claim that the regime was
created by a hegemon acting in its own interest. Apparently, this case would
provide no new insights into regimes, since “the prevailing explanation for
the existence of international regimes is egoistic self-interest” (Krasner
1983, p. 11). Self-interest could also explain why developing countries were
opposed to international regulation entailing economic costs for their
economies, and why large nuclear nations would try to protect their regulatory
autonomy with regard to radwaste disposal by resisting the regulation
of this dumping under the regime.
Governments did not, however, reach agreement out of concern for their
own interests as traditionally understood by realists. The regime did in fact
not reflect an overwhelming concern for protecting national welfare. In
the words of the economist Charles Pearson (1975b, p. 80), “it appears
that the architects of the agreement had more than a narrow national welfare
perspective in mind and, indeed, had some attachment to a global welfare
concept.” Brazil refused to sign the dumping convention in London
because it did not go far enough in reducing ocean dumping. The head of
the Brazilian delegation told the press that the convention “defends the
interests of the developed countries, polluters every one” (Hawkes 1972c).
Sweden followed a policy of strict control of dumping at home as well as
abroad, and President Nixon had signed U.S. ocean dumping legislation to
protect the Atlantic before the London Conference. Britain had already
joined a regional agreement protecting its waters against ocean dumping
(the so-called Oslo Convention, covering a large part of the North Sea
area), so Britain’s decision to join the global ocean dumping regime cannot
be understood as motivated only by concern for its own waters. As the
evidently proud British Under-Secretary of State for the Environment
declared at a press conference after the agreement was reached in London
in November of 1972: “It is an important step in controlling indiscriminate
dumping in the sea. Nations are now going to take effective control not
only of their territorial waters, but of the whole sea.” (Bedlow 1972) The
international press quoted Russell Train, leader of the U.S. delegation in
London, as declaring that the convention represented “a historic step
toward the control of global pollution” (“Saving the Seas,” New York