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

Explaining Regime Formation 117
Power-based explanations would also have difficulties accounting for
how the global ocean dumping regime was built and for how and why states
managed to reach agreement. Realists claim that regime formation would
be very unlikely in a situation of significantly opposed interests among
developed and developing countries. As was discussed in chapter 3, they
would predict that the hegemon, perhaps together with other powerful
states, would have to use force, side payments, or manipulation of incentives
to build the regime.
In this regime-formation process, however, U.S. leadership was based
on ideational power. The United States attempted to initiate cooperation
by demonstrating to other nations the advantages of cooperation. Political
and administrative leaders emphasized that the ocean dumping problem
had to be dealt with effectively at home before international negotiations
were initiated. As a representative of the Council on Environmental
Quality said before a congressional hearing: “If the United States is in
fact to exercise leadership in this critical area, if it is to persuade other
nations to control their ocean disposal of wastes, then it is essential that
the United States first put its own house in order. In my opinion, prompt
and favorable action by Congress to establish effective regulation of
ocean dumping is a prerequisite to action by other nations.” (Gordon J.
F. MacDonald, “Statement,” in U.S. Senate, Ocean Waste Disposal, p. 49)
Similarly, a senator declared just a few weeks before government representatives
met in the London Conference: “If the United States does not
take the affirmative action to secure authority to control ocean dumping
from its own shores, we cannot expect to be persuasive or to maintain the
credibility of our leadership on this issue at the international meeting in
London.” (Sen. James Buckley, Congressional Record: Senate, October
3, 1972, p. 33311) Power-based theories, however, are concerned with
leadership through coercion and force. 10 No attention is paid to leadership
based on persuasion and readiness to deal with a common threat or a collective
problem.
It seems quite clear, finally, that U.S. leadership was a necessary but not
a sufficient condition for the construction of the global ocean dumping
regime. Chapter 6 showed that policy entrepreneurs active inside the
Stockholm secretariat played a crucial role in the negotiations. But realists’
preference for system-level explanations diverts attention away from
policy entrepreneurship by high officials of international organizations.