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

158 Chapter 9
although they assume that states sometimes might have joint interests. 6 For
neoliberals, regimes coordinate interactions among states pursuing selfinterest.
Robert Keohane’s definition of cooperation as the theoretical
alternative to “harmony” emphasizes voluntarism and individual gains;
states cooperate because it provides them with egoistic gains or rewards. 7
Ideational power, however, can stimulate collective action and thereby
provide a common, rather than individual, good. 8 Moreover, and also
important, “harmony” does not guarantee that cooperation among
nations emerges spontaneously or that influence need not be exercised. 9
Deliberate initiatives aimed at discovering common interests and values
and assisting states in identifying joint interests are often necessary in order
to realize the potential for cooperation given by a certain set of state objectives
and interests.
Land-locked states excluded, states share an interest in radiation-free
oceans. 10 But, as was pointed out in chapter 7, realist and neoliberal students
of international relations have paid little attention to ideas that can make
states define their interests in ways that enhance cooperation. These students
would doubt that a change of international public opinion, at least as long
as powerful states ignored it, could have a significant impact on a regime
and on the way in which states defined their interests. But the radwaste issue
had to be constructed before states’ interests could be identified. Moreover,
it is insufficient to characterize states’ interests as purely individualistic and
competitive when they agreed to ban radwaste disposal.
Why did scientific knowledge play an insignificant role in this regime
change? First, scientific consensus did not support a global radwaste disposal
ban; second, there was no significant change in the science in regard
to dumping of low-level nuclear waste during the change. For these two
reasons, the epistemic-community approach is not able to explain the case
adequately.
It should be noted that public opinion and ENGOs were on approximately
the same side of the radwaste disposal issue, whereas scientific
experts held a very different view. The epistemic-community approach
largely ignores ENGOs and the public-opinion variable; this is unfortunate,
since public opinion, ENGOs, and scientists all supported stringent environmental
protection in the cases examined by epistemic-community analysts:
Mediterranean pollution, ozone layer depletion, and protection of whales. 11