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

50 Chapter 3
involving large numbers of states into collections of more manageable twoperson
games. 41 In their understanding, this is achieved by powerful states
forcing less powerful ones to accept terms favored by the powerful ones. 42
But, since many dimensions of the ocean dumping problem are international
rather than regional, neoliberals would expect countries to prefer a
global regime over less attractive regional regimes.
For neoliberals, constructing linkages between issues within regimes
might also increase cooperation. Regimes with many issues on their
agenda—in other words, high issue density—are therefore expected to be
more successful in promoting cooperation than regimes with lower issue
density. Similarly, regimes are more likely to form in issue areas with high
issue density than in those with lower issue density. 43 In conclusion, regimes
help cooperation by providing reliable information to members, by monitoring
governments, by raising the costs of noncompliance (as issues might
be linked within regimes), and by pushing states to reexamine their shortterm
interests in the light of long-term interests.
There seems to be widespread agreement among neoliberals that regimes
are built either by largely selfish hegemons supplying international public
goods or by a relatively small number of sizable egoistic states. 44 Thus, similar
to realists, most neoliberals would suspect that it would be necessary,
because of participation of a high number of states in regime building, that
the United States throw its weight behind the creation of the global ocean
dumping regime. Yet neoliberals are primarily concerned with the conditions
under which regimes are formed, and they favor functional explanations,
so the question of how regimes are constructed is not really
addressed. 45
Oran Young’s neoliberal model of regime formation fundamentally questions
whether a hegemon is a sufficient or even a necessary condition for
regime formation. According to Young, regimes are created “when selfinterested
parties engaged in interactive decision-making approach a problem
in contractarian terms and seek to coordinate their behavior to reap
joint gains” (Osherenko and Young 1993, p. 11). Young and Osherenko
suggest ten distinct and at times conflicting hypotheses about how in particular
environmental protection and natural resources regimes are successfully
negotiated.
The first hypothesis states that participants must create mutually advantageous
solutions rather than maximize their own benefits. Thus, integra-