Many of the major environmental challenges facing governments and societies today are collective problems, calling for joint solutions. However, even when effective solutions can be found only through joint efforts, international cooperation is often hard to establish and maintain. This makes it all the more important to understand the conditions for `success' and the causes of `failure'. This book examines some of the political mechanisms at work in the formation and operation of international environmental regimes. What are the major factors that shape the national positions that governments bring to the negotiating table? How do the international institutions and negotiation processes through which these preferences and positions are adjusted and aggregated affect outcomes? What are the main mechanisms determining whether or not international environmental agreements are successfully implemented at the domestic level? The Politics of International Environmental Management is published in cooperation with the European Science Foundation.

Essays discuss environmental issues, interest groups, security and trade considerations, and future approaches to environmental policy

Examines the Mediterranean Action Plan from 1972 to 1987 as a successful international effort to coordinate the marine pollution control practices of the Mediterranean littoral countries through regional treaties, coordinated research and monitoring, integrated policies, and administrative and budge

Theoretical and empirical accounts of the role of business in shaping international environmental policies.

Written in an accessible and lively style, this ground-breaking text marries a critique of current remedies towards environmental problems to original and viable alternatives. This text adopts an eco-centric rather than a traditional environmental management perspective to focuses on the key issues such as: * The effectiveness of international agreements in solving environmental problems * the role of the structures and constraints within which these agreements operate

Explores the growing role of global civil society and local environmental activism in the management and protection of the environment worldwide.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.