Effective Forms of Environmental Diplomacy

Leila Nicolas, Elie Kallab

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000436402
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Diplomacy & Treaties
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book holistically covers the issue of environmental diplomacy by building a firm foundation for readers to understand the different dimensions of the topic.

The book begins by exploring the progress the world community has made in understanding the importance of diplomacy in preserving the environment for humankind's survival, peace, and security. Then, it critically analyses the existing system of international environmental treaties and highlights its political and legal gaps. It further examines specific case studies on multilateral diplomacy as well as both formal and informal diplomacy in cases from Europe and the United States to evaluate the diplomatic models followed by different stakeholders in the field. Through this case study analysis, the book develops theoretical and empirical frameworks that can be applied to study how international and regional organisations and NGOs maintain and put forward environmental agendas at an international level. It also examines the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment to highlight the challenges to reach an effective and equitable environmental governance and draw conclusions around effective versus ineffective forms and tools of environmental diplomacy.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environmental diplomacy and environmental law and governance, as well as practitioners working in this important field.

1
Environmental diplomacy evolution

An introduction

Diplomacy

States have practised diplomacy since the formation of the first city-states and even earlier than that. The Greek word “diploma” is the origin of diplomacy.

In the eighteenth century, the French language adopted the word “diplo-mate” referring to a statesman authorised to negotiate and deal with other states (Freeman & Marks, 2018). Later on, the word “diplomacy” spread to all languages, and now it merely refers to “the profession, activity, or skill of managing international relations, typically by a state’s representatives abroad” (Oxford University Press, 2018). Diplomacy has always evolved and advanced, conforming to the emerging needs of states.

Traditional diplomacy

Some would describe the institution of diplomacy as “old as history itself” (Sen, 1965). Usually, diplomats enrol in negotiations to preserve peaceful and cooperative relations between states and sometimes avoid hostilities. The Greeks initially developed the basis of the European tradition of diplomacy.

Europeans inherited the practice and developed it. The Romans adopted the early form of diplomacy to satisfy imperial administration needs, establishing a department for foreign affairs for the first time in history (Freeman & Marks, 2018). Spain set a precedent by sending a permanent representative to the Court of England in 1487, which became the international standard norm later on. The first to professionally train diplomats were the Byzantines, who were coached into espionage and collecting information. These diplomatic customs lived long after the Byzantine Empire’s downfall (Freeman & Marks, 2018).

Following the Roman Empire, the Roman Catholic Church added new practices, such as “plenipotentiaries” who had been given the discretionary authority to negotiate and sign treaties on behalf of their sovereigns. In the twelfth century, Italy commissioned “ambassadors” who carried a letter of credence with limited authorities to act as sovereign.

After the industrial revolution, established norms and customs of diplomatic relations were described by Grotius: “there are two maxims in the law of nations relating to Ambassadors which are generally accepted as established rules: the first is that Ambassadors must be received, and the second is that they must suffer no harm” (Grotius, 1901).

According to B. Sen, the balance of power was one of the main reasons why the last decades of the seventeenth century saw a willingness to establish permanent diplomatic missions among states, to “keep an eye or sneak” on one another, and since diplomatic envoys were to be received and were inviolable – as Grotius stated – permanent diplomatic missions were the appropriate tool. By the nineteenth century, the world adopted European-style permanent missions and foreign ministries’ systems.

After signing the treaty of Westphalia, diplomacy and the state system evolved together, both in the service of new states’ personal and national interests. However, since most diplomats were aristocrats – and secretive, European diplomacy was elitist, which meant that it separated the ordinary citizen from foreign policy, making it a state-to-state only diplomacy (Younger, 1964).

States continuously tried to regulate diplomatic practices to solve disputes peacefully, beginning mainly after the Congress of Vienna (1815). Nevertheless, the First and Second World Wars revealed that diplomacy could not prevent military escalations and colonialist competition from leading states to war. It was until the “Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations” 1961 that government-to-government diplomacy was regulated.

Contemporary developments of diplomacy

Today, diplomacy is facing many challenges that require better practices. It has had to realise the urgency to evolve or perish. Thus, traditional diplomacy has been forced to change to fit the needs of the twenty-first century.

Since the end of the Cold War, diplomacy has witnessed a transformation in practitioners’ expertise; an increased number of states and new actors flourished alongside states internationally.

Non-state actors played significant roles as international governmental organisations (IGOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and even multinational corporations. The multiplicity of actors on the international level, with different roles and impacts, lead to “multilateral diplomacy”.

The international order can no longer be preserved through the harmonious cooperation between states, especially since continuous and sound communication, utilising modern mediums, is now needed between states and between state and other players like non-state actors (Younger, 1964). Those actors often had a critical eye harmful to states’ images and foreign policy practices.

The fact that IGOs are inefficient on their own does not mean that they are not beneficial to their member-states. These organisations ultimately serve traditional diplomacy in enhancing bilateral and multilateral diplomacy between sovereign states. What is notable is that they gave states, non-state actors, and regional organisations a voice and a medium to interact.

In turn, this voice allowed more people to become cognizant of their national, regional, and international circumstances, and with this awareness came the need to be heard. Thus, public opinion began to transcend national boundaries and manipulate international forums, drawing the attention and the interest of states and non-state actors alike.

These developments are proof that changes in the practice of diplomacy were not only required but also present; states were beginning to feel more like a community, increasingly appreciating the weight carried by public opinion – both nationally and internationally – and benefit from the rapid increase in communication technologies at that time (Nicolson, 1964).

Many scholars believe this to be true, including Brian Hocking. He believes that the breakthrough of diplomacy as non-traditional – meaning no longer limited to government-to-government diplomacy – reflects the augmentation of the diplomatic agenda to adopt issues such as human rights, human security, and the environment. It also strengthens the capacity of NGOs to operate alongside governments on the international level, challenging the latter’s authority (Hocking, 1999).

Whereas government officials or individuals acting in an official capacity conduct traditional diplomacy, directly with the other states’ representative and away more-or-less from the public eye, public diplomacy engages with people first and foremost, on different levels and through various channels. This development has made diplomats more visible than they have ever been.

Therefore, public diplomacy can be defined as an “instrument used by states, communities of states, and non-state actors taking into consideration their understanding of civilisations, cultures, attitudes, and behaviours, to maintain relationships, influence public opinion, and mobilise actions to advance their interests” (Gregory, 2011).

The environment in diplomatic relations

Being a state-centric practice, diplomacy in its early traditional sense focused only on “high politics”, i.e. national security, defence, and sovereignty, and did not weigh what was considered “low politics”, i.e. social, cultural, environmental issues which were considered peripheral. Despite starting to negotiate environmental treaties in the mid-nineteenth century, it was not until states began to view the environment as a threat to security that they began to practice effective environmental diplomacy.

Climate-related security concerns were water and food security, oceans and sea-level rise, climate change, migration, and environment-related conflicts. Since then, the environment has entered the realm of “high politics”.

Lester Brown was the first to link the environment to national security and coin the term “environmental security”. In his seminal publication in 1977, he wrote, “the threats to security may now arise less from a relationship of nation to nation and more from the relationship of man to nature” (Brown, 1977).

“Environmental security” is a modern, rapidly growing field relevant to resource scarcity and its conflicts in the developing world. Not only was it labelled a national security issue, but also a global security issue. Some argue that the rising demand for natural resources, particularly energy, is one of the most significant security challenges of the twenty-first century (Kay, 2015).

Whether through the availability of resources, climate change, or other environmental issues, this linkage between man and nature has become embedded in politics and business. In the early twenty-first century, with the media approaching environmental issues with alarm and panic, consumers and particularly younger generations are opting for more eco-conscious products, with a rise in recycling practices and awareness to waste management and environmental issues.

Scarcity or abundance of natural resources may cause environmental conflict in a particular region. Those who are threatened are the vulnerable communities at the local level and the state at a broader level. Some argue that resources are not the cause of conflict, rather “amplifiers” of already-existing tensions.

Historically, security involved threats to the physical safety and survival of a target by a purposeful attacker. It included the study of the elements that make a target possible or attractive, and the target’s vulnerabilities.

Following the end of the Cold War, the term “security” has been altered by scholars’ linkage to various concepts. The term “environmental conflict” refers to a violent conflict over natural resources. These conflicts may threaten human beings (environmental security) and the environment itself (ecological security).

Environmental conflicts’ narratives

In his address to the Security Council, on 23 February 2021, the UN Secretary General António Guterres warned “where climate change dries up rivers, reduces harvest, destroys critical infrastructure, and displaces communities, it exacerbates the risks of instability and conflict”

Environmental conflict is portrayed differently by scholars. Each region has its perspectives on the threats associated with environmental degradation. These perspectives stem from the actors’ positions, geopolitical, and environmental contexts.

Natural resource scarcity

Some are preoccupied with resource availability concerns. Many believe that natural resource scarcity threatening some regions is a significant contributor to the outbreak of violence and political conflict. Homer-Dixon identified “three types of scarcities: supply-induced scarcity, demand-induced scarcity, and structural scarcity” (Homer-Dixon, 2010). The first and the second are caused by a decrease in supply and an increase in demand. Simultaneously, structural scarcity is the change in access to a key resource by one party or the other.

The causal relationship between resource scarcity and conflicts has not been definitively verified. Examining this relationship within East and West Africa conflicts showed that “resource scarcity is never the most important cause and it does not explain well the differences in conflict intensity” (Seter et al., 2018). Nevertheless, this relationship must be studied on a case-by-case basis. In the Syrian conflict, for example, environmental resource scarcity was one factor that fuelled the insurgence against the State. However, many other and, more significant, contex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of case studies
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Environmental diplomacy evolution: an introduction
• 2 Legal and political dimensions of International Environmental Law
• 3 Environmental issues at international and regional levels: informal diplomacy
• 4 Towards a more effective environmental governance
• 5 Conclusion: the need for environmental diplomats
• Index