Institution-Building From Below and From Above: The European Community in Global Environmental Politics

By

Alberta M. Sbragia

Center for German and European Studies, University of California at Berkeley

Working Paper 2.40

Abstract

The European Union is now an important actor in the arena of global environmental politics. It is a signatory to important global treaties and a significant participant in global negotiations. Surprisingly, however, its role has been given very little scholarly attention. This paper explores how the Community constructed over time an international presence in the environmental field. It argues that the Community, while not a "state" in the international arena, has undergone an institution-building process since 1973 which has rendered it more of a unitary actor, has given the Commission a greater role, and has garnered international recognition. CITES, the Vienna Convention, and UNCED are briefly discussed.

Alberta M. Sbragia, Dept. of Political Science and Center for West European Studies, University of Pittsburgh ₁

The process of European integration can be conceptualized as balancing territorial and non-territorial claims. Such a balancing act can be seen as the very essence of federalism. Within a federal context, the claims of territory play a central role in the political process, but they are neither exclusive nor completely dominant. They are simply part of the political mix, and their relationship to non-territorial claims is often contested as a matter of routine politics. Within the European Union, "territorial" politics can be thought of as '1intergovernmental" in some sense. However, the latter term, as used in the literature on the European Union, is rooted in a distinctive theoretical stance and theoretical debate. Given that I am not addressing the neo-functionalistlintergovernmental debate which characterizes the American literature on the European Union, the use of territorial politics to characterize those dynamics driven by national governments seems appropriate.

The claims of national governments, representing a nationally-defined territorial unit, coexist with claims based on law, European elections, or guardianship of the Treaty of Rome. Territorially-based claims are made through the Council of Ministers (and COREPER) and the European Council. The claims which are not based on territory are primarily made by the European Court of Justice, the Commission, and the Parliament. While all these institutions are "European" institutions, they mobilize, channel, and represent different types of interests--territorial and non-territorial. Such a balancing act is characteristic of federal systems, in which the demands of constituent units co-exist with "federal" perspectives. ₂

Yet one of the most striking features of the Union, when compared with traditional federal states, is that "every institution is linked to territory--and territorial government--in some way . . . National perspectives--territorial claims--are thus institutionalized into the very fabric of the policymaking system." ₃ Institutions which represent the non-territorial dimension--that is, the "supranational" institutions--are nonetheless shaped and affected by the territorial. The territorial dimension is consequently of pivotal importance to the European Union.

For example, most analysts would agree that the European Court of Justice is the most a supra-national institution. Yet, with few exceptions, the Court's most important "constitutional" decisions have been made on the basis of cases referred to it by the 177 preliminary ruling procedure. Furthermore, its rulings under that procedure are implemented by national courts, not by the ECJ acting directly. Very recently, the national courts have begun a two-way dialogue with the ECJ, so that the Court is being forced to re-examine, if only to clarity, its rulings. ₄ The role of the national courts is such that, as transmitters of territorially-based queries and implementors of ECJ decisions, they have been pivotal in the evolution of the EU legal system.

Given the centrality of territorial interests in policy-making at the EU level, how does the EU manage to act at the international level? If the representation of territorial interests is threaded into the very fabric of even the non-territorial dimension of the Community, one would expect that the representation of territorial claims would be so overwhelming at the international level that the member-states might well not allow the EU to emerge as an identifiable actor outside the trade arena. Certainly, the conventional wisdom about the weakness of the common foreign and security policy strengthens that view. The importance of territoriality in even the "supranational" institutions such as the European Court of Justice and the Commission would seem likely to be magnified a thousand fold in the global arena where the representation of territory is the paramount activity.

Yet the European Union has emerged as an identifiable and important international actor within the global environmental policy arena. Two leading analysts of the European Union conclude that "on the international stage, where the significance and scale of multilateral environmental agreements has dramatically increased in recent years, the Community has carved out a distinctive and often powerful role for itself." ₅ Analysts of global environmental agreements discuss the European CommunityJUnion as a key player within global negotiating fora. ₆

The Community is a negotiator, a contracting party to major international environmental treaties, and in general has attained a profile far higher than the literature on the weaknesses of the Union's foreign policy would suggest. This paper explores how institution-building has occurred in the field of the EU's international environmental relations. Given that the Union is not a member of the United Nations and its bodies, how did it achieve the international status which it has in fact gained? How was it allowed access to the international arena in the first place? How did it come to be accepted as a Contracting Party to global treaties such as the Vienna Convention on the Ozone Layer and the Montreal Protocol and to act within the UNCED negotiations? How did the Commission come to play any role, much less such an important role?

The answers to such questions indicate that institution-building in the area of international environmental relations involves an intersection between "domestic"--i.e. EU--dynamics and those found within the global arena. Third parties--such as the United States--are important and so are European Community institutions such as the European Court of Justice. What does not seem to be as important are transnational actors, including the environmental movement. International politics-understood as bargaining at the global level between governments--can in fact lead to institution-building at the Community level. The access, however, to such international politics in the first place was determined by an institution which is the most nonterritorial of all--the European Court of Justice.

This paper represents an exploratory attempt to make links between the process of global environmental institution-building and "domestic" (EU) processes of institution-building and institutional change. In particular, the paper focuses on how participation in global environmental negotiations simultaneously shaped both the international personality of the Community and institution-building within the European Union.

The structure of governance within the EU is not simply a product of intra-EU bargaining and coalition-building; it is also strongly affected by the global context in which the EU finds itself. The expectations, conflicts, and substantive policy demands which characterize that context shape in important ways the expectations, conflicts, and substantive policy outcomes found in Brussels. The international environment is certainly not the only important influence in the EU's policy-making context nor is it the only pressure working on the process of institution-building itself. It is however an important one--one hitherto largely ignored.

Third parties, therefore, need to be considered as important actors under some conditions in the EU's institution-building process. The member-states and the Commission do not operate in a vacuum, and that fact cannot be ignored in analyzing the Union's international environmental relations.

The paper argues that although the notion of a "capability-expectations gap" ₇ has become popular in thinking about jhe EU's international role, the EU is actually becoming an international actor in the environmental arena surprisingly quickly. Given the lack of compatibility between the EU's evolving structure and the relatively rigid structure of the international system, the ability of the EU to circumvent that rigidity and the parallel ability to form a unitary unit has been surprising. The EU is institutionalizing itself in the global arena in a way which is often overlooked but which fits into a notion of institution-building as an incremental process in which institutional arrangements evolve over time rather than being created in a definitive fashion at one point in time.

"Institution-building" can cover a multiplicity of developments in the policy and institutional arenas. This paper explores institution-building understood in the sense of strengthening actual formal organizations or entities. Such strengthening can occur through the expansion of organizational jurisdiction, of juridical, administrative, and market mechanisms of societal penetration, of legal rights, and or the expansion of legitimacy. It is institution-building in that general sense that is of concern in this paper.

The process of institution-building is examined by asking three questions vis-à-vis global environmental negotiations:

1) Did the European Community manage to formulate and sustain a unitary position sufficiently powerful that third parties acknowledged the Community as a significant player?

2) Did that unitary stance incorporate a non-territorial dimension? That is, did the Commission play an important role at the international level?

3) Did third parties play an important role in shaping the institutional outcomes of the negotiations?

The first two questions relate to different aspects of the territorial dimension in the institution-building process. The first has to do with formulating a unitary EU position--regardless of whether it involves the non-territorial dimension (represented by the Commission) at all. That is, can the member-states collectively come to a unitary point of view which becomes the EU's point of view in global organizations such as the United Nations? Even if the Commission were not involved at all, a (territorially-based) unitary position would be an indication of such integration that it would be noteworthy. In that context, a "free-lancing member-state" would be viewed as breaking the norms upholding the legitimacy of a unitary position. ₈ It would be a noteworthy achievement if the EU were a unitary actor with or without the Commission's participation.

In taking this position, I am disagreeing with the Jaquille and Caporaso argument that the EU, in order to be considered an international "actor" must have autonomy from its member-states. ₉ Since the territorial dimension plays such a critical role within the EU, I would argue that the EU could be legitimately viewed as an actor even if it simply represented its constituent units--the member-states. The Jaquille and Caporaso analysis is based on notions of how a traditional state is constituted--that is, a unit in which the non-territorial dimension is very strong. But it is possible to conceptualize an international actor in which the territorial dimension is paramount--as long as that territorial dimension can be molded into a unitary negotiating position within a global forum. In the real-world of international negotiations, the "balance of power" between the member-states and the Commission is less important than whether the member-states and the Commission--or the member states alone--manage to act as a unitary negotiator. What is important from the point of view of third parties is whether or not the EU manages to act in a unitary fashion--and that unitary nature could be composed in a variety of different ways.

The second aspect of the territorial dimension considered by this paper has to do with whether a "balance" has developed between the territorial and the non-territorial in the making of foreign policy. It may be that even the notion of a "balance" seems strange when applied to policy-making about diplomatic relations. Can it in fact be applied to policy-making about external relations, especially those at the global level? Given that in federal systems, the "federal" is paramount in diplomatic relations (even in Canada and in Germany except for selected aspects of German-EU relations), the idea of a "territorial-non-territorial" balance may seem an odd possibility. One would be tempted to say that in traditional federal systems, the non-territorial (federal) executive has control of foreign (diplomatic) relations, whereas in the Community the territorial (national governments) would have control except in the trade arena.' ₁₀ "Balancing" the two in external relations seems intuitively less likely than in domestic policy-making.

The External Dimension of Institution-Building ₁₁

The kinds of questions that scholars of developing countries ask are not those asked by European ists. Given the close link between the emergence of the European state and the international state system, most scholars of European politics have not seen the international system as an important variable in understanding domestic politics within the European state.

Perhaps because of the influence of Max Weber's writings and of the nature of the European state-building process itself, students of European politics have not spent much time exploring the links between state-building and the external environment. State-building has typically been emphasized as an internal process. ₁₂ In their seminal article, Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg pointed out the lack of attention given by such scholars as Charles Tilly to the international aspects of European state-building and went on to put forth a strong argument that the international system itself was a key factor in explaining the creation and persistence of African states which in many ways were far from "real" states. ₁₃

In the American context, the issue of American state-building has also not been closely tied to the international system. ₁₄ An interesting exception is Daniel Deudney's provocative analysis of the American "states-union", that configuration in American political history which stretches from the Constitutional Convention of 1737 to the beginning of the Civil War in 1861. Deudney argues that it was fear of the European states that led the Constitutional Convention to give the central government the "two key authorities of raising a standing army and navy and the revenues needed to support them and calling the state militias into action. The framers of the Constitution also created an office of chief magistrate, the President , whose most important power was commander-in chief of the armed forces . . a concentration of power was a necessary accommodation to political and military realities. "Those realities led the Convention to reject the Roman model of having a dual executive and chose instead to have one commander of the armed forces. ₁₅

Another exception is Sbragia's recent argument that the development of American federalism has been shaped by the need of pre-Civil War state governments to be responsible for economic development because only they were considered creditworthy by London investors who controlled the capital needed by the United States. The United States, as a developing country, found that its internal governmental structure was significantly affected by the demands of the international markets of that time. ₁₆ Charles Tilly to the international

Within the study of the European Union itself, the impact of international factors on policy-making or policy choice has not been extensively studied. As Andrew Hurrell and Anand Menon have recently argued, "one of the weaknesses of both integration theorists and many comparativists has been in the tendency to view the EU as a closed system." ₁₇ Hurrell and Menon argue for the importance of linking the EU and the international system by, for example, focusing on the constraints imposed by external conditions on intra-EU policymaking.' ₁₈

Integration theorists such as Ernst Haas and Leon Lindberg did not consider the role of external factors because they saw themselves as developing international relations theory explaining integration among sovereign European states. In their challenge to realism, they focused on that which seemed to challenge realist assumptions. Hoffmann, for his part, debated the neo-functionalists largely on their own ground, that is by focusing on the dynamics of European integration. The implications of integration for the layer world as well as the influences of that larger world for by European integration were largely ignored.

Thus, international relations theorists did not use the emergence of the EEC/ECIEU to think about the most basic assumption of their own field. That assumption, as Barkin and Cronin point out, has to do above all with sovereignty:

The international relations literature regularly embraces sovereignty as the primary constitutive rule of international organization. Theoretical traditions that agree on little else all seem to concur that the defining feature of the modern international system is the division of the world into sovereign states... Moreover, the essence of sovereignty is rarely defined; while legitimate authority and territoriality are the key concepts in understanding sovereignty, international relations scholars rarely examine how definitions and populations and territories change throughout history and how this change alters the notion of legitimate authority. ₁₉

Sovereignty is so important in the international system that Winfried Lang argues it explains why "diplomatic rule-making is considered to be more difficult and more complex than domestic rule-making." ₂₀

Although sovereignty as currently conceptualized connotes a state's monopoly of both internal and external violence, the latter is a rather recent phenomenon. As Janice Thomson argues, the state controlled violence by non-state actors rather late in the state's development. However, once the criminalization of nonstate violence by such actors as privateers was accepted, it gradually became unthinkable. Thomson argues that the long time frame during which states gradually developed control over extra-territorial violence raises questions about the presumed static nature of sovereignty. In Thomson's words,

This analysis clearly demonstrates that sovereignty is not an absolute, timeless and invariable attribute of the state. Authority over the use of violence is generally presumed to be a state monopoly and that monopoly the hallmark of the state. If, however, authority over violence has varied so enormously, it is clear that sovereignty is far from fixed. It took at least three hundred years for the state to achieve a monopoly on external violence... While sovereignty differs from heteronomy in theoretical and empirical ways, there can be much variation in authority claims within sovereignty. ₂₁

Given the complex balancing act between territorial and non-territorial claims within the European Union, and given its lack of a legal personality in the strict sense of international law, the EU does not exhibit "sovereignty" as typically discussed in the twentieth century. Yet Thomson's work is illustrative of the fact that national sovereignty itself was the result of institution-building, of claiming first control over internal violence and only later of external violence. Sovereignty, it seems, can be constructed piece by piece: sovereignty in the twentieth century boasts a larger portfolio than it did in the late eighteenth century.

Similarly, it is possible that the EU will gradually construct a "sovereign" presence in a similarly piecemeal fashion. Sovereignty is not an indivisible attribute in this view, but rather accumulates over time, often in unanticipated ways. Nonetheless, it is important to note that at present the role of territorial politics in the Union is different from that which they play in an ordinary state because the Union is not a sovereign power. The member-states are not exclusively members of the Union; they are simultaneously involved in other inter-state relations as well as in international organizations. "This web of relationships differentiates states from other forms of social actors, and hence their behavior within the EU differs from that of actors within a state." ₂₂

Yet sovereignty as traditionally discussed is not only a function of authority claims--it is also a function of the external recognition of such authority claims. And here Jackson and Rosberg's argument about sovereignty becomes important for our analysis. That argument highlight the importance of juridical statehood in contrast to the "empirical attributes of statehood.

In their words,

The juridical state is both a creature and a component of the international society of states, and its properties can only be defined in international terms. [International society] is a society composed solely of states and the international organizations formed by states; it excludes not only individuals and private groups, but also political organizations that are not states or are not composed of states.... the juridical attributes of statehood are "territory" and "independence" (as recognized by the international community. The juridical attributes of statehood can only be conferred upon governments by the international community. ₂₃

New entrants on the international scene, therefore, can only be accepted into the international system if those states which are already members grant juridical statehood to the applicant. Becoming an international actor does not only involve internal processes of institution-building--it also involves the acceptance by third parties.

For the European Union, therefore, the international system, composed as it is by governments which have been granted juridical statehood and are recognized as sovereign states, can be a rather hostile environment. An entity which is not a traditional sovereign state, which is more than an international organization, and which has the peculiar mix of territorial and non-territorial relations of authority characteristic of the EU is likely to find an uncertain reception in the corridors of international power.

In particular, the unique institutional structure of the Union raises very difficult questions about the Union's capacity to induce compliance among its member-states. In the environmental field, compliance is particularly difficult to verify. Thus, institutional structures which are likely to complicate compliance and are also likely to make it difficult to third parties to follow the procedures established to induce compliance can lead to difficulties in being recognized as a legitimate negotiator.

Territory and the International System

At the international level, uni-lateral territorial claims made by entities with "juridical statehood" are the only ones which are recognized and have standing. National states are the only decision-making actors so that non-territorial representations are excluded. International non-governmental organizations (INGOs) for example or even nationally-based non-governmental organizations, while having an increasingly important presence, do not have the legal status necessary to participate in decision-making processes. (While they are actors in the treaty-making process, they cannot vote in international organizations) ₂₄ International organizations, for their part, do not enjoy the same status as a state when operating in the international arena. ₂₅ Furthermore, an institutionalized multi-laterally based unitary position is not a feature of the global system. While coalitions such as the G-77 do exist, these are loosely based, often ad-hoc, and are not institutionalized through the creation of fixed organizations which formulate a unitary point of view across multiple negotiating fora.

An institutionalized multi-laterally based unitary negotiator within a global forum is so at odds with the rules of the international system that it has no name. In Nollkaemper's words, "The phenomenon of the Community exercising external powers and thereby acting as an independent actor in international society is unprecedented in the history of international co-operation and organization." ₂₆

The international system is clearly different from that of the EU system. In the former, national governments are paramount and the notion of "supranationality" or the "pooling of sovereignty" is absent. The very idea of the EU as an international actor, therefore, is a difficult one for the world of international affairs to understand. The international system simply does not have a "slot" for a non-sovereign entity which integrates the policy positions of nominally sovereign territorial units into a unitary position. From the point of view of third parties, the fact that a non-territorial actor such as the Commission plays any kind of role at all in the EU's external dimension only makes the EU an even more problematic entity.

Furthermore, as already indicated, the international system is based on national states which have been recognized as sovereign by other sovereign states. Recognition by others is a necessary condition for admission to the international "club." The recognition by sovereign actors of a non-sovereign entity as an international "actor" is fraught with difficulty. After all, "there is no formal act of recognition of an international organization." ₂₇ International organizations are typically not allowed to officially join as contracting parties to international treaties or to join other international organizations as voting members. Thus, the recognition of a unitary territorial perspective--pooling as it would the sovereignty of states which have independent status in the international arena--would be difficult. The very notion of a multi-laterally based unitary negotiator (for want of a better term) is not compatible with the requirements of the international system.

In the literature on international relations, even those authors concerned with the possible limits to territoriality find themselves constrained by the paramount importance of the nation-state in the system. Kratochwil, for example, suggests "functional regimes" as one mechanism for managing international relations. However, his regime is simply an arrangement for managing a set of circumscribed conflicts rather than a mechanism for formulating a unitary policy position vis-à-vis third parties. ₂₈ John Ruggie ₂₉ for his part is interested in the "'unbundling' of territoriality":

What we might call an "unbundling" of terreitoriality (of which the doctrine of extraterritoriality was the first and most enduring instantiation) over time has become a generic contrivance used by states to attenuate the paradox of absolute individuation. Various types of functional regimes, common markets, political communities, and the like constitute additional forms whereby territoriality has become unbundled... analysis suggests that the unbundling of territoriality is a productive venue for the exploration of contemporary international transformation . . . The terrain of unbundled territoriality, therefore, is the place wherein a rearticulation of international political space would be occurring today. ₃₀

Yet when the EU is acting within the global arena, this paper argues that a process of both "unbundling" and simultaneous "repackaging" is occurring. Territoriality is being packaged in a way different from that suggested by Ruggie because the rules and structures of the international system structure behavior in certain ways. The EU may, in Ruggie's words, be a "multiperspectival polity" when viewed from the vantage point of its members, but the international system does not reward an actor that acts in a "multiperspectival" fashion. The unitary actor is required by the international system. While the EU Is not yet a unitary actor in the environmental field, it is moving in that direction. Yet its very nature precludes it from acting as a unitary actor in the manner of a unified state. How does a "multiperspectival" actor function as a unitary actor in the global arena?

The European Union and External Relations

Given the monopoly which internationally-recognized sovereign states have in the exercise of international affairs, the construction of the EU as an international actor must inevitably be a complex and long-term project. It is not a sovereign state and therefore its very participation in the international order must be seen as problematic from the point of view of other actors in the international system.

Secondly, the construction of its "actorhood" will necessarily involve a redefinition--at both the symbolic and operational level--of the EU as made up of "sovereign states." Whereas the states may be "sovereign" in the negotiations of EU treaties, they would not be sovereign in the negotiations of global treaties if the EU were in fact to be a traditional "sovereign" international actor. They would truly be "member-states" in the fullest sense of that word. ₃₁ Yet if the member-states were full member-states only in the area of environmental negotiations but, outside of those negotiations, retained their "stateness" in relations with third parties and as members of international organizations, the international role of the EU outside of negotiations themselves would be problematic. Given the current rules of the international system, "sovereignty" cannot be sliced like salami.

If one examines the balance between territorial and non-territorial dimensions in the area of external relations, one finds a case of "asymmetrical integration." ₃₂ In the case of trade in manufactured goods, the non-territorial (in the form of the Commission) predominates over the member-states and the Commission rather than the troika or the Presidency is the key Community institution. The EEC was not a signatory to the GATT, but given that it as the sole negotiator for the Community, its status was not challenged by the United States. ₃₃ The EC did however become a member of the World Trade Organization in its own right. (The EU's member-states also became contracting parties.) In fact, the EC's newly-found status in the international trade arena "gives formal international recognition to the role of the EC as laid down in the Treaty of Rome." ₃₄

While the non-territorial dimension is important, it coexists as usual with the territorial institutionalized in the form of the 113 Committee. More recently, the ECJ has given the member-states a much greater role in negotiations having to do with trade in services than they were given in trade in manufactured goods, a case of the territorial dimension being strengthened even in trade relations. Nonetheless, the capacity of the Community and the Commission in trade can be viewed as the most "federal" of all external relations, with "federal" interpreted as incorporating a very strong territorial dimension. The Community, represented by the Commission, is generally able to act as a unitary actor in trade negotiations. ₃₅ It is important to note here that the European Parliament plays a minor role in the formulation of external trade policy. That is not a surprising. National governments, when operating in the international arena, are executive-driven: foreign affairs are relatively insulated from legislative control in all democratic systems. The process of democratization (as well as judicial review) was held at bay when it came to foreign affairs.

In contrast to the Community's role in trade relations, its position in other global arenas has been viewed as weak. The external (as well as EU) dimension of internal security policy (pillar 3) is widely viewed as ineffective, and studies of common foreign and security policy (CFSP) often argue that it is embryonic. The Community's international environmental relations, however, have received very little scholarly attention in spite of the explosion of activity in that area and the high level of scholarly interest in global environmental politics generally.

The Community's international environmental relations are at first glance interesting because they reside in pillar one (typically viewed as the most effective pillar) but their subject matter is not economic in the strict sense of the word. The legal status of environmental policy as a Community policy was unusual until the Single European Act, in that the Community approved environmental directives and entered multilateral environmental agreements without having the environment mentioned in the Treaty of Rome. It is a policy area in which the Community and the member-states share competencies, rather than being in the same category as trade, agriculture or fisheries. In environmental policy, the Community's powers are of a "concurrent nature" and are characterized by "the (only) partial delegation of power." ₃₆ Therefore, international environmental agreements are known as "mixed agreements." ₃₇

Finally, the global (and often regional) dimension of environmental policy is addressed within the United Nations framework. The United Nations and its specialized agencies are perhaps the most prototypical of international organizations. The Community is merely an observer rather than a member.

The politics of global environmental politics highlight the barriers the international system qua system poses for the EU as an external actor outside the trade arena. Institution-building at the EU level does not merely involve the "balance of power" between the territorial and the nonterritorial; it also involves the circumvention by the member-states of the structural barriers within the system to the EU's emergence as an international "actor". It is important to note here that the system is not only hostile to the juridical representation of non-territorial interests but that it is not set up to even acknowledge the institutionalized "pooling of sovereignty" at the global level. Thus, how did the Community come to have international status as a Party to some treaties? Given that it is not a sovereign state, and that Contracting Parties to treaties are in fact typically sovereign states, how has the Community acquired that status? Looking at the question from the perspective of the Community's internal arrangements, how did the Community organize itself to deal at the international level?. How were the relative competencies of the Commission and member-states sorted out? If indeed the Community represents a balance of territorial and non-territorial interests--all within the Community's political system--how does that balance manifest its elf in external relations?

Institution-Building and External Relations

The framers of the Treaty of Rome were well aware of the international organizations whose universe they were joining. The role of the European Union in multilateral fora is explicitly dealt with in the Treaty of Rome. Interestingly, the Treaty gave short shrift to external relations except as regarded international organizations. In particular, the United Nations, GATT, OEEC (later OECD) and the Council of Europe were given special mention. Article 229, for instance, specifically empowered the Commission to handle relations with international organizations, with specific reference to the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and GATT. In 1,971, the EEC was only just about to upgrade the head of its Washington office to Director General and yet it maintained "permanent liaison, falling only just short of diplomatic missions with GATT in Geneva and OECD in Paris. When OEEC become OECD a special protocol gave to the EEC Commission the task and right to be involved in its work..." ₃₈

Although the Community was only given observer status in those organizations, it is important that the Commission was explicitly given the role of representing the Community with regards to the international organizations mentioned. In pillar one, therefore, the Commission was given an international role although it was constrained by the very important fact that the Community was not a member of the organizations named. As the Community de facto became more important in the international arena and its competences expanded, its official role within the international arena became more complicated.

In a report examining the relationships between the Community and global and regional intergovernmental organizations, the Commission wrote <

Not only does the Community have wide ranging relations with these intergovernmental organizations, but these have also undergone a certain evolution. New policies such as that relating to the environment, have involved it in new fields. Similarly, a larger place has increasingly been made for the Community by the international organizations such as the UN system, since in the exercise of its competence it has come to play a larger role. ₃₉

The Community's participation in intergovernmental organizations, however, is often problematic. Given that the Community is now far more than an international organization but is not a state and that its unique structure is not recognized in international law, its role in international organizations is an awkward one. In the Commission's words,

The Community often shares observer status with intergovernmental organizations of the traditional type and is therefore in practice placed on the same footing as those organizations, at least for the present. The Community should be given a status higher than that of observer when the international organization in question is discussing matters falling within the jurisdiction of the Community, but in practice an approach along those lines often runs into difficulties. The basic problem is that traditional international law can accommodate only nation states, or groupings of nation states. Therefore, there has been some resistance to the implied change which is necessary in order for the traditional doctrine to accommodate the new legal entity constituted by the Community. ₄₀

The key issue for the Commission has been to gain for the Community a separate "right of access to, and participation in, the work of the deliberative organs of international organizations and conferences." It was not sufficient for the Member States to agree to a common position amongst themselves and then have one of them state it within an international organization. The Community wanted to be recognized as a distinct entity with an international personality, and the acquisition of a separate status within international organizations symbolized that recognition. The recognition of such status was of "great importance." ₄₁

In fact, the right of the Community to "have a seat" in the sense of taking part in meetings (but still officially as an observer and therefore without a vote) at international conferences or within international organizations did not come easily. In the case of the United Nations General Assembly;the Community did not receive the right to participate until 1974 ₄₂ 2 (While the Commission can speak at meetings of commissions of the United Nations General Assembly, it is not allowed to address the Plenary Assembly). By the mid-1980s, "this battle [could be] considered as almost over since the great majority of permanent international organizations have officially allowed... the EEC to take part in their proceedings.'" ₄₃ Nonetheless, the Community has no status with the Security Council, the Trusteeship Council, and the International Court of Justice. ₄₄

In the case of UN international conferences for specific negotiations, the Community must receive the right to participate in each case. The Community is represented at the United Nations by the Head of the Delegation of the Commission who however does not hold ambassadorial status and by the permanent representative of the country holding the Presidency of the Council. ₄₅ Brinkhorst, the former Director-General of DGM, the DG responsible for international environmental negotiations, argues that "there is a growing disparity between this patchy legal situation of the Community and its political projection at the United Nations." ₄₆ The Community as such has less standing than its political profile would suggest while the member-states have seen their role highlighted.

In the case of the environment, the Commission has had contacts with UNEP since the latter was founded in December 1972. The relationship was formalized in an exchange of letters between Dr. Mostafa K. Tolba, Executive Director of UNEP, and Gaston E. Thorn, President of the Commission in June 1983. Those letters call for regular contacts between the two institutions, exchange of documentation, participation of the Community in UNEP meetings, and consultations on the Regional Seas program, activities pertaining to the assessment of the environment, and environment and develop ment. ₄₇

Up until the mid-1980s, however, the Community generally did not try to be recognized as an official member of an international conference organized under the auspices of the United Nations. The refusal of the Soviet Union and the East European countries to recognize the Community in any fashion was thought to bode ill for any such initiative. ₄₈ As we shall see, the Commission did make a strenuous effort at the negotiations leading to the Vienna Convention to become a contracting party to that Convention--that effort as well as its eventual success signaled a new era for the Community in the international arena.

In many cases, the Commission is a non-voting participant but the member states are members of the international organization and field national delegations. Furthermore, the organization often deals with matters which fall under both Member State and Community jurisdiction. Those areas are known under the rubric of "mixed competence." Thus, Community representation is often that of '"dual representation." In such cases, the Community is represented by both the Commission and the Member-State holding the Presidency of the Council. The Commission typically speaks on those issues which fall under the Community's exclusive competence although it may also be asked to speak in areas of mixed competence. Such "dual representation," for example, is in place at the UN General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and UNCTAD. ₄₉

It is important to note that "dual representation'"--which includes the Commission and the Presidency as representatives of the Community--incorporates both the territorial and the non-territorial dimensions of the Community. That type of representation in bodies such as the United Nations does not date from the going into force of the Maastricht Treaty with its provisions for CFSP. Rather, it seems to flow from the original mandate in the Treaty of Rome which gave the Commission to right to be involved with the United Nations. ₅₀

The Internationalization of Environmental Issues

The Community has had to face the question of international standing in the field of environmental protection because of the explosion of multi-lateral activities in this area. In Edith Brown Weiss's words

In 1972 international environmental law was a fledgling field with less than three dozen multilateral agreements. Today international environmental law is arguably setting the pace for cooperation in the international community in the development of international law. There are nearly nine hundred international legal instruments that are either primarily directed to international environmental issues or contain important provisions on them. This proliferation of legal instruments is likely to continue. ₅₁

The density of environmental negotiations at the international level is striking. According to Weiss, "between 1990 and 1992, there have been about a dozen highly important multilateral negotiations occurring more or less in parallel." ₅₂ Not surprisingly, the implications of this much activity on traditional notions of sovereignty have not gone unnoticed. ₅₃

Scholars have increasingly paid attention to the creation of global institutions (regimes) in the environmental arena. ₅₄ The efforts of the United Nations play an important role in such an effort. In particular, the establishment of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) at the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm "was probably the most important institutional consequence of increased concern with global environmental change in the Cold War era. " ₅₅ UNEP's impact has been felt at the regional as well as at the global level. The Mediterranean Action Plan was an offshoot of UNEP, for example. ₅₆

The most recent example of such global institution-building is the Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, the Conference on Environment and Development with its resulting Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and Commission on Sustainable Development, and the Convention on Biodiversity also signed at Rio.

The EU And The International Environmental Arena

The role of the EU in the international environmental arena has been rooted in the actions of domestic institutions--the European Court of Justice primarily. The ERTA decision by the Court coupled with the decision by the heads of government to include the environment in the Community's policy competence gave the Community the opening to participate in that field. The SEA and Maastricht reinforced the ability to participate.

THe ERTA Decision: The European Court Of Justice As An Actor

The fact that the EU has emerged as an identifiable international actor in the field of environmental protection is rooted in the actions of the European Court of Justice. In Nollkaemper's words,

the field of the external relations of the Community is, together with the problems of the direct application and priority of Community law, the field in which the Court of Justice has played its most innovative part. The extent to which the Community has become able to claim a place on the international plane over the years is mainly a consequence of the substantial body of case-law developed by the Court. ₅₇

The ERTA (1971) case served as the keystone to the Community's emergence as an international actor because it created the "link... between internal and external powers." The Court ruled that if the Community had been given the power to legislate internally to the Community, it implicitly had been given powers to act externally as well. In its judgment it ruled that

each time the Community, with a view to implementing a common policy envisaged by the Treaty, lays down common rules, whatever form these may take, the member States no longer have the right, acting individually or even collectively, to contract obligations towards non-member States affecting these rules ₅₈

In 1976, the Court (Opinion 1/76/EEC--the so-called Rhine case) went further and ruled that "whenever necessary for the attainment of Community objectives, the existence of external powers does not depend on the internal powers actually having been exercised. Thus, the internal powers are not dependent upon the prior coming into force of internal rules." ₅₉

Typically, however, the Community first legislates and then exercises external jurisdiction. However, international treaties cover areas not covered by the Community's directives--areas which therefore remain in the competence of the Member-States. Because the implementation of international environmental treaties will involve the competences of both the Community and the member-states, such agreements are signed by both the Community and the member-states. They are known as "mixed agreements" and reflect the "mixed competence" intrinsic to environmental policy. ₆₀ Mixed agreements are legally very complex, ₆₁ but for our purposes, it is enough to say that they involve ratification by both the Community and the individual member-states. They symbolize the complex intertwining of territory and sup ran ationality which characterizes the Community.

The importance of the link drawn between internal and external powers lies in the fact that

the EC's external powers expand without the express approval of the Member States simply in the course of developing the EC"s internal policies. An extra constraint has therefore been added to, EC internal policy-making, since the Member States should now always consider whether the adoption of some desirable item of EC legislation might not result in the undesirable (to them) loss of external competence. ₆₂

For example, member states refused to approve a directive on the dumping of wastes at sea which the Commission '"had put forward at least partly to be able to accede to international dumping conventions (the Oslo and London Conventions)." ₆₃

The member-states have never recognized international environmental relations as belonging to the exclusive competence of the Community and have gone to some length to ensure that their role is safeguarded. In the case of the Basel Convention on the transport of hazardous waste, for example, the member states used "two marginal provisions... on technical assistance and research to argue that the convention did not come into the sphere of exclusive competence of the Community, but that it was a mixed agreement--i.e. that it contained provisions for which the Community was responsible and others which were of the competence of Member States." ₆₄

While the member-states have worked to ensure that they will not be excluded from the international arena, they have also ensured that the Community would be a presence in that same arena. The SEA and subsequently the Maastricht Treaty gave "express competence to the Community to conclude international environmental agreements, which then are binding on the institutions of the Community and on the Member States." ₆₅ Before the coming into force of the SEA, however, the Community became a party to a number of important conventions. In Ziegler's words, the Community's "own competence to do so and the autonomous possibilities for its Member States were clarified only later by the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice." ₆₆ 6 For example, in 1975 it became a party to the Paris Convention of June 4, 1974 for the prevention of marine pollution from land-based sources, in 1977 to the Barcelona Convention of February 16, 1976 for the protection of the Mediterranean Sea against pollution and to the Bonn Convention of December 3, 1976 for the protection of the Rhine against chemical pollution, in 1981 to the Bonn Convention of June 23, 1979 on the conservation of migratory species of wild animals, in 1982 to the Bern Convention of September 19, 1979 on the conservation of European wild life and natural habitats, and in 1981 to the Geneva Convention of November 13, 1979 on long-range transboundary air pollution. ₆₇ 7

The link between the Community and other international bodies was explicitly recognized by the European Council held in Stuttgart in June 1983. The Council stated it saw "the necessity to take coordinated and effective initiatives both within the Community and internationally, particularly within the ECE" in combating pollution. ₆₈ The Single European Act, for its part, in Article 130r(5) stated that "within their respective spheres of competence, the Community and the Member States shall cooperate with third countries and with the relevant international organizations." It gave the Community a legal basis for the negotiation of international environmental accords. In 1987, the Heads of State and Government at the Dublin Summit decided that the Community should play a key role in the area of international environmental activity.

The Maastricht Treaty reflected that commitment. Article 130r included a new objective for Community action: Community policy on the environment should contribute to "promoting measures at international level to deal with regional or worldwide environmental problems." ₆₉ That new provision indicated how far-reaching the internationalization of environmental problems had become. It also strengthened the Community's prerogative in the international field. In Hession's and Macrory's words, the new language in the Treaty

confirms the independent nature of the Community"s external power. This latter point is important as the Community previously had to rely on the existence of internal measures to justify external competence in application of the ERTA principle. lIt] strengthens the argument that the Community's interest is general and is unrelated to any functional relationship with internal problems or measures. ₇₀

International Negotiation

EU participation in international negotiations is complex. Typically, in areas characterized by mixed competence, the Commission will be the negotiator acting under a mandate unanimously agreed to by the Council. The Commission, while it is negotiating, "continuously consults with a special committee composed of Member States' representatives. In practice, Member States also participate in the negotiation of the environmental agreements." ₇₁ 1 In areas where the member-states retain jurisdiction, they will negotiate on their own. Given the institutional evolution of the Community, each treaty negotiation has had a different dynamic.

Over time, however, the Community has become a unitary actor more frequently, has institutionalized a territorial/non-territorial balance, and has secured international recognition. Each step in this process was hard-fought, but the Community is clearly more unitary, more "balanced", and more recognized than it was in 1973 when environmental policy was added to its competences. The following cases give a brief sketch of the key elements of the institution-building process--and its interaction with key third parties such as the United States--which has characterized the Community's involvement in international environmental negotiations.

Global Treaties and Institution-Building

Cites: In the case of the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the major global treaty on nature protection, the Community was not a signatory but did enact a regulation implementing the Treaty. The fact that the Community was not a signatory was at least partly a question of timing--it did not have competence for environmental protection at the time the treaty was negotiated. The member-states agreed that it should become a signatory, but the Treaty did not allow for the accession of regional economic integration organizations. ₇₂ In 1983, an amendment to the Treaty (the so-called Gaborone Amendment) was negotiated with the United States acting as the principal negotiator. The Gaborone Amendment would have allowed the Community to accede to the Treaty, but the United States, concerned that the institutional structure of the EC would not be able to effectively implement CITES restrictions, decided not to follow through and accept the amendment. The Community is therefore not yet a signatory, primarily because of American opposition.

The knotty question of whether the EC can actually ensure compliance with global treaties as effectively as can national governments operating at the national level has remained largely unresolved from the American point of view. It is the concern with whether the EC can comply on the ground that has undergirded a sustained American skepticism or opposition to the EC's being recognized as an actor in international environmental negotiations.

Although the Community was not a signatory, the member-states' participation in the Conference of the Parties held in 1985 in Buenos Aires was coordinated on a daily basis by the Italian Presidency. It must be remembered that in 1985 no treaty basis for environmental protection existed and the Community had not been allowed to sign--yet a regulation implementing CITES had been approved at the Community level and the member-states were acting in the EC framework because of that regulation. In those areas where a common position had been formulated, those positions "were presented to the Conference on behalf of the Community by the presidency, the Commission, or by the delegation of the Member Sates having a special interest or specific knowledge on the matter' ". ₇₃

Nonetheless, in the Commission's words, "the Conference witnessed a number of Community incidents." ₇₄ The member states disagreed with the Commission on a variety of issues as well as disagreed with each other. In some contentious areas, no common position was arrived at.

Thus, both the Commission and the Presidency played an important role in the negotiations. The EU's negotiating process incorporated both the territorial and the non-territorial dimension. While the Community did act in a unitary fashion on some issues, disagreements in both discussions and voting indicated that it was not yet ready to act in a unitary fashion. Clearly, the Community would have been more influential if it had been able to act more cohesively. Yet it is unprecedented for a non-signatory to have the kind of influence which it did have on some issues. ₇₅

Ozone: American (as well as Soviet) opposition to the Community's emergence as a signatory to global treaties persisted throughout the 1980s. The US originally opposed the EC signing both the Vienna Convention on the ozone layer and the Montreal Protocol. ₇₆ In those treaties, however, the member-states backed the Commission's insistence on the Community becoming a contracting party.

The politics of ozone, however, have one clear feature. The Commission's "insistence on special statutory treatment" became a key negotiating point, one which, from the point of third parties, was typically shrouded in confusion over what the power of the Community in the area actually was. The question of whether and when the Community exercised exclusive competence was particularly difficult to answer from a legal standpoint. The political ramifications of an answer to that question were often too problematic. As the Community's Legal Adviser John Temple Lange put it, "precisely because the limits of exclusive competence are politically important, they are particularly difficult and controversial to define." ₇₇

In spite of the irritations caused to third parties (and at times to the member states themselves) by the Commission's relentless pursuit of ensuring its international status, the Community was so important it could not be ignored or dismissed. The cohesion of the Community in the area of ozone generally has been such that it has emerged as a key actor. ₇₈ During the Vienna Convention negotiations, the European position was so cohesive in its opposition to binding commitments that a framework convention laying out general principles only was seen as the only feasible option. The Community was in fact a unitary actor, with the member-states and the Commission acting in unison. ₇₉

Leaving aside the content of the environmental restrictions adopted, the Commission strenuously negotiated to be allowed to become a contracting party without restrictions. ₈₀ Given the lack of explicit competence for environmental protection before the adoption of the SEA, the Commission viewed the negotiations as a way to "obtain greater competence in environmental affairs within the Community. Had it succeeded, it could claim the right to propose Community legislation to implement the ozone convention and future protocols." ₈₁

The Council had agreed in January 1982 that the Community should become a contracting party, and in October 1984 had agreed that the Community should be allowed to become a contracting party without any conditions being attached. However, both the United States and the USSR had proposed restrictions. The US wanted "a prior participation by one Member State " and the USSR wanted prior participation by a majority of the Member States ₈₂ A compromise was finally reached which was acceptable to the Commission.

Negotiations over the Montreal Protocol to the Vienna Convention had some of the same features. The status of the Community was the subject of heated debate. Richard Benedick, the American negotiator, gives a sense of how important the dispute became:

After a nerve-racking midnight standoff over this issue, during which the fate of the protocol hung in the balance, a compromise was reached at the last possible moment . . . . this concession would obtain only if all member countries plus the EC Commission became parties to the protocol and formally notified the secretariat of their manner of implementation. ₈₃

However, the issue of competence was highlighted when the issue under discussion was a fund to help developing countries obtain advanced technology. The Community could not be involved, and "on this point the Member States acted on their own." ₈₄

During the Protocol negotiations, the Community again kept the agreement from being as stringent as the United States and the Scandinavians wanted. After a political change at the Community level which transformed the politics of ozone, the Community emerged as a policy leader during the negotiations for the London and Copenhagen amendments. Regardless of whether the Community was a "leader" or a "laggard", however, the Community was cohesive enough to emerge as a key negotiating partner.

Climate Change: By the time the climate change negotiations began officially in February 1991, the EC had become a recognized power in the area of international environmental politics. The United Nations General Assembly had created the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) for a Framework Climate Convention under whose auspices the negotiations were conducted. Within that framework, "the EC assumed a lead role in the negotiations by virtue of its commitment to returning its joint carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000." ₈₅

Given the role of the United States in international politics, environmental politics especially, it was essential for the success of the Rio Conference (at which the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was to be signed) that President Bush personally attend. The American position, however, was opposed to binding commitments to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to a specific level by a specific date. The European Community was viewed by the United States as a key adversary, and President Bush demanded the Europeans change their position. Bush "personally called German prime minister Helmut Kohl to ask him to drop his government"s demands for the stabilization commitment in return for Bush's participation in the Earth Summit." ₈₆ Whether that call was to Kohl as a German or whether it was to Kohl as a key player in the EC's politics of climate change is impossible to say, but it may be irrelevant. By that point, the European Community and its member-states were enmeshed with one another as a negotiating unit.

Member-states used their bilateral contacts with Washington to lobby the Bush Administration to support the EU's position (unsuccessfully of course). The member-states and the Community were intertwined in such a way that the EC was a unitary actor using multi-lateral diplomatic channels to convince the United States to change its position. ₈₇ In the context of transatlantic negotiations, the member-states have been in a much stronger position than has the Commission (a situation which began to change under the Clinton Administration). ₈₈ The member-states clearly dominated that exchange--but acted in a unitary fashion. From the American point of view, it was the EC/GermansIDutchIBritish who were lobbying rather than the member-states acting unilaterally. ₈₉

The United States is such an important actor that it is difficult to analyze the EU's role without taking into account the impact of American policy. Given that climate change policy is essentially an issue of international political economy because of the wide-ranging impacts on industrial activity and structure of carbon dioxide emission reductions, ₉₀ the economic interdependence within the industrialized world cannot be ignored by the EU. It is for that reason that in 1992 EU finance ministers insisted that any EU carbon tax be implemented only on condition that the United States and Japan acted in kind. Japan agreed on condition that the United States enact some kind of carbon tax. The Clinton Administration refused. Although there are significant member-state differences on the carbon tax issue (the UK opposes it in principle), there is no doubt that a change in the American position would transform the politics of the carbon tax debate within the EU as well as the international politics of climate change. ₉₁

UNCED: Once the General Assembly in December 1989 decided to convene a UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, the question of the European Community's participation arose. In March 1992, the Council of Ministers approved the full participation of the Community in the UNCED--'on equal terms with the member states'. ₉₂ However, as Jupille and Caporaso point out, when Portugal, in the exercise of the Community Presidency, asked during the New York PrepCom (IV) meeting that Commission President Delors be treated during the concluding ceremonies at Rio as if he were a head of state, a fierce dispute erupted with the United States and the member-states themselves were unwilling to go that far. ₉₃

A compromise position was put together which acknowledged the special position of the Community in the world of international affairs. The compromise allowed the Community to participate fully in the UNCED deliberations--the only international organization to be given that privilege. This privileged position was however not to be viewed as a precedent, and the Community would still not be allowed to vote. The following excerpt summarizing the compromise gives a sense of how the Community's actual participation was to take place:

The EEC will represent exclusively the Community's position to the Conference on issues falling within the EEC's exclusive competence. In cases of mixed competence, the EEC and its member Sates will determine which, as between them will represent the positions of the Community and its member States. The EEC shall inform the UNCED secretariat prior to consideration of an agenda item by the Conference if the EEC will be representing a position of the Community and its member States with respect to specific matters within the scope of that agenda item. ₉₄

On April 13, 1992, the General Assembly approved a special decision to grant the Community's request to be granted "full participant status." Brinkhorst, then the Director-General of DGXI, describes the content and significance of that decision in the following terms:

This status conferred on the EEC rights enjoyed by participating states, including representation in committees and working groups of the conference, the right to speak and to reply, and to submit proposals and substantive amendments. On two counts the position would be different from that of Member States: the EEC would not have the right to vote (including the right to block a consensus) nor to submit procedural motions. Although EC representatives made it clear from the beginning that the EC would not request a 13th vote, no new ground could be broken on this point n view of the clear language to the contrary of the UN Charter... the decision was considered as an important breakthrough of the general procedural rules prevailing at meetings of UN conferences. ₉₅

The Community had played what Brinkhorst characterizes as a "certain mediating role" between developing countries on the one hand and the United States and Japan on the other. The G-77 therefore actively supported the granting of "full participant status" to the Community. ₉₆

The Council Presidency played an active role during the negotiations. According to one negotiator from a non-member state, at certain points the Presidency on behalf of the Community was negotiating with the G-77 with the United States and Russia sitting on the sidelines. In his words, "the Community was a powerhouse." Although the Commission's presence was weakened by the refusal of the Commissioner for the Environment to attend, the Community played an important role. The Commission's civil servants were involved and the Council Presidency was very visible. In this case, the "territorial" dimension of the Community was the most active--and third parties certainly interpreted the Presidency's actions as those of the Community. Given the codes of international negotiations, the fact that Ken Collins, the Chair of the important parliamentary committee on the environment, did not attend mattered much less than did the fact that the Council Presidency was active.

The relationship between the Commission and the Presidency seems to have been relatively smooth. The Council of Ministers had decided in March 1992 that the Presidency would typically represent and negotiate for the Community in areas of mixed competence but that the Commission could act in the same fashion if it were so agreed. In areas where important EC directives had been approved--toxic chemicals, waste, and fisheries--"the Commission representatives spoke exclusively on behalf of the Community." ₉₇

The Community in fact was able to act in a unitary fashion more easily on environmental issues than on those dealing with development aid policy. No common EC position had been developed, and the Community in that area was unable to exert the kind of influence it did in the environmental arena. ₉₈

The Community did sign Agenda 21 even though it is not a legally binding document. From a legal perspective,, such a signature was unusual. Martin Hession argues that "the general powers of the Commission to maintain all appropriate relations with organs of the United Nations (Article 229) cannot be considered sufficient for such general political declarations." ₉₉

In fact, the Community has been active in its relations with the Committee for Sustainable Development (CSD) which was established by Chapter 38 of Agenda 21 as a Commission of the UN's Economic and Social Council. The General Assembly, in establishing the CSD in January 1993, explicitly called for the full participation of the Community. The Council of Ministers had on November 23, 1992 accepted a Commission recommendation that the Community should participate fully in CSD activities. The member-states which were elected to membership on the Commission (the Community itself would not seek election) would, on issues within the Community's exclusive competence," exercise their votes on the basis of a Community position decided on in Community coordination. On issues of mixed competence, co-ordination would take place with a view to securing a common position of the basis of which the Community members of the CSD should vote."' ₁₀₀

At the time of writing, the Council of Ministers in its meeting of March 4, 1996 laid out the guidelines to be used by the Union during the 4th Session of the Commission which met in New York from April 18 to May 3, 1996. These guidelines were also to be used in the preparation for the European Union's participation in the 1997 Special session of the United Nations General Assembly which is to review the progress made in the implementation of the commitments made at Rio. ₁₀₁

Conclusion

The European Community has over time developed the international standing and the capacity to become an important international actor in the area of international environmental relations. Third parties as well as the United Nations system have gradually acknowledged the Community's unique status vis-à-vis its member states and are in the process of adapting international institutions to accommodate its unusual demands.

What is striking about the Community's role is that a balance between the "territoriallnon-territorial" dimension is being constructed at the same time that the Community is emerging as an important actor in the global environmental context. The Presidency is a key Community institution in the foreign environmental affairs of the Community. The Commission, for its part, is playing a role much more important than might have been expected given the importance of territoriality in the international system. The member-states, although in constant conflict with the Commission over the internal allocation of responsibilities, are n6netheless consistently agreeing to have the Community play an important international role in the environmental arena.

The institutionalization of "dual representation" represents an innovative way for the Community to allow both territorial and non-territorial claims to be expressed in global fora. If, as argued in the introduction, "intergovernmentalism" is an essential feature of federations, not to mention federal-like structures, the Community has found a way to incorporate both intergovernmentalism (in the form of the Council Presidency) and the "federal" (in the form of the Commission) in its external personality.

Significantly, the external role of the Commission was legitimized by the European Court of Justice. The Court, as it has so often, gave a powerful "federal" impetus to the Community by recognizing the external dimension of what we now know as pillar one. It, however, did not exclude the member-states. The territorial dimension is coupled with the non-territorial under the rubric of "mixed competence" and "mixed agreements." The arcane and convoluted legal spiderwebs which make up the area of "mixed competence" and "concurrent powers" are in fact the foundation stones for the balance between the territorial and the non-territorial which makes the Community both so complex and so successful as an instrument of integration.

The environmental arena has proven to be a fruitful arena for institution-building. The Community has been able to increase its stature, its international reach, and its effectiveness within international organizations. Each global treaty has proven to be a step in a process of institution-building which is still ongoing. Its future role in the Commission for Sustainable Development and General Assembly activities in the post-Rio period is likely to continue on a similar trajectory--incremental steps which increase its status as well as its access to the decision-making centers within international fora (such as informal meetings), and therefore the likelihood that it will be able to act in a unitary fashion.

The Council Presidency, flanked by the Commission, and the Commission, flanked by the Council Presidency, are likely to force the international system to acknowledge an entity which does not require the constituent units to subordinate themselves to a "federal" government or to a "center" as conventionally understood. The coupling of the territorial and the non-territorial dimension in the conduct of international environmental politics represents a case of institution-building at both the Community--and at the global--level.

Note 1: I would like to thank James Caporaso, Michelle Egan, Joseph Jupille, and Mark Pollack for their written comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Back.

Note 2: For a more extended discussion of this approach see Alberta Sbragia, "The European Community: A Balancing Act," Publius, Summer 1993, p.23-38. Back.

Note 3: Alberta Sbragia, "The European Community: A Balancing Act," Publius, Summer 1993, p.28. Back.

Note 4: I am indebted to Kurt Riechenberg, EU Fuibright Fellow at the University of Pittsburgh, and a Clerk at the Court of First Instance and a former clerk at the European Court of Justice, for this point. Back.

Note 5: Martin Hession and Richard Macrory, "Maastricht and the Environmental Policy of the Community: Legal Issues of a New Environment Policy," Legal Issues of the Maastricht Treaty, edited by David O'Keeffe and Patrick M. Twomey, London: Wilery Chancery Law, 1994, p.167. Back.

Note 6: See. for example, Gareth Porter and Janet Welsh Brown, Global Environmental Politics, second edition, Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1996. Back.

Note 7: Christopher Hill, "The Capability-Expectations Gap, or Conceptualizing Europe's International Role," Journal of Common Market Studies, Volume 31, No.3, September 1993, pp.305-328; see also Allen, D. "The EU, the CFSP and the States of the Former Soviet Union: Does the EU have a Coherent Policy?" in Regelsberger, E., de Schouteete, P., and Wessels, W. (eds.) The European Union and the World--The Common Foreign and Security Policv in the Maastricht Treaty, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1996. Back.

Note 8: I thank Jonathan Davidson for this insight. Back.

Note 9: Joseph Henri Jupille and James A. Caporaso, "The European Community In Global Environmental Politics," Paper delivered at the European Community Studies Association Workshop, "The Role of the European Union in the World Community," Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 16-19 May 1996. Back.

Note 10: In real-world federal systems, this division is often contested. In the American system, for example, the executive typically must struggle with Congress for dominance in the area of trade policy. I thank Carolyn Rhodes for making this point to me. In the area of international environmental diplomacy, the American states and Canadian provinces have played an important role in US-Canadian relations. Stephan Kux, Subsidiarity and the Environment: Implementing International Agreements. Europainstitut an der Universitat Basel, 1994, p.26. Within the EU itself, the question of which level of government should be charged with the responsibility for environmental protection is being debated. See, for example, Mark Dubrulle (ed). Future European Environmental Policy and Subsidiarity. Brussels: European Interuniversity Press and European Society for Environment and Development (ESED), 1994. Back.

Note 11: I thank Jim Caporaso for his extensive help with this section Back.

Note 12: Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation would be an important exception. Back.

Note 13: Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood," World Politics, October 1982, Volume 35, pp.1-26. Back.

Note 14: Skowronek, in his discussion of early American state-building, does not deal with the external challenges the new state faced. The American state is an internal affair, not one embedded in a threatening international environment with consequences for internal institution-building. Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State: The Expansion of National Administrative Capacities, 1877-1920 Cambridge University Press, 1982, chapter 1. Back.

Note 15: Daniel H. Deudney, "The Philadelphian system: sovereignty, arms control, and balance of power in the American states-union, circa 1787-1861," International Organization, Volume 49, Spring 1995, p.202 Back.

Note 16: Alberta Sbragia, Debt Wish: Entrepreneurial Cities, US Federalism, and Economic Development. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996, chapter 2. Back.

Note 17: Andrew Hurrell and Anand Menon, "Politics like any Other? Comparative Politics, International Relations and the Study of the EU," West European Politics, Volume 19, Number 2, April 1996, p.394 Back.

Note 18: See, for example, Giandomenico Majone, "Cross-national sources of regulatory policymaking in Europe and the US," Journal of Public Policy, Volume 11, Number 1, January/March 1991, pp.79-106; Lee Ann Patterson, "Agricultural policy reform in the European Community: A three-level game analysis," International Organization, forthcoming in Volume 51, Number 1, 1997, pp.135-165. Martin Staniland, "Deregulation and International Politics: The Case of the Airline Industry"; Michelle Egan, "EU Standard Setting in a Global Economy"; Lee Ann Patterson, "Where's the Top in Top-Down Policymaking?: The Influence of International Organizations on EU Biotechnology Policy"; Anthony Zito, "Expanding the EU Agenda from the Outside: A Study of the Role of International Institutions and Actors on EU Environmental Policy": Papers delivered at the workshop on "Europeanization in International Perspective" held at the University of Pittsburgh on September 16-17, 1996. Back.

Note 19: J. Samuel Barkin and Bruce Cronin, "The state and nation: changing norms and the rules of sovereignty in international relations," International Organization, Volume 48, Winter 1994, p.107 Back.

Note 20: Winfried Lang, "Negotiation as Diplomatic Rule-Making," International Negotiation, Volume I, 1996, p.73 Back.

Note 21: Janice E. Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, and Sovereigns: State-Building and Extraterritorial Violence in Earlv Modern Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994, p.151. Back.

Note 22: Andrew Hurrell and Anand Menon, "Politics Like Any Other? Comparative Politics, International Relations and the Study of the EU, "West European Politics, Volume 19, April 1996, pp.391-2. Back.

Note 23: Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood," World Politics, October 1982, vol.35, pp.12-13,16. Back.

Note 24: It is important to note that intergovernmental organizations and international non-governmental organizations may in fact be important in bringing the states to the point of making decisions. In Oran Young's analysis of regime formation,

the drive to form several of the regimes was spearheaded by intergovernmental organizations or by international nongovernmental organizations, so that states did not even take the lead in the relevant processes of regime formation. There is general agreement, for example, that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources ('UCN) was the motivating force in establishing the regime regulating trade in endangered species of fauna and flora spelled out in the provisions of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. And there is no escaping the central role that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) played in the negotiating process that resulted in the 1985 convention and the 1987 protocol on ozone depletion.

Oran R. Young, "The Politics of international regime formation: managing natural resources and the environment," International Organization, volume 43, no.3, Summer 1989, pp.353-4. Lawrence Susskind for his part identifies "unofficial or nongovernmental interest groups (including environmental action organizations, business associations, and scientific associations)" as "actors in the environmental treaty-making system." Lawrence E. Susskind, Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, p.11. Back.

Note 25: For a discussion of the differences between a state and an international organization in the international arena, see Jean Groux and Philippe Manin, The European Communities in the International Order, Luxembourg: Official Publications of the European Communities, 1985, pp.9-10. Back.

Note 26: Andre Noilkaemper, "The European Community and International Environmental Co-operation: Legal Aspects of External Community Powers," Legal Issues of European Integration, 1987/2, p.61. Back.

Note 27: Jean Groux and Philippe Manin, The European Communities in the International Order, Luxembourg: Official Publications of the European Communities, 1985, p.20 Back.

Note 28: Friedrich Kratochwil, "Of Systems, Boundaries, and Territoriality: An Inquiry into the Formation of the State System," World Politics, October 1986, p.48. Back.

Note 29: I would like to thank Jeffrey Lewis for alerting me to the importance of Ruggie's argument. Back.

Note 30: John Gerard Ruggie, "Territoriality and beyond: problematizing modernity in international relations," International Organization, Volume 47, Number 1, Winter 1993, pp.165, 171. Back.

Note 31: Alberta M. Sbragia, "From 'Nation-State' to 'Member-State': The Evolution of the European Community," Europe After Maastricht: American and European Perspectives. Paul Michael Lutzeler (ed.) Providence, R.I.: Berghahn Books, 1994. Back.

Note 32: Alberta M. Sbragia, "Asymmetrical Integration in the European Community: The Single European Act and Institutional Development," The 1992 Project and the Future of Integration in Europe, Dale L. Smith and James Lee Ray (eds.) Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1993, pp.92-109. Back.

Note 33: See, for example, Sophie Meunier. Divided but United: European Trade Policy Integration and EC-US Agricultural Negotiations in the Uruguay Round. Delivered at the 1996 ECSA Workshop "The Role of the European Union in the World Community," May 16-19, 1996, Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Back.

Note 34: Frank Scheuermans and Tom Dodd, The World Trade Organization and the European Community, The European Parliament, Directorate General for Research, External Economics Relations Division, Working Paper, External Economic Relations Series, E-1, August 1995, p.35. Back.

Note 35: Woolcock and Hodges, for example, conclude that in the Uruguay Round, "in fourteen of the fifteen negotiating groups, the EC performed on a par with, for example, the USA, if not better, in terms of presenting coherent consistent positions." Stephen Woolcock and Michael Hodges, " EU Policy in the Uruguay Round," Policy-Making in the European Union, third edition, edited by Helen Wallace and William Wallace, London: Oxford University Press, 1996, p.323 Back.

Note 36: Martin Hession and Richard Macrory, "Maastricht and the Environmental Policy of the Community: Legal Issues of a New Environment Policy," Legal Issues of the Maastricht Treaty, edited by David O'Keeffe and Patrick M. Twomey, London: Wilery Chancery Law, 1994, p.157. Back.

Note 37: See O'Keeffe and Schermers (eds.) Mixed Agreements.: John Temple Lang," The Ozone Layer Convention: A New Solution to the Question of Community Participation in "Mixed" International Agreements," Common Market Law Review, Volume 23, 1986, pp.157 -176; Jean Groux and Philippe Manin, The European Communities in the International Order, Luxembourg: Official Publications of the European Communities,1985, pp.61-69. Back.

Note 38: Stanley Henig, External Relations of the European Community: Associations and Trade Agreements. London: Chatham House, 1971, p.10. With regards to the OECD, the Commission points out that

although the Community is not a member of that Organization, its status there is higher than that of an observer. Supplementary Protocol No.1 to the Convention on the OECD stipulates that the Commission shall take part as of right in the work of the Organization and that representation of the Communities shall be determined with the institutional provisions of the Treaties.

Commission of the European Communities, Relations Between the European Community and International Organizations. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1989, p.19. Back.

Note 39: Commission of the European Communities, Relations Between the European Community and International Organizations. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1989, p.21. Back.

Note 40: Commission of the European Communities, Relations Between the European Community and International Organizations, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1989, p.19. Back.

Note 41: Jean Groux and Philippe Manin, The European Communities in the International Order, Luxembourg: Official Publications of the European Communities, 1985, p.43. Back.

Note 42: Much to its dismay, however, the Community has the same formal status vis-à-vis the UN General Assembly as the Commonwealth Secretariat, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the League of African Unity, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. It is certainly true that such organizations have little similarity with the Community, representing "both in law and in their factual position a totally different political reality." L. J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels (eds.) Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p.610. Back.

Note 43: Jean Groux and Philippe Manin, The European Communities in the International Order, Luxembourg: Official Publications of the European Communities, 1985, p.43, 49. Back.

Note 44: L. J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels (eds.) Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p.610. Back.

Note 45: L. J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels (eds.) Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p.610. Back.

Note 46: L. J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels (eds.) Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p.611. Back.

Note 47: Commission of the European Communities, Relations Between the European Community and International Organizations, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1989, pp.85-86. Back.

Note 48: Jean Groux and Philippe Manin, The European Communities in the International Order, Luxembourg: Official Publications of the European Communities, 1985, p.45-46. Back.

Note 49: Commission of the European Communities, Relations Between the European Community and International Organisations, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 1989, p.21. Back.

Note 50: The trade arena stands as a contrast. In the case of the Uruguay Round, member-states did not field national delegations. The Commission was the sole representative and the Presidency was not a partner nor was it included in the negotiating team. The member-states gave the Commission the right to negotiate for the Community even in those areas (such as services and intellectual property rights) characterized by "mixed competence." Stephen Woolcock and Michael Hodges," EU Policy in the Uruguay Round," Policy-Making in the European Union, third edition, edited by Helen Wallace and William Wallace, London: Oxford University Press, 1996, p.302. Back.

Note 51: Edith Brown Weiss, "International Environmental Law: Contemporary Issues and the Emergence of a New World Order, "Business & the Contemporary World, Volume VI, Number 2, 1994, p.30. Back.

Note 52: Edith Brown Weiss, "International Environmental Law: Contemporary Issues and the Emergence of a New World Order, " Business & the Contemporary World, Volume VI, Number 2, 1994, p.30. Back.

Note 53: See, for example, Karen T. Litfin, "Rethinking Sovereignty and Environment: Beyond Either/Or," paper delivered at the SSRC research workshop "Rethinking Sovereignty and Environment," University of Washington, October 13-15, 1995; Ken Conca, "Rethinking the Ecology-Sovereignty Debate, " Millennium, Vol.23, Autumn 1994; Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury, "The International Politics of the Environment: An Introduction, " The International Politics of the Environment, Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury (eds.), Clarendon Press, 1992, pp.1-47. Back.

Note 54: See, for example, Oran R. Young, International Cooperation: Building Regimes for Natural Resources and the Environment, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989;---"Political Leadership and Regime Formation: On the Development of Institutions in International Society," International Organization, 45 (Summer) 1991, pp.281-308; ."Negotiating an International Climate Regime: The Institutional Bargaining for Environmental Governance," in Global Accord: Environmental Challenges and International Responses, edited by Nazli Choucri, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993; Alker, Hayward, R., Jr. and Peter M. Haas, "The Rise of Global Ecopolitics," in Global Accord: Environmental Challenges and International Responses, edited by Nazli Choucri, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993; Peter M. Haas, Robert 0. Keohane, and Marc A. Levy (eds.). Institutions for the Earth: Sources of Effective International Environmental Protection. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993; Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury (eds.). The International Politics of the Environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions Oxford: Clarendon, 1992. Back.

Note 55: Alker, Hayward, R., Jr. and Peter M. Haas, "The Rise of Global Ecopolitics," in Global Accord: Environmental Challenges and International Responses, edited by Nazli Choucri, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1993, p.15. Back.

Note 56: Peter M. Haas. Saving the Mediterranean: The Politics of International Environmental Cooperation. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Back.

Note 57: Andre Nollkaemper, "The European Community and International Environmental Co-operation-Legal Aspects of External Community Powers," Legal Issues of European Integration, 1987/2, p.61. Back.

Note 58: Carlo Mastellone, "The External Relations of the E.E.C. in the Field of Environmental Protection," The International and Comparative Law Ouarterly. Volume 30, Part 1, January 1981, p.104. Back.

Note 59: Andre Nollkaemper, "The European Community and International Environmental Co-operation-Legal Aspects of External Community Powers," Legal Issues of European Integration, 1987/2, p.64. Back.

Note 60: Pillar one includes areas of exclusive competence--trade in manufactured goods--and areas of so-called "mixed competence." The latter is seen by many Commission officials as far from ideal. In the words of one, "pillar one is being polluted by 'mixicity'--the notion of mixed competences. Back.

Note 61: John Temple Lang defines a mixed agreement in the following fashion:

International agreements are described as "mixed" when both the European Community and some or all of its Member States become, or are intended to become, parties. In practice this is usually where the Community has exclusive competence over part of the subject matter of the agreement and non-exclusive or concurrent competence over the rest of the subject matter. However, the phrase "mixed agreements" is also used to describe the much rarer situations in which either part of the subject matter of the agreement is outside the competence, even the concurrent competence, of the Community, or the Community becomes a party even though it has no exclusive competence over any part of the subject matter.

John Temple Lang, "The Ozone Layer Convention: A New Solution to the Question of Community Participation in "Mixed" International Agreements," Common Market Law Review, Volume 23, 1986, pp.157-8. Back.

Note 62: Nigel Haigh, "The European Community and International Environmental Policy," The International Politics of the Environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions. edited by Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, p.239. Back.

Note 63: Nigel Haigh, "The European Community and International Environmental Policy," The International Politics of the Environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions. edited by Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, p.240. Back.

Note 64: Ludwig Kramer, E.C. Treaty and Environmental Law, second edition, London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1995, pp.85-5. Back.

Note 65: Ludwig Kramer, E.C. Treaty and Environmental Law, second edition, London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1995, p.84. Back.

Note 66: Andreas R. Ziegler, "International Cooperation for the Protection of the Environment in the European Community: Shared tasks and responsibilities of the Community and the Member States," University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, unpublished paper, no date, p.2. Back.

Note 67: Andreas R. Ziegler, "International Cooperation for the Protection of the Environment in the European Community: Shared tasks and responsibilities of the Community and the Member States," University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, unpublished paper, no date, pp.2-3. Back.

Note 68: Stanley P. Johnson and Guy Corcelle, The Environmental Policy of the European Communities, second edition, London: Kluwer Law International, 1995, p.22. Back.

Note 69: The other three objectives are preserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment, protecting human health, and the prudent and rational utilization of natural resources. Back.

Note 70: Martin Hession and Richard Macrory, "Maastricht and the Environmental Policy of the Community: Legal Issues of a New Environment Policy," Legal Issues of the Maastricht Treaty, edited by David O'Keeffe and Patrick M. Twomey, London: Wilery Chancery Law, 1994, p.158. Back.

Note 71: Ludwig Kramer, E.C. Treaty and Environmental Law, London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1995, p.84. Back.

Note 72: Edith Brown Weiss, "The Natural Resource Agreements: The Living Histories," unpublished paper, 1996. Back.

Note 73: COM(85)729 final, p.2. Back.

Note 74: COM(85)729 final, p.2. Back.

Note 75: For a more in-depth discussion of the EU's role in CITES, see Alberta Sbragia and Philipp Hildebrand," The European Union and Compliance: A Story in the Making," in Engaging Countries: Strengthening Compliance with International Environmental Accords, edited by Edith Brown Weiss and Harold K. Jacobson, MIT Press, forthcoming, 1997. Back.

Note 76: Nigel Haigh, "The European Community and International Environmental Policy," The International Politics of the Environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions, edited by Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, p.242. Back.

Note 77: Cited in Richard Elliot Benedick, Ozone Dipl omacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991, p.95. Back.

Note 78: Patrick Szell, "Negotiations on the Ozone Layer," International Environmental Negotiation, edited by Gunnar Sjostedt, Newbury Park: Sage, 1993, p.36. See also, for example, Karen T. Litfin, "Framing Science: Precautionary Discourse and the Ozone Treaties," Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol.24, No.2 1995, pp.251-277. Back.

Note 79: Markus Jachtenfuchs, "The European Community and the Protection of the Ozone Layer," Journal of Common Market Studies, March 1990, p.264. Back.

Note 80: Richard Elliot Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991, p.95. Back.

Note 81: Markus Jachtenfuchs, "The European Community and the Protection of the Ozone Layer," Journal of Common Market Studies. March 1990, p.263. Back.

Note 82: COM(85) 8 final, explanatory memorandum. Back.

Note 83: Richard Elliot Benedick, Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991, pp.96-97. Back.

Note 84: Nigel Haigh, "The European Community and International Environmental Policy," The International Politics of the Environment: Actors, Interests, and Institutions. edited by Andrew Hurrell and Benedict Kingsbury. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992, p.241. Back.

Note 85: Gareth Porter and Janet Welsh Brown, Global Environmental Politics, second edition, Westview, 1996, p.95. Back.

Note 86: Gareth Porter and Janet Welsh Brown, Global Environmental Politics, second edition, Westview, 1996, p.96. Back.

Note 87: Gareth Porter and Janet Welsh Brown, Global Environmental Politics, second edition, Westview, 1996, p.95. Back.

Note 88: For a discussion of how the Clinton Administration began to view the Community as a more important transatlantic partner, see Anthony Gardner, A New Era in U.S.-EU Relations: The Shift from Consultation to Joint Action, forthcoming; Alberta Sbragia, "Transatlantic Relations: An Evolving Mosaic," Paper delivered at the international conference on "Policy-Making and Decision-Making in Transatlantic Relations, "Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 3-4 May 1996. Back.

Note 89: The member-states, however, maintained control of the negotiations over the Global Environmental Facility. The Community is not a member of the GEF but is trying to become one. At least some of the member-states, however, are opposed to the Community's membership. Back.

Note 90: Michael Grubb has argued that the impact of reducing greenhouse gases will be significant. In his words "No previous environmental problem has been at once so closely related to major sectors of economic activity." Cited in Susan Sell, "North-South Environmental Bargaining: Ozone, Climate Change, and Biodiversity," Global Governance, Volume 2, January-April 1996, pp.106-7. Back.

Note 91: Gareth Porter and Janet Welsh Brown, Global Environmental Politics, second edition, Westview, 1996, p. 149; Tony Zito, "Integrating the Environment into the European Union: The History of the Controversial Carbon Tax," in C. Rhodes and S. Mazey (eds), The State of the European Community, iii, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1995. Back.

Note 92: Joseph Henri Jupille and James A. Caporaso, "The European Community in Global Environmental Politics," Paper Prepared for the European Community Studies Association Workshop, "The Role of the European Union in the World Community," Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 16-19 May 1996, p.20. Back.

Note 93: Joseph Henri Jupille and James A. Caporaso, "The European Community in Global Environmental Politics," Paper Prepared for the European Community Studies Association Workshop, "The Role of the European Union in the World Community," Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 16-19 May 1996, p.21. I have drawn heavily from Jupille and Caporaso's excellent paper . Preparatory committees were very important in the UNCED process. In Stanley Johnson's words,

Few international conferences can have been so thoroughly prepared as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. UNCED's Preparatory Committee (which became known as PrepCom) held four meetings, each of them four or five weeks in length, which were attended by most of the member sates of the United Nations, by the intergovernmental bodies both inside and outside the United Nations system, by a host of non-governmental organizations including the business, scientific and academic communities, as well as the representatives of "green" groups and charitable and other bodies interested in the environment and development.

The task of these successive meetings of UNCED's PrepCom was to define the issues, to help shape the programmes and other proposals, to assess financial implications where this was possible and, finally to narrow down the areas of disagreement so that the Rio Conference might ultimately be confronted with a manageable agenda.

Stanley P. Johnson, The Earth Summit: The United Nations Conference on Environment and Develonment (UNCED). London: Graham & Trotman/Martinus Nijhoff, 1993, p.19. Back.

Note 94: Quoted and cited in Joseph Henri Jupille and James A. Caporaso, "The European Community in Global Environmental Politics," Paper Prepared for the European Community Studies Association Workshop, "The Role of the European Union in the World Community," Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 16-19 May 1996, p.21. Back.

Note 95: L.J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn from the Future," Institutional Dynamics of European Integration edited by Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels. Volume II. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p. 612. Back.

Note 96: L.J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, edited by Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels. Volume II. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p. 613. Back.

Note 97: L.J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, edited by Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels. Volume II. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p.613. Back.

Note 98: L.J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, edited by Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels. Volume II. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p. 614. Back.

Note 99: Martin Hession, "External Competence and the European Community," Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions. Volume 5, Number 2, 1995, p.156. Back.

Note 100: L.J. Brinkhorst, "The European Community at UNCED: Lessons to be Drawn for the Future," Institutional Dynamics of European Integration, edited by Deirdre Curtin and Ton Heukels. Volume II. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, p. 615. Back.

Note 101: 5309/96 (Presse 45), pp.5-7. Back.