The Manual provides for a step-by-step introduction and expert advice for representatives of NGOs and other stakeholders on how they can effectively engage in developing and implementing Multilateral Environment Agreements.

A tool to help negotiators of Multilateral Environmental Agreements to prepare strategies and to participate more effectively in the negotiations and focus on environmental issues, their creation of binding international law, and their inclusion.

Civil society participants have voiced concerns that the environmental problems that were the subject of multilateral environmental agreements negotiated during the 1992 Rio processes are not serving to ameliorate global environmental problems. These concerns raise significant questions regarding the utility of negotiating agreements through the UN. This book elucidates the complexity of how participants engage in these negotiations through the various processes that take place under the auspices of the UN—primarily those related to climate and biological diversity. By taking an ethnographic approach and providing concrete examples of how it is that civil society participants engage in making policy, this book develops a robust sense of the implications of the current terrain of policy-making—both for the environment, and for the continued participation of non-state actors in multilateral environmental governance. Using data gathered at actual negotiations, the book develops concepts such as participation and governance beyond theory. The research uses participant observation ethnographic methods to tie the theoretical frameworks to people’s actual activities as policy is generated and contested. Whereas topics associated with global environmental governance are traditionally addressed in fields such as international relations and political science, this book contributes to developing a richer understanding of the theories using a sociological framework, tying individual activities into larger social relations and shedding light on critical questions associated with transnational civil society and global politics.

At the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, popularly known as the Rio Earth Summit, the world’s leaders constructed a new "sustainable development" paradigm that promised to enhance environmentally sound economic and social development. Twenty years later, the proliferation of multilateral environmental agreements points to an unprecedented achievement, but is worth examining for its accomplishments and shortcomings. This book provides a review of twenty years of multilateral environmental negotiations (1992-2012). The authors have participated in most of these negotiating processes and use their first-hand knowledge as writers for the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Earth Negotiations Bulletin as they illustrate the changes that have taken place over the past twenty years. The chapters examine the proliferation of meetings, the changes in the actors and their roles (governments, nongovernmental organizations, secretariats), the interlinkages of issues, the impact of scientific advice, and the challenges of implementation across negotiating processes, including the Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Commission on Sustainable Development, the UN Forum on Forests, the chemicals conventions (Stockholm, Basel and Rotterdam), the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the Convention on Migratory Species and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

Despite the growing recognition of the importance of environmental issues for nation-state security, current research on international environmental security is insufficient. Although scholars in the field of International Relations believe that there is an appropriate role for international relations theory in analyzing global environmental concerns, the existing literature is predominantly descriptive or prescriptive rather than analytical. This study attempts to remedy this problem by conducting an empirical analysis of nation-state behavior in the international environmental realm.

A plethora of environmental problems are ravaging the planet and its inhabitants. How well do existing structures convene governments to address these challenges? What is the role of science and civil society in this context? And, does international cooperation properly support countries with limited capacities? This report seeks to respond to these questions, based on an analysis of actions taken to renew international environmental governance to fulfill commitments made at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) in 2012. This report outlines possibilities to strengthen the UN Environment Programme and to enhance synergies among global environmental conventions to ensure that international environmental governance continues evolving and improving to secure human well-being and planetary health.