Differentiation in Environmental Treaty Making: Measuring Provisions and How They Reshape the Depth–Participation Dilemma

Abstract

In this article we measure, describe, and demonstrate the importance of differential treatment for developing countries in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). So far, we argue, quantitative research on differentiation has been minimal due to data constraints and the complex nature of relevant provisions. In response, we offer a way of relieving this constraint, exploiting the fact that MEAs with differentiation typically identify distinct sets of “developing country” parties. After describing the data collection process, we show that differentiation is surprisingly uncommon, appearing in only 6 percent of MEAs, and disproportionately appears in larger, more recent agreements. We then test a key conjecture about differentiation by revisiting the debate on the depth–participation dilemma. We demonstrate, specifically, how it conditions this relationship. When MEAs do not differentiate, greater depth reduces participation; when they do, the relationship is reversed, making it possible to sustain high levels of both. This result helps to reconcile conflicting findings in earlier studies and has important policy implications.

The Unmaking of Special Rights

“…Existing scholarship on changing norms of differential treatment as a global ordering principle remains scarce and is often confined to legal perspectives (Ukpe and Khorana 2021;Cullet 2016;Rajamani 2006). When changes in systems of differential treatment have been examined, studies tend to remain issue-area-specific with a primary focus on the climate, or environmental and trade regimes (Pauwelyn 2013;Lamp 2017;Farias and Roger 2023;Castro and Kammerer 2021;Weinhardt and Schöfer 2022;Dingwerth 2023). What does our comparative perspective that comprised climate, trade, and global health financing add to existing scholarship?…”

“…In the trade regime, for instance, neoliberal ideology discredited differential treatment as unwelcome market distortion, which led to its weakening in the Uruguay Round negotiations (1986 to 1994). And as neoliberal ideas spilled over to other policy areas, they also informed discussions in global environmental governance, a field that has traditionally been open to the inclusion of differential treatment provisions for developing countries (Bernstein 2001; see also Farias and Roger 2023).…”

Space Resources and the Politics of International Regime Formation

“…As the strong degree of distributive conflict, as well as the challenges of monitoring the compliance of space-based activities with international rules, create incentives to shirk or defect from international obligations, deep institutionalization is required to overcome the associated collective action problem. From the outset, this conceptualizes space resources as a "hard" problem for international regime formation, as broad participation and deep institutionalization need to be combined despite the partial incompatibilities and trade-offs that can exist between them (e.g., Farias and Roger 2022).…”

Environmental agreements as clubs: Evidence from a new dataset of trade provisions

“…Yet, recent studies suggest that this policy proposal rests on shaky assumptions. The risk of free riders might have been overestimated as an obstacle to climate negotiation (Aklin & Mildenberger, 2020;Colgan et al, 2020), and the trade-off between climate ambition and participation is not clear-cut (Farias & Roger, 2023;Rowan, 2021). A significant impediment to this debate is the lack of empirical studies on environmental clubs, whether they are focused on climate change or any other environmental issue.…”