Abstract
Recent scholarly work on the European Union (EU) in international environmental agreements has thus far lacked a focus on explaining variation in EU performance/effectiveness in different negotiation processes within one agreement, especially when it comes to less prominent issue areas such as biodiversity. To fill that gap, this article seeks to explain the EU’s effectiveness (goal achievement—GA) as a negotiator in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in three key negotiation processes: (1) the negotiations on the coming into being of the CBD (1990–1992); (2) the negotiations towards a Cartagena Protocol on biosafety (1995–2000); and (3) the negotiations towards a Nagoya Protocol on the access to and benefit-sharing of genetic resources (2004–2010). For each case, the article measures EU effectiveness/GA by comparing the EU’s objectives for the international negotiations at the early stages of the process with the outcome of these negotiations. It tries to explain the degree of EU GA by considering EU diplomatic engagement and the EU’s position in the constellation of all negotiating parties in terms of issue-specific bargaining power and interests. It highlights the EU’s successful performance as a mediator and bridge builder in the negotiations on the Cartagena and Nagoya Protocols. This diplomatic engagement resulted in a high degree of EU GA as it was well adapted to the EU’s position in the constellation of all negotiating parties in terms of bargaining power and interests. This article emphasises the need to adapt EU diplomatic engagement to this position to boost EU GA.
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Notes
In this article, the European Union (EU) is understood as the EU institutions and its member states, operating as a collective entity. The EU consisted of 12 member states in the first case study, 15 in the second case study, and 25 (2004)/27 (2007) in the third case study. Even though the EU was created by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 and the term has only been officially used since then (before, the term ‘European (Economic) Community’ was utilised), it will be employed throughout this article to facilitate the reading. In the CBD, the EU is recognised as an actor. EU member states, the Council of the EU and the European Commission work together to formulate a common position they bring forward at the negotiations. In addition, they get together every day at the international negotiations to discuss further steps (Interview 7).
The official name of the Protocol is: the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
In addition, EU objectives can at times be unclear or implicit, or there can be a hierarchy among objectives (Jørgensen et al. 2011: 604). If EU objectives are unclear, related official documents are analysed and more information is obtained through interviews. If the EU prioritises one objective, the EU GA score on this objective receives a larger weight than the two other scores. In the CBD case, the biodiversity conservation item was a priority for the EU. Thus, the score on this item received a larger weight. In the Cartagena and Nagoya cases there was no evidence that one of the three key items was considerably more important for the EU.
Due to space constraints, a detailed explanation of how the GA scores were obtained cannot be provided. Please see Groen (2016) for details.
As Oberthür and Rabitz (2014: 42) specify: “If an actor aims to realize the recognized purpose(s) of an international environmental institution, its policy objectives can be expected to be […] ‘reformist’.”
The three objectives of the CBD are: the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources.
For more details, see Groen (2016).
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List of interviews
(1) Interview with EU Member State negotiator, The Hague (the Netherlands), 2 December 2013.
(2) Interview with European Commission negotiator, Brussels, 3 July 2014.
(3) Interview with European Commission negotiator, by telephone, 29 July 2014.
(4) Interview with EU Member State negotiator, by telephone, 4 August 2014.
(5) Interview with EU Member State negotiator, Warmond (the Netherlands), 14 August 2014.
(6) Interview with EU Member State negotiator, The Hague (the Netherlands), 14 August 2014.
(7) Interview with Council representative, Brussels, 22 October 2014.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Sebastian Oberthür, Casey Stevens, Jamal Shahin, Tom Delreux and the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Funding
I gratefully acknowledge funding by the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (FWO) [Grant Number G.0A22.12N] for the research on which the article is based, as well as funding by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) as International Research Fellow (Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan [Standard]).
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Groen, L. Explaining European Union effectiveness (goal achievement) in the Convention on Biological Diversity: the importance of diplomatic engagement. Int Environ Agreements 19, 69–87 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-018-9424-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-018-9424-y