Abstract
The Caspian Environment Programme (CEP) lies at the heart of an emerging regime for the Caspian Sea. However,it also lies at the crossroads of at least four regions with special conceptions of sovereignty and with divergent experiences with and relationships to global environmental regimes. Therefore, in Central Asia, the success and content of the CEP is rooted in these states’ more general experiences with global accords, independence, and major CEP donors (TACIS, UNDP, UNEP, and GEF). Based on extensive fieldwork, this paper examines the histories and issue linkages that shape international environmental policy in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, focusing primarily on CEP, but with reference to global accords. It describes the unique position of the environmental ministry and the structure of comparative influence over environmental decision making in the governing structure of each state, noting the external role of local scientists and NGOs in this process. This paper also examines these states as arenas for the conflicting policy imperatives of the European Union (TACIS), the United States (and why it ignores CEP), and UN institutions (GEF, UNDP, and UNEP). Finally, the paper builds on CEP ‘s context in Central Asia, as well as on the text of CEP documents, in order to answer two questions central to CEP regime formation. To what degree will the Central Asian states comply with the emerging Caspian regime? How likely is it that such compliance, or even full compliance, will lead to actual environmental security?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
The author thanks Joanne Kauffman of MIT for valuable comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this chapter.
Development agencies and major donors are, albeit inadvertently, successful in fostering a growing appreciation that some shortcomings of the Soviet state (inefficiency, corruption, and blinding ideology) were not exclusive shortcomings of socialism. To wit, a U.S. federal criminal and civil investigation is now proceeding against Harvard Institute for International Development economists for their financial reform digressions in Russia. Kurkjian, Stephen, Officials of Harvard Program that Aided Russia are Probed (1999, January 15) The Boston Globe, p. AI. Also, residents of the desiccated Aral Sea region in Uzbekistan often quip that if only each World Bank and Western expert who has been sent to investigate the Aral Sea had merely brought a glass of fresh water, there would be no more Aral Sea disaster. Scientists in Turkmenistan have also voiced amazement at the low quality of Western scientific expertise. Aranbaev, Andrei, TACIS in Turkmenistan: A Technical Assistance Embarrassment (1995, October I) Ecostan News 3(10). Available at: http://web.mit.edu/sts/leep/Ecostan/Ecostan310.html#tacis/sts/leep/Ecostan/Ecostan310.html#tacis.
In October 1998, the Global Environment Facility approved more than $8 million in funding for CEP. See Project Brief: Addressing Transboundary Environmental Issues in the Caspian Environment Programme. Available at: http://www.gefweb.org. This funding followed several millions of dollars, primarily from TACIS, directed at the non-transboundary aspects of the CEP, which officially began in 1995. This allocation of funding is necessitated by the fact that GEF international waters programs must fund trans-boundary projects. GEF Operational Strategy (1996). Available at:http://www.gefweb.org/PUBLIC/opstrat/ops.htm.
. See GEF Project Brief, supra, note2. In general, this project brief is remarkably well-conceived and integrates the most current scholarship on international environmental regimes. For the importance of country ownership (a.k.a. country-driven) to environmental regimes, see Connolly, Barbara (1996) Increments for the Earth: The Politics of Environmental Aid, in Robert O. Keohane and Marc A. Levy (eds.), Institutions for Environmental Aid, MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 327-65 (identifying recipient concern as the limiting factor in successful implementation). For recent attention devoted to this objective of environmental regimes, see, e.g., Final Report of the Conference of the Parties 4 (1998), Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Available at: http://www.biodiv.orWcop4/finalrep-/decisions/11.html.
For an overview of Aral Sea development history, seehttp://www.worldbank.org/pics/gef/uz8326.txt. The Aral Sea Agreement established institutions, but recipient state support was based on expectations of the realization of ambitious U.S. and World Bank predictions of a massive global donor response to the Aral Sea problem and an early (ill-considered) announcement that restoration of the sea was the goal of assistance. When funding fell far below expectations, local state support waned, with the result that the Aral Sea regime cannot be considered successful in any substantive way.
Much of joint implementation relies on opportunistic manipulation of economic data (GNP predictions, choice of scales, assumptions about discount rates, etc.). As such, carbon emissions trading is much more rooted in the social sciences than in the natural sciences or engineering. It is used by developing states as a source of funding (that may not be used for appropriate mitigation projects) and by developed states as a way to justify low domestic commitment to climate change reform.
In this regard, the Project Brief, supra, note2, is notable in mentioning non-hydrocarbon chemical spills ten times and never mentioning hydrocarbon spills.
Glennon, Michael J. and Alison L. Stewart (1998) The United States: Taking Environmental Treaties Seriously, in Edith Brown Weiss and Harold K. Jacobson (eds.), Engaging Countries, The MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 173–213.
Andresen, Steinar (1998) The Making and Implementation of Whaling Policies: Does Participation Make a Difference, in David G. Victor et al. (eds.), The Implementation and Effectiveness of International Environmental Agreements, The MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 431–74.
Chayes, Abram and Antonia Handler Chayes (1994) The New Sovereignty. Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
. lbid., p. 27.
Like Georgia, Uzbekistan is considered by many to be an important non-littoral state of the region. Historically, its territory used to be part of the Caspian Basin.
Transfers from a party in favor of (receiving a benefit from) a given transaction of some portion of the benefit in order to ensure that the other party agrees to the transaction. “Coasian” refers to Ronald Coase, the recent Nobel Prize winning economist.
Its State Committee for Nature Protection and its State Hydrometeorological Committee have quasi-ministerial status, but no high level agency within the state has default jurisdiction over environmental problems, which explains in part why the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Macroeconomics won jurisdiction over climate change policies.
. See Praise, Criticism Greet US Signing of Global Warming Pact (1998, November 13) The Boston Globe, A29. This article though, like other US reports, fails to mention that Kazakhstan bargained its position with US negotiators prior to its announcement and expects to receive increased aid as a result. Private communication with Marat S. Ishankulov, National Environment Center, 12 November 1998. Also, because emissions baselines are 1990 and Soviet industrial output is not expected to regain 1990 levels in the near future, Kazakhstan effectively sacrificed nothing.
Litfin, Karen T. (1998) The Greening of Sovereignty: An Introduction, in Karen T. Litfin (ed.), The Greening of Sovereignty, The MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 1–27.
While on the one hand, “failed-states” critics may contend that this characterization is belied by what is happening in the developing world, on the other hand, “failed states” concerns would actually encourage adoption of such a reconfigured view of sovereignty by states in the developing world, like those in Central Asia, that still possess remarkable (albeit spotty) capacity and technocratic traditions but face the risk of decline. For the failed states thesis see Kaplan, Robert, The Coming Anarchy (1994 February) The Atlantic Monthly, pp. 44–76.
Of the littoral states, only Russia is a party to the Law of the Sea. Rules on applicability of international customary law (relevant since there is consensus that the Law of the Sea is generally customary law) permit (and even encourage) deviations for regional custom and for exceptional circumstances. The Law of the Sea (or any of its hundreds of provision) is not a peremptory norm (jus cogens); rarely, if ever, do non-human rights (defined on a continuum rather than explicitly human rights) customs rise to the level of jus cogens. For regional custom, see Asylum Case (Columbia v. Peru), 1950 I.C.I. 266. For deviations from customary law, see generally, Henkin, Louis et al. (1993) International Law. West Publishing Company, St. Paul.
SeeTACIS Regional Seas Programme. Available at:http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/dg1/a/tacis/contract/info/interstate/env5.htm.
Hunter, David et al. (1998) International Environmental Law and Policy, Foundation Press, New York, p. 688.
Exemplifying this point, Kazakhstan’s view of the seriousness of these regional seas agreements is reflected in its recent effort to secure formal status under the Black Sea Regional Sea regime. Cf. Of the littoral states, only the Russian Federation is currently a party to UNCLOS even though Azerbaijan relies on UNCLOS norms in its legal debates against the Russian Federation.
It could also mean that a holdout state might have more power in winning weakened standards. My argument is that each state may have greater incentive to conclude a treaty, and that these incentives could be channeled towards substantive improvements and cooperation, not that the mere existence of these incentives will result in environmental benefits or preclude strategic behavior.
Project Brief, supra, note2.
Reliance on electronic means of communications was supposed to make this arrangement tenable, but as of this writing the complete failure of this system during the winter of 1998 and spring of 1999 have made it likely that these environmental agencies will be moved to Astana in the future. In any case, these agencies have lost time, valuable staff, and contact with foreign partners as the result of this failed experiment.
For instance, one reporter claims that at 20 cents per person and one dollar per square kilometer, Kazakhstan has the lowest level of environmental protection in the world. Voevod, Vladimir, Ne postignet li Kaspii ekologicheskoe bedstvie? [Will the Caspian be Environmentally Degraded?] (1999, April 7) Nachnem s ponedelnika (Almaty, Kazakhstan).
Drozd, Nikolai, Nesmotrya na podderzhku MIDa∞ [Despite the Support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs..] (1999, February 26) Panorama (Almaty, Kazakhstan). The proposal by Membrane Technologies LLP (a Kazakhstan entity) would have provided equipment sufficient to provide 100 villages and towns in the Kzyl-Orda Region with potable water. Id. Kazakhstan water purification and desalinization equipment accounted for half of the USSR production total, including a range of osmosis and electrodialysis industrial and residential systems, as well as the world’s first nuclear reactor dedicated to desalinization (still in operation on the Caspian shore in contravention of safety standards). For an overview of large desalinization projects in the Caspian region, see Zonn, Igor S. (1997) Kaspiiskii memorandum [Caspian Memorandum], Korkis, Moscow, pp. 20–21.
Russian Federation (1993), Art. 15; Republic of Kazakhstan (1995), Art. 4; and Azerbaijan (1995), Art. 151. While the Constitution of Turkmenistan (1992) contains no such explicit clause regarding the supremacy of international law, this lacuna has no formal effect. The Law on Nature Protection (1991), Art. 42 and the Civil Code (1999), Art. 7 illustrate that the entire structure of Turkmenistan law is predicated on the principle that treaty provisions supersede the provisions of national law.
For the relationship between law and interest group and game theories, see Mashaw, Jerry (1997) Greed,Chaos,and Governance, op. cit.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sievers, E.W. (2000). Caspian Environment Programme: Prospects for Regime Formation and Effectiveness. In: Ascher, W., Mirovitskaya, N. (eds) The Caspian Sea: A Quest for Environmental Security. NATO Science Series, vol 67. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4032-4_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4032-4_23
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-6219-7
Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4032-4
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive