Environmental Regimes

Abstract

International efforts to control and protect the water, air, and land resources of the globe are numerous, diverse, incomplete, and in many cases highly controversial. In spite of their varied subjects and purposes, most of these efforts are based on the idea that the natural environment of the earth constitutes, in some sense, a “commons,” a collection of resources to be shared among all the earth’s inhabitants, present and future. The familiar “tragedy of the commons” is that excessive use of “free” common resources by some may ultimately lead to reduced welfare for all (Hardin, 1968). This result, one of the classic examples of “market failure,” arises because each user rationally seeks to maximize individual benefit from use of the common resources. The individual user confronts no “price” or “cost” for such common resources and ignores or does not perceive collective costs. Policy regimes, whether local, national, or international, that are designed to deal with this type of problem attempt to alter the behavior of individual users in order to increase the aggregate benefits available to all over the long term. Whether such corrective regimes can, in fact, be designed and implemented, and whether other “tragedies” or “failures” will occur as a consequence, are matters of considerable controversy.