Institutional Interaction - How to Prevent Conflicts and Enhance Synergies between International and EU Environmental Institutions

Although international treaty systems and European environmental instruments are negotiated separately, they affect each other's performance and effectiveness. Such 'institutional interaction' will cause conflicts, if regulatory approaches are incompatible. However, it may also create synergies, if approaches are mutually reinforcing. If not addressed properly, inter-institutional conflicts (e.g. between the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention on Biological Diversity) can inhibit and counteract the effectiveness of international environmental co-operation. Exploiting potential synergies, on the other hand, promises to significantly increase the effectiveness of international and European environmental policy-making. FIELD is a member of the Institutional Interaction project. The purpose of this project was to support mutually reinforcing environmental institutions and address potential incompatibilities between the regulatory approaches.

Along with a research team from Ecologic, Fritdjof Nansen Institute (FNI), and the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), FIELD has produced two case studies in a series of research studies. The first looks at the European Commission's proposal for a Directive on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage. The case study provides a key overview of the interactions with other institutions that have occurred in the formation of the proposal, and in particular the interaction with the Lugano Convention and the recently revised Deliberate Release Directive.

The second FIELD case study looks at interactions between the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and the many international environmental regimes. The effect of interaction between the WTO and these environmental regimes is usually disruptive, in that the WTO's primary objective of facilitating free trade can conflict with the principal objectives of environmental regimes aimed at protecting the environment and promoting sustainable development. The case study goes on to look in depth at the interactions involving two particular environmental regimes: the Biosafety Protocol and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT).

This project was led by Ecologic and funded by DG Research of the European Commission under the 5th Framework Programme for Research. Further information on the project can be obtained from the Ecologic project website.

Project Papers Authored by FIELD:

Beatrice Chaytor, Alice Palmer and Jacob Werksman, "Interactions with the World Trade Organisation: The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas", February 2003. Available in PDF.

Jürgen Lefevere, "Interactions of the EU Environmental Liability Regime", February 2003. Available in PDF.

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