Section 2: Environmental Treaties and Other Policy Instruments
One
of the purposes of the ENTRI system is to serve as a two-way bridge
between people who are knowledgeable about international treaties and
people who are knowledgeable about various types of resource indicators
(including national socioeconomic variables and data derived from remote
sensing). Accordingly, we recognize that many of our users may need
some guidance to
understanding the world
of treaties. This page points you to a number of information resources
that may help you in understanding the role of environmental treaties and
other policy instruments in global environmental change.
The Legal and Political Dimensions of Global Environmental Change
A treaty is a binding agreement between two or more nations.
Professor John King Gamble has observed:
".. [t]here is a widespread perception that powerful states will do as they please, largely
ignoring international law. The reality is that international law works
exceedingly well almost all of the time. Some 30,000 treaties are in force
today guiding most aspects of state behavior, and compliance approaches 100%. Courts,
ranging from the International Court of Justice to hundreds of national courts, render
thousands of decisions about international law, again with remarkable success."--Gamble, 1995. Electronic
Information System for International Law [proposal].
The ENTRI service focuses primarily on multilateral
treaties, i.e. treaties signed by three or more
nations. There are two main reasons for this: first, it is a
reasonable (although by no means infallible) way of sifting out
treaties which are likely to have implications for the
global environmental issues that fall within our SEDAC mandate; and second, the data in
the ENTRI system is from a database of multilateral
treaty status information maintained by our data provider
partner, IUCN.
Because there are multiple sources for the information in the ENTRI
system, there is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence between the
availability of status information about a particular treaty and the
availability of the text of the treaty. For example, the ENTRI Webspace
contains several bilateral treaties between the United States and Canada;
we have the text of these treaties, but no treaty status information;
therefore, the user can find the text of the treaty by browsing the treaty texts tree, but cannot use the
basic questions features to look up information about the status of the
treaty. Similarly, because our treaty summary information comes from
UNEP, which summarized information about 150 treaties of global
environmental significance, we
do not have treaty summary information about those bilateral treaties.
The ENTRI system contains treaty status information
for 425 multilateral treaties, as well as summaries of more than 150
treaties and the full text of more than 75
treaties.
date of acceptance--when a
state becomes a party to a
treaty; may mean either by "signature subject to acceptance"
(analogous to
ratification) or by acceptance without prior signature (analogous to
accession). The text of the treaty usually establishes which meaning of
"acceptance" is meant.
date of accession--when a
state
becomes a party to a
treaty of which it is not a signatory. The right of accession is
independent of the entry into force of the treaty; that is, a state may
accede to a treaty which has not yet entered into force.
date of adoption--when states
participating in the
negotiation of a treaty agree on its final form and content. This usually occurs
before signature.
date of denunciation--when
a state expresses
that it is no longer willing to be bound by a treaty.
date of entry into force--when a
treaty
becomes binding upon the states which have expressed their
willingness to be bound by it. This is usually triggered by a clause in
the text of the treaty saying something like "this treaty shall enter into
force when n states have signed it ..."
date of ratification--when
a
state makes a final formal expression of its consent
to be bound by a treaty. This usually occurs after signature.
date of reservations--when
a
state makes
"a unilateral statement, however phrased or named, ... , when
signing, ratifying, accepting, approving or acceding to a
treaty, whereby it purports to exclude or to modify the legal
effect of certain provisions of the treaty in their application
to that State" (Article 2, paragraph
1[d]). Important note: the United Nations Treaty
Database contains information about national reservations to
particular treaties.
date of signature--when a
state expresses its
consent to be bound by a treaty. Such consent is expressed
"when (a) the treaty provides that signature shall have that
effect; (b) it is otherwise established that the negotiating
States were agreed that signature should have that effect; or
(c) the intention of the State to give that effect to the
signature appears from the full powers of its representative or
was expressed during the negotiation."
date of succession--when a
newly constituted state becomes a party to a treaty by expressing its
willingness to be bound by international agreements that were entered into
by a predecessor state or states. E.g. Russia might state its willingness
to be bound by treaties entered into by the former Soviet Union.
party--a State which has
consented to be bound by the treaty and for which the treaty is in force
(Article 2, paragraph 1[g]).
treaty--"an international
agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by
international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or
more related instruments and whatever its particular designation" (Article 2, paragraph 1[f]).
Other Policy Instruments
The ENTRI project is focused on environmental treaties because
they are an important and manageable element of the total
information needed to understand the legal and political
dimensions of global environmental change. Most of the
information currently stored within the ENTRI system falls into
two main categories: A) environmental treaties and information
about treaties and B) resource
indicators. With additional funding, however, it would be
reasonable to expand category A) to include other policy
instruments--such as national environmental legislation and
national action plans--which are not treaties per se, but are known to be
important to understanding key issues related to global
environmental change.
We define "policy instruments" to include legal
documents such as treaties, agreements, and laws; information on
the negotiation, structure, and status of these legal
instruments; and directives, programmes, and statements from
governments, government agencies, and non-governmental
organizations.
