Environmental Diplomacy ─ Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements

International environmental agreements have increased exponentially within the last five decades. However, decisions on policies to address key issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change, ozone depletion, hazardous waste transport and numerous other planetary challenges require individual countries to adhere to international norms. What have been the successes and failures in the environmental treaty-making arena? How has the role of civil society and scientific consensus contributed to this maturing process? Why have some treaties been more enforceable than others and which theories of international relations can further inform efforts in this regard? Addressing these questions with renewed emphasis on close case analysis makes this volume a timely and thorough postscript to the Rio-Plus 20 summit's celebrated invocation document, The Future We Want, towards sustainable development.

Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements provides an accessible narrative on understanding the geopolitics of negotiating international environmental agreements and clear guidance on improving the current system. In this book, authors Lawrence Susskind and Saleem Ali expertly observe international environmental negotiations to effectively inform the reader on the geopolitics of protecting our planet. This second edition offers an additional perspective from the Global South as well as providing a broader analysis of the role of science in environmental treaty-making. It provides a unique contribution as a panoramic analysis of the process of environmental treaty-making.

Lawrence E. Susskind is the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and was the founding director of the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program as well as the Consensus-Building Institute. For his career of services to improving consensus-building practice, Professor Susskind received the first Kenneth Cloke Peacemaker Award for outstanding and lasting contributions in International Peace-building by Mediators Beyond Borders. Professor Susskind has advised the United Nations, the OECD, the World Bank and numerous national governments on environmental negotiations. His earlier books includeDealing with an Angry Public and Breaking the Impasse.

Saleem H. Ali is a Professor at the Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland Australia where he also directs the Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining and is a faculty member in the Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies Program within the university's School of Politics and International Studies. Professor Ali is also adjunct Professor at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources where he founded the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security. He was selected as a "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum in 2011 and an "Emerging Explorer" by the National Geographic Society in 2010. His earlier books includeTreasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future and Mining, the Environment and Indigenous Development Conflicts.