International environmental agreements and state cooperation: The Stratospheric Ozone Protection Treaty

Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the research explored the puzzle of why states in the global community consent or refuse to participate in international environmental agreements. The substantive issue was negotiation and ratification of the 1985 Vienna Convention for Protection of the Stratospheric Ozone Layer and the related 1987 Montreal Protocol and its four amendments. Although nearly all nations eventually ratified the Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol, some countries embraced the agreements almost immediately while others either lagged several years behind or never ratified the treaty. The six to seven years necessary to obtain majority ratification of the Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol call attention to the need for examining both global and domestic interests of states in negotiating environmental treaties.; Through a large-n, cross-national study of time to ratification for 180 nations, the research investigated factors that promote or discourage cooperation among countries in international environmental agreements. The quantitative study indicated that countries that are democratic, industrialized, join many international organizations and institutions, and produce the substance to be restricted by the treaty are more likely to join early in the life of the treaty. The analysis thus exposed a tension between the desires of democratic leaders to satisfy their citizens by promoting environmental initiatives in their countries while concurrently forcing domestic industries to bear the costs of pollution prevention or cleanup.; The research then utilized a case study to investigate negotiation and ratification of the ozone protection treaty by the United States, which during the 1980s and 1990s was the primary producer of chemicals linked to stratospheric ozone depletion. The case study highlighted the importance of domestic politics in a country's negotiation and ratification process. A state's executive can more readily ensure a smooth domestic ratification process if the concerns of interest groups are addressed when the state formulates its position for international negotiations. The case study also points out the importance of an epistemic community of informed experts in freely providing scientific data to all interested parties.