Cultural Context and International Environmental Co-operation: the Cartagena Protocol

Abstract

First paragraph: For students of international environmental cooperation (IEC), the concept of 'international regimes' has become an inescapable cornerstone of their theoretical efforts. Regime scholars usually draw on Stephen Krasner's influential definition of regimes, first formulated in 1983. His characterisation of regimes as "principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors' expectations converge in a given issue area" (Krasner 1983: 1) is now widely cited and accepted. Yet, not unlike the often impenetrable compromise texts of international agreements, this definition hides more than it reveals. The idea of convergence, in particular, poses numerous questions and regime scholars around the world have devoted much of their time to theorising, explaining and predicting the processes by which this progressive unification of purpose may come about.