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The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the Stockholm Conference: A case of institutional non-adaptation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Michael Brenner
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Abstract

This article considers how an established international organization with responsibility for programs of pure and applied science adapts its organizational format and purposes to newly defined tasks. It examines the institutional response of IOC (the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission) to the specification of new obligations in the environmental field as stipulated by the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, and as developed by the Environmental Program that the Conference established. Its main theme is the place of specialized knowledge, and the role of experts at the various stages of policy formation, within national governments and international forums. In analyzing the adaptation of IOC through expert and non-expert activities, our aim is to determine whether new programs and initiatives are fiUed to the existing framework, or produce new structures and institutional arrangements.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , Summer 1975 , pp. 771 - 804
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1975

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References

1 Slouka, Zdenek J., “International EnvironmentalControls in the Scientific Age ” in Hargrove, J. L. (ed.), Law, Institutions, and the Global Environment (Dobbs Ferry: Ocean Publications, 1972), pp. 217–18Google Scholar.

2 A critical review of present arrangements for international cooperationin marine science is made by Wooster, Warren S. in “Should There Be an International Unionof Marine Scientists?”, Report to the General Session of SCOR (09 1970)Google Scholar; also published in Uda, M. (ed.), “The Ocean World”, Proceedings of the Joint Oceanographic Assembly, IAPSO, IABO, CMG, SCOR (Tokyo: Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, 1971)Google Scholar. In a related paper, “Oceanography and International Affairs”, in Pacem in Maribus: The Ocean Environment, Proceedings of the Preparatory Conference on Ecology and the Role of Science (The Royal University of Malta Press, 1971)Google Scholar, Wooster analyzes the case for an agency to deal with the applied scientific and engineering aspects of ocean policy while preserving IOC as a more purely scientific body. See also Wooster's, “SCOR and IOC: Interactions between Intergovernmental and Scientific Organizations”, International Organization (Winter 1973)Google Scholar; and the discussion of IOC and proposals for its restructuring in International Marine Affairs, a report of the International Marine Science Affairs Panel of the Committee on Oceanography of the National Academy of Sciences (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1972), ch. 4Google Scholar.

3 See IOC-8/11, September 10, 1973, “Compilation of Component Programmes of the International Decade of Ocean Exploration”, 8th Session of the IOC Assembly. This document contained the data from which tables 1 and 2 were compiled. Also see IOC Technical Series, (in press).

4 Ibid., p. 1. IOC's reorganization of its projects was undertaken in response to the work of the Group of Experts on Long-Term Scientific Policy and Planning. Among the criteria which national projects seeking inclusion in IDOE must meet we find the following: multilateral cooperation must be necessary for success; coherence with the total program; help to meet needs of developing countries; be exclusively peaceful; increase economic potential of resources; all data collected be given to the World Data Center; participationof scientists from other nations be achieved in early stages.

5 GIPME was created as a follow-up study by the Group of Experts on Long-Term Scientific Policy and Planning, as further elaborated by a Joint Working Group of three non-governmental organs (SCOR, ACOMR, ACMRR) and GESAMP, the group of experts named by IMCO, UNESCO, WHO, WMO, and IAEA to make recommendations on marine pollution.

6 One illustration of this network will suffice, the composition of the Joint Working Group inaugurating GIPME, an ad hoc panel of “independent” experts. Its 19 members were affiliaged as follows: UN specialized agencies, (8), government laboratories (7), university laboratories (3), private industry (1). In addition, however, two of the university-affiliated scientists. also represented two major ICSU-sponsored global non-governmental research pro-grams (SCOR and SCOPE); two members of government laboratories also served simultaneously as members of GESAMP and ACMRR, respectively; one representative of FAO also served as secretary of ACMRR. Rapport du Groupe de Travail Mixte ACMRR/SCOR/ ACOMR/ GESAMP sur l'Enguibte Globale sur la Pollution du Milieu Marin, October 1971.

7 Contracted research is an exceptional modus operandi for the Commission.

8 See the material cited in footnote 2 for description of SCOR.

9 The issues raised at the Conference were the subject of considerable discussion and debate prior to Stockholm, . See Institutional Arrangements for International Environmental Cooperation (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1972)Google Scholar; Stockholm and Beyond, Report of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on the1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Washington, D.C.: Department of State Publication 8657), ch. 6Google Scholar.

10 A major influence on the monitoring recommendations was exerted by ICSU, in particular SCOPE (its Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment). At the request of Maurice Strong, the latter prepared the comprehensive and detailed study “Global Environmental Monitoring”. The report placed particular stress on the need for a Central Monitoring Coordinating Unit that would tie the existing welter of activities into what administratively would be a global environmental system. The system they proposed would survey and analyze the totality of environmental effects, land based and sea based, paying particular attention to the interdependence of ecosystems and the routing of polluting elements through one to another. This consolidation of monitoring activities, SCOPE argued, is of importance not only because it makes scientific sense (given the interrelatedness of the conditions under study), but also would be a factor for a more comprehensive approach to environmental problems on the part of: (a) UN bodies; (b) scientific advisory groups; and (c) national and regional agencies to the extent that their conception of problems is influenced by the requirements for international cooperation. This initiative met with little favor at Stockholm, opposed by governments and most oceanographers alike.

11 At meetings of the Intergovernmental Working Group on Marine Pollutionand the Intergovernmental Working Group on Monitoring and Surveillance, LDCs requested, as a pre-condition to their participation, that provision be made for assistance that would give them the technical capability to conduct some monitoring in their own regions. The Convention On theDumping of Wastes at Sea contained a similar provision.

13 The nature of research required for environmental action is outlined in Baseline Studies of Pollutants in the Marine Environment and Research Recommendations, Deliberations of the International Decade of Ocean Exploration (IDOE), Baseline Conference (May 24-26, 1972). A comprehensive review of research activities and needs in the marine environment is Marine Environmental Quality, a report of the NAS-NRC Ocean Affairs Board (Washington, D.C.: 1971)Google Scholar. See also Marine Pollution Problems and Remedies, UNITAR Research Reports, no. 4 (New York: 1970)Google Scholar.

13 UNCHE, Recommendation 72.

14 Ibid., Recommendation 88.

15 Ibid., Recommendation 74.

16 Ibid., Recommendation 87c.

17 First Session of the Executive Council of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, IOC/EC-I/3 Hamburg, July 1972.

18 This account of the Ad Hoc Committee's Proceedings (and those of subsequent meetings) is based on interviews with participants.

19 Second Session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Rationalizing the Structure of the Intergovernmental Working Commission. IOC/Struct-II/1 rev. 1, Recommendationno. 1.

20 Ibid., Recommendation no. 4.

21 Ibid., Recommendation no. 9. The tendency of research, i. e., professional interest, to influence scientific judgments was witnessed in the course of a nominally technical discussion of the feasibility of monitoring tar balls in the high seas. One renowned oceanographer, critical of the program, affirmed unequivocally that not only was the undertaking physically impossible but that at present there was no theoretical or experimental basis for determining how tar balls affect the biota. An equally eminent scientist, participatingin the program and a member of its advisory board, took an almost diametrically opposite view. Similar differences appear in the debate over the utility of IGOSS's emphasis on “real-time” analyses.

22 Ibid., Recommendation 12.

23 Programs forming component parts of the GIPME comprehensive plan will quality for coordination and support from IOC and UNEP. CIPME has offered this self definition:“GIPME is an international cooperative programme of scientific research concerned with marine pollution. It deals with sources and inputs of marine pollutants, their transfer and transformation by physical, chemical and biological processes, their effects on marine organism and their fate in the marine environment. The investigation is directed primarily toward the coastal zone and the shelf-seas and, where appropriate, the open ocean; it takes into account the consequences of marine pollution, especially those related to human health, living resources and their exploitation, climatic effects and amenities, as well as the more indirect ecological effects; and defines and provides the scientific basis for a programme of marine pollution monitoring”. International Coordination Group ICG for the Global Investigation of Pollution in the Marine Environment (GIPME). IOC/GIPME-I/3. London, April 16, 1973, 2.2.

24 Ibid., 2. 3.

25 Representatives from seven member governments were either active scientists or former scientists administering oceanographic institutes. The experts from the five ICSPRO agencies present were also genuine specialists.

26 This former attitude is expressed in the Brazilian proposal, made at the Executive Council meeting, to transfer to the Law of the Sea Conference all matters concerning “the scientific investigation of the oceans and the prevention of pollution”. Second Session of the Executive Council, Summary Report. IOC/EC-II/38. IOC has all but been ignored in the LOS talks.

27 IOC Assembly, United Nations Environment Programme, Project no. 54. IOC-8/SC 1.4 Paris, November 18,1973.

28 Executive Council, Summary Report, p. 6.

29 Ibid., pp. 6–8.

30 Ibid., pp. 6; 17.

31 Ad Hoc Working Groups, pp. 3; 8.

32 Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, Eighth Session of the Assembly, Session Committee I, Item 9.5. IOC/8/SC. 1.5 rev. Paris, November 17, 1973; also Resolution 8–34.

33 Ibid., Item 10–1 and Resolution 8–31.

34 Ibid., Item 10.1, and Resolutions 7–2, 20.

35 The enabling recommendations of the Conference are UNCHE, 1–5, 85.

36 Report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Program. UNEP/GC/10, July 3, 1973.

37 Report of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Program. UNEP/ GC/10, July 3, 1973, 7 Action Plan A–28.

38 IOC United Nations Environment Programmes.

39 IOC Application For Support from the Environment Fund, IOC/EC-11/10 Add. 1, Paris, March 30,1973.

40 In practice, the Environment Unit's limited staff in combination with the tentativeness of the Governing Council's authorizations, leaves it with little power to do more than administrative splicing. This appears to be the case with regard to monitoring. The readiness of the UNEP secretariat to accept, as the IOC components of GEMS, a program as liable to technical criticism as IGOSS suggests both the strength of pressures to accept organizational and programmatic givens within the UN system, and incapacity to define and promoteprograms of its own inspiration.

41 IOC application, p. 2.

42 The manner of the scientist's involvement in the international policy process, its relation-ship to his professional character and intellectual attitudes, is succinctly analyzed by Zdenek Slouka. Slouka finds that the disaggregation and particularization of the scientific input into international programs is both inevitable and, on balance, healthy. See also the critique in Brenner, Michael J., The Science Advisory Function: The Case of InternationalMarine Environment Policy, SIO Reference Series (University of California, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 08 1973)Google Scholar.

43 See also the useful distinction made between policy for science and policies of applied science in Harvey Brooks, The Government of Science (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1968)Google Scholar.