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Transnational Political Interests and the Global Environment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Anne Thompson Feraru
Anne Thompson Feraru
Affiliation:
Anne Thompson Feraru is an associate professor of political science at California State University, Fullerton, which supported research for this study through a Faculty Research Grant.
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Extract

This study concerns the involvement of transnational, nongovernmental associations in the international decisions leading to the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment, at Stockholm, and the establishment of the UN Environment Program. It identifies those organizations that were involved, characterizes the political functions performed by them, and describes their points of access into the UN environmental policy process. A number of propositions about transnational associations are also examined in light of the Stockholm experience.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , Winter 1974 , pp. 31 - 60
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1974

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References

1 International Organization and the Human Environment: Proceedings of an International Conference, 12 1971 (Rensselaerville, N.Y.: Institute on Man and Science, 1971), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

2 Questionnaires were sent to the 178 international NGOs, but not to the 77 national NGOs, that sent observers to UNCHE. Eight-one (42 percent) of the INGOs polled replied to the survey in time to be included in the data presented here; four more organizations responded too late to be tallied.

3 At least two other approaches have been taken to the study of INGOs: the “sociological” and the “juridical.” The first looks at transnational nongovernmental organizations as contributors to world political integration and is exemplified by such works as: Angell, Robert C., Peace on the March (New York: Van Nostrand, 1969),Google Scholar especially chapter IX; Kriesberg, Louis, “International Nongovernmental Organizations and Transnational Integration,” International Associations, No. 11 (1972), 521–25Google Scholar; Evan, William M., “Transnational Forums for Peace,” in Wright, Quincy (ed.), Preventing World War III: Some Proposals (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), pp. 393–409.Google Scholar The “juridical” approach examines the legal status and international law implications of NGOs. Studies of this type are listed in Judge, Anthony J. N. and Skjelsbaek, Kjell, “Bibliography of Documents on Transnational Association Networks,” in Yearbook of International Organizations, 14th (1972–1973) edition (Brussels: Union of International Associations, 1972), pp. 903–19.Google Scholar

4 Meynaud, Jean, Les Groupes de Pression Internationaux (Lausanne: Etudes de Science Politique, 1961).Google Scholar

5 Ibid., p. 196.

6 White, Lyman Cromwell, The Role of International NGOs in World Affairs (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1951)Google Scholar; Lador-Lederer, J. Josef, International Non-Governmental Organizations (Leyden: A. W. Sythoff, 1963).Google Scholar

7 Rohn, Peter H., Relations Between the Council of Europe and International Non-Governmental Organizations (Brussels: Union of International Associations, 1957),Google Scholar Document #6; Donald C. Blaisdell, “Relationship of Intergovernmental to Non-Governmental Organizations,” paper delivered at 1964 International Political Science Association meeting; Hudson, Darril, “Case Study of an International Pressure Group,” International Associations, No. 6 (1968), 405–9.Google Scholar

8 Roosevelt, Curtis, “The Politics of Development: A Role for Interest and Pressure Groups,” International Associations, No. 5 (1970), 283–89.Google Scholar See also Roosevelt, Curtis, “The Political Future of Transnational Associations,” International Associations, No. 6–7 (1972), 329–31.Google Scholar

9 UN Document E/INF/123 (June 15, 1972) lists those organizations.

10 Yearbook of International Organizations, 13th (1970–71) edition (Brussels: Union of International Associations, 1970).Google Scholar

11 This is the definition used by the editors of the summer 1971 issue of International Organization which was devoted to essays on transnational relations and world politics, reprinted as Keohane, Robert O. and Nye, Joseph S. Jr (eds.), Transnational Relations and World Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. xii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also: Angell, p. 22 (Angell uses the term transnational in the sense of cross-national, either bilateral or multilateral); Evan, p. 395 (Evan defines transnationalism as “actions undertaken by entities larger than nations or smaller than nations and outside the framework of nation-states”); and Judge, Anthony J. N. and Skjelsbaek, Kjell, “Transnational Association Networks (TANs),” International Associations, No. 10 (1972), 481–85.Google Scholar Judge and Skjelsbaek prefer the term transnational association to international nongovernmental organization because “‘international’ is not applicable to many INGOs; and the current increasing use of ‘transnational’ seems more appropriate. ‘Association’ is used because international ‘organization’, in the literature and in practice, is nearly always associated implicitly with IGOs [intergovernmental organizations]” (p. 481).

12 Ward, Barbara and Dubos, Rene, Only One Earth (New York: W. W. Norton, 1972).Google Scholar

13 UN Document A/CONF.48/14 (July 3, 1972) contains the texts of the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, the Action Plan for the Human Environment, and the Resolution on Institutional and Financial Arrangements adopted by the Conference.

14 General Assembly Resolution 2991 (XXVII).

15 The NGO declaration is in Environment Stockholm (UN Geneva: Center for Economic and Social Information, 1972), pp. 17–18.Google Scholar The report of the Geneva meeting is “General ‘Statement of Progress’ by the Geneva Meeting of N.G.O.'s Concerned with the Environment,” October 2–3, 1972. The report of the New York meeting is in “Report of NGO Conference on the Human Environment,” New York, October 17, 18, 19, 1972 (Community Development Foundation, New York, 1972).Google Scholar The quotations in this section are drawn from these three sources.

17 “Report of Annual Conference of the Non-Governmental Organizations Listed with the United Nations Office of Public Information,” UN Headquarters, 05 31 and 06 1, 1972, p. 10.Google Scholar

18 “Report on NGO Conference on the Human Environment,” New York, 10 17, 18, 19, 1972.Google Scholar The quotations from Morse and Strong in this section are drawn from this report.

19 Interview with Charles Ascher, October 23, 1972.

20 Interview with Curtis Roosevelt, October 23, 1972.

21 “Some International NGO Programs and Publications Relating to the Human Environment,” report prepared by NGO section, ECOSOC secretariat, May 1971. (Mimeographed.)

22 UN Document A/CONF.48/13, pp. 38–45.

23 Ward and Dubos, pp. xix-xxv.

24 International Organization and the Human Environment: Proceedings of an International Conference, 05 1971 (Rensselaerville, N.Y.: Institute on Man and Science, 1971).Google Scholar

25 Interview with Curtis Roosevelt, October 23, 1972.

26 Stockholm and Beyond, Report of the Secretary of State's Advisory Committee on the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Washington, D.C.: US Government Printing Office, 1972).Google Scholar

27 Langway, Lynn and Edgerton, Jerry, “The U.S. at Stockholm,” Nation, 07 10, 1972, p. 10.Google Scholar

28 Interview with Huey Johnson, February 15, 1973.

29 UN Document A/CONF.48/PC.13, Annex IV, p. 14.

30 UN Document A/CONF.48/PC.11, p. 65.

31 UN Document A/CONF.48/PC.13, Annex IV, p. 14.

32 For the text of this statement, see Environment Stockholm, pp. 17–18.

33 Ibid., p. 19.

34 Sullivan, Walter, “Cry of the Vanishing Whale Heeded in Stockholm,” New York Times, 06 9, 1972, p. 3.Google Scholar

35 See Todd, James E., “The Role of NGO's at United Nations Conference on the Human Environment,” International Associations, No. 1 (1973), 43–44.Google Scholar

36 It should be noted that the NGO Liaison Committee includes national as well as transnational groups, and that less than half of the 138 organizations represented at the New York conference were transnational.

37 An indication of the apparent insignificance of NGO inputs into IGO decisional processes is the infrequency of references to INGOs in a recently published collection of studies of decision making in eight IGOs. In Cox, Robert W. and Jacobson, Harold K., et al., The Anatomy of Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1973),Google Scholar there are only seven references to NGOs in the chapter on UNESCO, one in the chapter on the International Atomic Energy Agency, and none in the chapters on the six other agencies.

38 Meynaud, p. 118.

39 Roosevelt, , International Associations, No. 6–7 (1972), p. 331.Google Scholar

40 Blaisdell, , “Relationship of Intergovernmental to Non-Governmental Organizations,” p. 9.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., p. 8; Rohn, p. 71.

42 Meynaud, p. 210.

43 Lador-Lederer, p. 77.

44 Blaisdell, , “Relationship of Intergovernmental to Non-Governmental Organizations,” p. 10.Google Scholar

45 White, p. 253, citing Pickard, Bertram, “The Greater League of Nations: A Brief Survey of the Nature and Development of Unofficial International Organisations,” reprinted from The Contemporary Review, 10 1936, p. 8.Google Scholar

46 Meynaud, p. 255.