Abstract
Under what conditions can international environmental institutions survive changing power alignments? This article argues that relatively declining powers and private domestic actors play an important role in preserving the status quo because they are eager to retain advantages that existing institutions afford them. This effort to block change affects fisheries negotiations, in particular, by allowing powerful actors to avoid new rules once an institution is in place. I hypothesize, first, that relatively declining fishing powers attempt to retain past institutional successes, while emerging fishing powers seek to alter the status quo. Second, negotiating positions reflect not only a country’s position in the world, but also the access provided to domestic stakeholders who wish to gain, or fear losses, from new agreements. Therefore, I hypothesize that powerful beneficiaries in domestic politics push relatively declining powers to support the status quo when those private actors benefit from highly legalized past agreements and participate in foreign policy decisions. I test these hypotheses by exploring US and EU approaches to fisheries treaty negotiations through archival research and interviews with fisheries negotiators. The evidence supports hypotheses that status quo powers seek to protect earlier deals more intensely when they negotiate with rising fishing powers, and when private parties are most influential. As hypothesized, both governments are particularly protective of the most complex earlier agreements under these conditions.
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Notes
The semi-structured interview script is available from the author. Respondents were granted anonymity in order to allow more open dialogue.
The US has not ratified UNCLOS, but President Reagan issued an Executive Order accepting all of UNCLOS except the deep seabed provisions (US Department of Commerce 2007). While the Executive Order does bind the US to comply, it would appear NOT to require reciprocal benefits from other countries. As such, benefits to the United States and its citizens may remain limited in this area.
As one anonymous reviewer noted, the US also actively provides strengthened authority for regional fisheries organizations. This preference is a further example of the US trying to retain benefits by prioritizing institutional arrangements that were created when the US was an even more powerful actor.
I thank an anonymous reviewer for raising this counterexample. While this instance is not a fisheries-specific negotiation due to the WTO negotiating structure, and therefore was not included in the original analysis, it does require explanation.
The United Nations (2003) defines savings clauses as text “specify[ing] that some or all of the provisions of the [current] treaty shall not prevail (87)” when conflicting with existing international law.
For example, the 1989 bilateral agreement with Mauritius provides that “Nothing in this Agreement shall affect or prejudice any manner the view of either Party with respect to any matter relating to the Law of the Sea (Article 9).”
I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this alternative scenario.
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Acknowledgments
This study benefited from thoughtful anonymous reviewer comments, as well as comments on earlier iterations by Tim Büthe, Joe Grieco, Margaret McKean, Michael Schechter, David Soskice, Bill Taylor, and participants in the 2014 Norwich Conference on Earth System Governance. I also thank the US and EU officials who gave their time to discuss negotiating experiences.
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Axelrod, M. Blocking change: facing the drag of status quo fisheries institutions. Int Environ Agreements 17, 573–588 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-016-9337-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-016-9337-6