International Environmental Treaty Secretariats: Stage-Hands or Actors?

Introduction Since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972, international environmental treaties have been created at an unprecedented rate. By 1992 sixty multilateral environmental treaties had been signed. International environmental treaties may be global, regional, or trans-boundary, and each is supported by a secretariat, an international organization created by the treaty parties, to assist the parties in the management and implementation of the treaty. At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 three new global environmental agreements were signed, each with an interim secretariat. In all three cases the treaty parties have yet to finalize the roles and functions of their permanent secretariat. There is thus an opportunity to influence the ‘shape’ of international environmental treaty secretariats of the future. While several major studies of the effectiveness of international environmental treaties are under way, none focuses specifically on secretariats. The potential of secretariats to influence treaty processes and outcomes, both positively and negatively, has been overlooked. Weiss (1975) suggests that the secretariats of international institutions are an important analytical focus for the following reasons. They have been significant forces in international affairs, they are stable elements in a changing international system, and they have been formally assigned tasks to improve global (in this case environmental) interests. I concur with Weiss and, based on my own previous work, consider that secretariats have the potential to influence international environmental treaty negotiation and implementation. In the current study I further explore the proposition that activist international environmental treaty secretariats are significant actors in international environmental treaty making and implementation. To address the question of how international environmental treaty secretariats influence treaty processes, we first need to know what they do. What tasks do they perform? What constraints do they face? And what strategies do they use to deal with these constraints? Finally, to what extent might the lessons learned by current secretariats be transferable to future secretariats, such as those created at UNCED? The aim of this paper is to consider these questions in the context of this study of selected international environmental secretariats. In order to answer the questions, I interviewed executive heads and staff of five global environmental secretariats. The secretariats selected were: the 1971 Convention on Wetlands of International Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar); the 1972 Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (World Heritage); the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES); the 1985 Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer, including the 1987 Montreal Protocol; and the 1989 Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (Basel).