This section addresses the development of processes and organizations which are mandated to establish comprehensive and intersectoral mechanisms of global ecolomic governance, i.e. governance in the ecology-economics interface at the multilateral level. As is to be expected, the international community will reach agreement on general issues relatively easily; problems, however, will immediately arise as soon as financial specifics and other commitments are to be determined. That is why the Global Environment Facility, created in 1991, has assumed a key position in this regard. This finance mechanism managed by Implementing and Executing Agencies such as the World Bank, UNDP, UNEP, FAO and UNIDO has assumed the role of the leading fund for the financing of environment-related programs and projects, many or most of which have profound and direct links with trade and other economic priorities, e.g. the Biosafety Protocol or the funding of seed banks for the conservation of  crucially important crops. GEF and other global governance-related documents and analyses are available in both the (Inter)Governmental Documents and in the Analyses Subsections of this page.

Global Governance is one of the key issues and perhaps the most important long-term concern in the trade-environment interface. This concern has attracted a great deal of interest and of literature, especially the long-standing proposals to either create a World Environment Organization in parallel to UNEP or else as a replacement, and the alternative suggestion of converting UNEP into a specialized agency. The contribution of the EcoLomics International Web site to this governance debate consists in emphasizing the impact of the trading system on global environmental governance, thus the name of global ecolomic governance for a comprehensive ecologic and economic perspective. The WTO as well as other components of the wider trading system such as regional and bilateral agreements have a significant impact on the negotiation of many Multilateral Environmental Agreements. This applies in particular to those which are of a strongly trade-related nature, such as the phytosanitary and phytogentic agreements, e.g. the CBD’s Biosafety Protocol or the FAO’s International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources. The WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body plays a particularly influential role here as has been exemplified recently in the EC-Biotech ruling. The ecolomics approach to global governance is conducive to making this dynamics visible and to show its legal ramifications, it facilitates an integrated empirical approach even though it still leaves important questions unanswered, but that is a caveat which also applies to the still broader sustainable development framework.

Links 

Center for International Sustainable Development Law, Montréal

http://www.cisdl.org

Commission on Sustainable Development (Sessions and other meetings), NYC

http://www.iisd.ca/process/sustdevt.htm

Concerted Action on Trade and Environment (CAT&E), Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels

http://www.cat-e.org/

Ecologic, Berlin

http://www.ecologic.de/

Economics of Needs and Limits

www.NeedsAndLimits.org

Global Environment Facility, Washington DC

http://www.gefweb.org/

Homer-Dixon,  Prof. Thomas (Tad), University of Toronto

Free electronic Newsletter

http://www.homerdixon.com/index.html

Institut du développement durable (Iddri), Paris

http://www.iddri.org/iddri/

International Center for Trade and Sustainable Development, Geneva

http://www.ictsd.org/

Free electronic suscriptions:

Bridges Weekly
Bridges Trade BioRes

Bridges Monthly: on the Web and in Print
Authoritative information on trade and sustainable development

L'édition française avec Enda-Tiers monde: Passerelles

http://www.ictsd.org/africodev/edition/passerelle/passarc.htm

International Institute for Sustainable Development, Winnipeg, Ottawa, New York and Geneva

http://www.iisd.org/
http://www.iisd.ca/

Free electronic subscription:

Linkages

Environmental Negotiations Bulletin

In depth daily coverage of the major environmental

multilateral negotiations

International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE), West Allis, Wl, USA

http://www.ecoeco.org/about/contact.htm

International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Gland/Geneva

http://www.iucn.org/

Observatoire de l'écopolitique internationale,

Université du Québec à Montréal

http://www.er.uqam.ca/nobel/oei/
Bulletin électronique gratuit:
Objectif Terre, Bulletin de liaison du développement durable de l'espace francophone

http://www.iepf.org/ressources/objectif_terre.asp

Unisféra, Centre International Centre, Montréal

http://www.unisfera.org/?ln=1&id_article=77