1. In a well-known article published in 1992 in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW and excerpted several times in the main text for this course, Sir Geoffrey Palmer has argued that the requirement of unanimous consent is at the root of international law's failure to address complex environmental issues effectively.

What is the requirement for unanimous consent in international law?
When did it originate and why does it still exist?
Drawing on your analysis and understanding of the specific treaty regime you have examined, this term, is this requirement a chief cause of ineffectiveness?
Are there other factors that are more important in shaping the effectiveness of the treaty regime?
What are they?
And why do they matter more than the rule of unanimous consent?

2. Almost all international environmental treaty regimes operate with the assistance of conferences of the parties (COPs), secretariats, and subsidiary bodies.

What is a conference of the parties and what role does it play in implementing an international treaty?
What exactly is a secretariat and what role does it play?
What are subsidiary bodies and do they have a special importance in environmental treaty regimes?
How important are these three sorts of treaty institutions in relation to each other?
How important are they in relation to national or domestic institutions, when it comes to ensuring compliance with a treaty?
What important differences are there in the relationships that non-state actors have to COPs, secretariats, and subsidiary bodies?

3. Because agencies of the United Nations and treaty institutions are seriously constrained in their ability to develop and implement international environmental policy law, observers have, from time to time, proposed reforms and recommended the creation of new organizations. In the main text for this course proposals are sketched by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, for example, for an Environmental Protection Council and International Environmental Organization to be created within the UN system, modeled after the ILO. Daniel Esty has proposed an alternative, modeled after the WTO and called the Global Environmental Organization.

What are the chief weaknesses of the UN system in making and implementing environmental policy?
What reforms of UNEP and UNDP have been tried in recent years and how well have they worked?
What are the main outlines of the proposals advanced by Palmer and Esty?
As between the two reform models - the ILO and the WTO - which do you think makes the more sense, and why?

4. Students coming to the study of international law for the first time are surprised by how much influence is exerted by non-state actors. In the main text for this course, this influence is generally presented in a positive light. The role of non-state actors in international policy law is, however, controversial. Recommendations to give non-state actors, and NGOs specifically, a larger role in the affairs and activities of international organizations and institutions sometimes encounter the objection that NGOs "don't represent anybody." An international business association can represent many of the largest firms in an industry. A government obviously can claim to represent its citizens. But an NGO has a hard time claiming that it represents a formal constituency, because it has not been given the "right" to speak on behalf of particular people or institutions.

What have you learned in this course about the types of contributions NGOs make to international law and policy?
What reasons can you give why NGOs have become such important international actors since the end of World War II?
In more exact terms, what positive contributions have NGOs made to the treaty regime you have studied in detail, this term?
What sorts of interests in the international community can NGOs reasonable claim to "speak" for, in your view?
Are there legitimate reasons to be concerned about the role NGOs play in international environmental law, and what are they?

5. It has been suggested that compliance and implementation might be different in the context of international environmental law than in other areas of international law. If, for example, international environmental problems like ozone depletion and climate change have significant impacts that are difficult to reverse, except in the very long term, it may be unreasonable to expect substantial implementation of a treaty soon after it is signed. Generally, international law uses reciprocal actions to enforce treaties. Unfair trade tariffs are met with countervailing tariffs. But, in the environmental context, if some countries retaliate against over-fishing by more over-fishing it is difficult to see what is achieved.

What are the most important factors promoting compliance and implementation in international environmental law?
Which of these factors operate at the international level and which operate at the level of sovereign states?
Given that traditional sanctions for non-compliance with treaty obligations need to be supplemented with a broader range of mechanisms for resolving non-compliance problems in international environmental law, what should this broader range of mechanisms include?
How do you assess the level of compliance with the treaty you examined in detail, this term?
If you had a free hand to make changes to improve compliance with this treaty, what changes would you make?
What reason is there to think that greater compliance, if it occurred, would also yield greater effectiveness?