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International environmental treaty secretariats: A case of neglected potential?
ELSEVlER
VIEWPOINT
INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL TREATY SECRETARIATS: A CASE OF NEGLECTED POTENTIAL?
Rosemary Sandford Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Secretariats are the Cinderellas of international environmental treaty systems. They are often neglected, regularly criticized, and seldom rewarded for assisting governments in meeting their treaty implementation obligations. Yet secretariats play a crucial role in ensuring that treaty goals are transformed from legal text into practical achievements. Despite their significance as the executive support systems of treaties, the importance of secretariats as organizational actors in treaty implementation has been overlooked by scholars. Until now, most studies of environmental treaties have focused on nation states -and to a lesser extent on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) - as the main actors and stakeholders in environmental treaty making. Although diplomats and lawyers negotiate treaties, it is primarily national and international civil servants who coordinate and manage their implementation. Whereas it may take several years for a treaty to be negotiated and to enter into force, it can take generations to ensure that it is implemented effectively. Neglecting the impacts of civil servants as influential actors in theinternational environmental policy process is a major oversight. Secretariats are well placed to make a significant contribution to the success, or failure, of treaty implementation by virtue of: (1) the centrality of their institutional position, (2) the tasks they perform in assisting parties to implement a treaty, and (3) the approaches they use to overcome major organizational constraints of resource dependency and limited authority. Significance of Secretariats
To a practitioner and scholar of environmental policy implementation, environmental treaty secretariats are conspicuously absent from the literature. Address requestsfor reprints to: Ms. Rosemary Sandford, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. ENVIRON IMPACT ASSESS REV 1996;16:3-12 0 1996 Elsevier Science Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
0195-9255/1996/$15.00 SSDI 0195-9255(95)00103-4
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This is particularly the case in the fields of political science, international law, public management, and organization theory. Although some consideration has been given more recently to the role of secretariats in international environmental negotiations (Susskind and Babbitt 1992; Sjostedt 1993; Susskind 1994), secretariats have generally not been viewed as significant units of analysis (Weiss 1975; Pitt and Weiss 1986). This lack of attention means several things. First, the focus of international treaty development in recent years has been on treaty negotiation, not treaty implementation. This is understandable as scholars and politicians alike prepared for the signing of the several environmental treaties at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992. Second, treaty implementation lacks the glamour and fanfare of negotiation. Implementation is a long and arduous process carried out primarily by civil servants away from the limelight of negotiations. However, treaty negotiations have limited value if they are not implemented effectively. European scholars have acknowledged that the potential of international civil servants to influence policy outcomes has been underestimated, “especially in issue areas [such as environment] where information is a more important resource than brute force” (Jonsson 1993, p. 9). Mouritzen (1990, p. 133) notes that there are two major reasons to study international civil services such as secretariats: (1) They exert an influence of their own, even where the odds are most unfavorable; and (2) if they are to function as more creative international institutions, then we must be able to prescribe reforms for them. Two other factors highlight the significance of secretariats. First, there has been a huge increase in the number of international environmental treaties signed in the past 20 years, and it seems that the need for international treaties to protect the global environment will continue (Jacobson and Brown Weiss 1994). A second and perhaps countervailing factor is that some national and global media report that the enthusiasm for environmental protection that gave rise to UNCED is abating and that membership of environmental NGOs is declining in many of the developed countries that so actively supported the UNCED negotiations. Whether the demand for environmental treaties continues or whether it declines, the services of secretariats will still be required to carry out the following tasks: helping parties meet their commitments; assisting developing countries with capacity building; working with NGOs; and helping prevent and manage implementation conflicts. If the demand for environmental agreements decreases, secretariats will have an additional responsibility-ensuring that any diminishing support for environmental conservation does not erode the conservation gains achieved to date. Erosion is likely to take the form of increased noncompliance by member countries, for example, failure to submit annual reports. Countries may also be reluctant to impose the requisite national policies and national
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legislation. In these cases, it falls to the secretariat to remind parties of their treaty obligations and to stibtly persuade recalcitrant countries to comply. Both of these trends suggest that regardless of whether the demand for international environmental agreements increases or decreases, secretariats will continue to play a critical role in treaty implementation. What Are Secretariats? Secretariats are the intergovernmental organizations created by the treaty parties to assist them in managing and implementing treaties. The formal mandate of a secretariat is limited. Its role is to provide management and administrative support to the members of a specific environmental convention. This role is outlined in the treaty text and in subsequent decisions of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and its subsidiary bodies. A secretariat is often described in the treaty text as a servant of the parties. The COP is the supreme decision-making body of the convention, and it meets in full session, on average, every 2 or 3 years. Between sessions, representatives of the COP constitute a steering committee to take decisions as required, and the secretariat reports to this committee. In reality, it is the secretariat that keeps the treaty system running on a day-to-day basis. Secretariats are staffed by international civil servants with a diverse range of scientific, technical, economic, legal, policy, and administrative expertise. Personnel are recruited mainly from national bureaucracies, environmental NGOs, industry, and the United Nations (UN) system at large. Secretariats act as linchpin organizations-that is, they direct information flows; smooth communications; and coordinate and oversee implementation from a regional or global, as distinct from a national and sub national, perspective. Their professional staff are boundary spanners, that is, they link the organization to treaty stakeholders (parties, nonparties, environmental NGOs, industry, the media, the general public, professional and scientific organizations, and academic institutions). Secretariats are thus important instruments of policy implementation. Perhaps the most important organizational quality of a credible secretariat is that it is trusted by its members and other stakeholders to perform its tasks competently and efficiently and to honor the objectives of the convention with integrity and impartially. Internationalism rather than nationalism is supposed to be the core value of a secretariat. In summary, secretariats are crucibles of interdisciplinary expertise. They are the information hub of the treaty system. They coordinate information flow among stakeholders within the system and between the system and the rest of the world. They are the institutional memory of the system. They act as its in-house conscience by reminding governments of their common, and their individual, treaty obligations, and they play a pivotal role in assisting parties to meet these obligations.
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Identifying the Challenges The key constraints facing global environmental treaty secretariats are that they are small, resource- dependent organizations with limited formal authority and comparatively small budgets, relative to the number of parties they are expected to assist and to the parties’ expectations of them. This profile of environmental treaty secretariats contrasts markedly with common perceptions of secretariats as “bloated, overpaid ineffective bureaucracies” (Beigbeder 1988, p. 2). Such comments, fail to make a distinction between environmental treaty secretariats and the secretariats of UN agencies and programs, such as the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the UN Secretariat, to which these comments are directed. The secretariat of Ramsar (Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat 1971) has a total of 17 staff, including six professionals, to assist 85 parties; the CITES Secretariat (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora 1973) has a total staff of 22 (14 professionals) to service 128 parties; the Base1 Secretariat (Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal 1989) has four professional personnel to deal with 83 parties; and the FCCC Secretariat (Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992) has 19professional staff and atotal staff complement of 31 to assist 118 parties. In contrast, the UN Secretariat has a staff in excess of 500,000 (New York Times October 1995). Financially, environmental treaty secretariats are at the mercy of the parties. Their core budgets are funded by national contributions based on the UN scale of assessments and supplemented by additional, often called extra budgetary, contributions from individual countries that are used to fund specific projects. Persuading countries to pay, and to pay on time, is one of the recurring chores of a secretariat. As their budgets are minuscule by international organization standards, late payments can severely hamper a secretariat’s ability to plan strategically and to carry out its tasks.’ This is a very real problem when the late payments are those from major contributors such as the United States, which contributes up to 25% of many environmental treaty budgets. However, my research2 has found no evidence so far to substantiate criticisms of ‘The CITES Trust Fund is $USD 3 million; Ramsar’s administrative budget is SFr 2.2 million (approximately); and the BASEL secretariat’s budget is %USD 1.8 million (Source: The Green Globe Yeurbobk 1994). The net total of the FCCCSecretariat’s core budget for 1996 is %USD 8.3 million (Source: FCCC/CP/1995/5/ Add.2) 2Ms Sandford’s dissertation research is a comparative study of the roles and influence of global environmental treaty secretariats in treaty implementation. In particular, she has been studying the activities of secretariats in: assisting the parties to achieve compliance; assisting developing countries with capacity building; working with NGOs; and preventing and managing implementationcontlicts.MsSandfordhascompletedover 1OOpersonalinverviewswithmembers of treaty secretariats, government and NGO representatives.
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unfettered expansion and expenditure in relation to global environmental treaty secretariats. Dealing with the Challenges
Despite the constraints they face, environmental treaty secretariats have the potential to have a considerable effect on treaty implementation. It seems that, in large measure, their significance derives from their role as linchpin organizations and as the institutional memory of each treaty system. Special note should also be taken of the contributions of secretariat personnel, especially those professionals who perform boundary-spanning roles. Staff appear to demonstrate a professional and personal commitment to the achievement of treaty objectives that is substantially above and beyond the call of duty. Working in a secretariat can be a pretty thankless task. The workloads and deadlines can be punishing, and employment is usually by short-term, rolling contracts. Employment uncertainty seems to be the name of the game, as country contributions to the core budget from which most salaries come, are often late. To a large extent, it is the satisfaction that personnel appear to get from their commitment to help implement a treaty that keeps many of them going under difficult conditions. The secretariats use a range of approaches to deal with the organizational and political constraints they face, and to deliver the goods. They: 1. Act as Linchpin Organizations As the organizational and information hub of a treaty system, secretariats play a key role in agenda preparation and in the coordination of information flows, policy interactions, and feedback. A. Agenda Preparation The secretariat coordinates agenda preparation for meetings of the COP and subsidiary bodies such as scientific committees and policy working groups. In doing this, it may make recommendations for the inclusion (and exclusion) of items on the agenda and the ordering of agenda priorities. It helps ensure that agenda items of concern to less powerful members are not overlooked. It is also instrumental in bringing parties’ attention to the concerns of nonparties, NGOs, and the wider public, and in encouraging members to include these issues as agenda items. B. Information/Data Coordination All secretariats play a central role in the coordination and management of data/information flows. In many cases, they are directly responsible for the global coordination of data/information collection by individual countries, information analysis, and the preparation of reports for the COP and its various committees. Secretariats also play a key role in assisting members with interpreting
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complex scientific data and translating this into policy for implementation by non-scientists. Secretariat reporting on parties’ fulfillment of their obligations is considered a particularly important role in achieving compliance. Parties rarely take more drastic enforcement action, for example, invoking sanctions, even when the treaty text makes provision for such. The imposition of sanctions is a last resort, prior to which repeated attempts by the secretariat and other parties to encourage the noncompliant party to meet its obligations have failed. The CITES Secretariat (assisted by WWF/Trafhc) is responsible for ensuring the collection of international trade statistics from all parties and notifying the COP when parties do not comply or are having difficulty complying with permit or trade regulations. The CITES Secretariat also has recommendatory powers, unlike many secretariats (Article XII). This gives it more formal clout than most environmental treaty secretariats. For example, when Italy was found to be in breach of CITES trade regulations, the secretariat-after thoroughly investigating the allegations - recommended to the COP that sanctions be invoked against Italy. The COP agreed. CITES member countries then ceased to trade with Italy, and Italy responded by rapidly lifting its game. A similar situation occurred in relation to Thailand’s trade in endangered species. In this case, the secretariat recommended that Thailand be given additional time to get its national implementing institutions up to scratch and assisted it in doing so. Thailand complied. It worked closely with the secretariat in implementing the necessary changes, and sanctions were not imposed. Another example of a secretariat’s linchpin role in data coordination is that of the CCAMLR (Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources 1989) Secretariat. The CCAMLR secretariat manages the convention’s data center. The secretariat collates the mass of fisheries catch and satellite data from individual country and scientific reports. These data form the basis of the monitoring and enforcement provisions of the treaty. The secretariat then analyzes the data and prepares reports as required for decision-making by the Commission and the Scientific Committee. 2. Encourage Boundary Spanning Boundary spanners formally and informally link the organization to the treaty parties and others through information processing and external representation. Information processing as an example of a boundaryspanning activity, has already been discussed in relation to the trademonitoring activities of the CITES Secretariat and the data management activities of the CCAMLR Secretariat. External representation is where secretariat personnel represent treaty interests in forums external to the treaty system. This is a core task for
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the executive head of a secretariat. External representation provides opportunities for an executive head to educate (and potentially intluence) external interests about specific treaty implementation goals and activities. For example, the Executive Secretary of CCAMLR formally represents CCAMLR interests at FAO meetings and presents the CCAMLR perspective on matters such as the ecosystem approach to management of fisheries and marine resources. Seemingly as consequence of CCAMLR expert input, FAO recently incorporated CCAMLR’s ecosystem approach in its code of fisheries conduct on the high seas. 3. Maintain Extensive Networks Secretariats are master networkers. They develop and maintain extensive formal and informal networks both within the treaty system and in the world outside the system, for example, with nonparties, the media, academic institutions, professional and scientific associations, industry organizations, and environmental NGOs. As part of their mandate to assist countries in implementing a convention, secretariats establish and maintain regular contacts with agency heads and senior managers in all relevant national bureaucracies. These contacts include officials in departments of foreign affairs (in accordance with diplomatic protocol); development and environmental management agencies (as the agencies responsible for implementing a treaty at the national level); and national finance departments, which channel the national contributions to the COP via the secretariat. Secretariat personnel repeatedly stress the value of personal, face-toface contact, as distinct from letter, telephone, fax, or electronic communications. This is especially important in countries where there is a frequent turnover of governments and bureaucratic staff. In these circumstances, a secretariat is always starting again. That is, a secretariat is forever reestablishing networks and educating incoming personnel about a treaty and about a country’s obligations every time there is internal political and bureaucraticchange. It is the endurance of secretariat networks (professional and personal) that keep many environmental treaty initiatives alive, and it is personal contact that builds trust between the secretariat and the members. This trust built up over the years is fundamental to the success of a treaty. Secretariat networks are also instrumental in raising money to fund policy initiatives. Networks are used to identify sources of external funding and to get support for individual projects that can not be undertaken using core funds. In effect, secretariat networks help match donor and recipient countries and projects. An example of this is where the CITES Secretariat assists in matching external funding with a country’s needs. In the case of Guyana, NGO funding has been used to help Guyana develop domestic legislation to implement CITES.
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4. Employ Expert and Quality Personnel The quality and expertise of staff is critical to the quality of a secretariat’s output and its credibility. NGOs and government representatives credit secretariat success with the quality of its output, which in turn depends on the expertise and skills of its leadership and personnel. Several factors are important here: First, in addition to the interdisciplinary nature of the organization and thecommitment of personnel to the treaty goals, personnel recruited to a secretariat bring with them a wide range of presecretariat experience and networks in national bureaucracies, NGOs, and the UN system. These experiences and networks are organizational and treaty system assets. Another important point is that secretariat personnel are the only dedicated, or treaty-specific, personnel in the treaty system. That is, secretariat personnel work on a particular treaty only. Ramsar Bureau staff work only on Ramsar matters. They do not work on CITES, World Heritage (Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage 1972), or any other environmental treaty, unlike many national officials who may be concurrently responsible for several environmental treaties within a national environmental management agency. For example, the Australian Conservation Agency (ANCA) is responsible for coordinating the national implementation of CITES, Ramsar, and Bonn (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) 1979). 5. Provide Policy Guidance The secretary general or executive head is trusted to lead the secretariat in providing policy guidance to the parties. Many countries do not have the resources, time, or the global overview necessary to lead internsitional policy initiatives. Countries tend to have a national perspective, which is inevitably and understandably partisan, so the secretariat is often asked to prepare policy documents as a basis for discussion and decisionmaking by the COP and its representatives. This is a good opportunity for a secretariat to demonstrate its policy expertise and creativity in the identification of policy options and actions, while remaining aware of potential resistance from some parties who may be less than enthusiastic about secretariat initiatives. 6. Act as Informal Intermediaries Secretariats may act as impartial, third parties or intermediaries in an informal capacity within the treaty system. For example, they act as bridge builders by persuading parties with differing or opposing points of view to sit at the same table to discuss policy problems. They also facilitate meetings and workshops. For example, CCAMLR secretariat officials have been asked to facilitate scientific workshops to assist parties in reconciling their disparate objectives in the development of fisheries
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and conservation management plans; and the Ramsar Bureau has facilitated meetings among the parties to assist them in developing joint management plans to deal with problems over transboundary wetlands.
Conclusion Secretariats provide an essential service to environmental treaties. The tasks that they perform are fundamental to the successful implementation of a treaty. Secretariats also appear to use their linchpin status, boundaryspanning activities, networks, and professional expertise to significant effect in overcoming organizational constraints of limited authority and resources. That they are trusted to provide policy guidance to the parties, to oversight compliance processes, and to act as impartial intermediaries to help ease difficult situations that arise during treaty implementation, is testament to a secretariat’s credibility and to the symbiotic relationship between the parties and their “servant.” The neglect of secretariats in studies of treaty implementation cannot be justified. Evidence from my research indicates that environmental treaty secretariats should be valued as treaty assets, not neglected as bureaucratic liabilities.
References Chayes, Abram, and Chayes, Antonia H. 1991. Compliance without enforcement: State behavior under regulatory treaties. Negotiation Journal 7(3):3 1l-330. Jacobson, Harold, and Brown Weiss, Edith. 1994. Improving Compliance with International Environmental Accords: A Preliminary Report, Washington, DC: ISA Conference. Jonsson, Christer. 1993. International organization and cooperation: An interorganizational perspective. International Science Journal (138). Mouritzen, Hans. 1990. The International Civil Service: A Study of Bureaucracy in International Organizations, Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth. Pitt, David, and Weiss, Thomas (eds). 1986. TheNatureof UnitedNations Bureaucracies, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sandford, R.A. 1992. Secretariats and international environmental negotiations: Two new models, in International Environmental Treaty Making, L. Susskind, E. Dolin, and W. Breslin (eds). Cambridge, MA: Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School. Sandford R.A. 1994. International environmental treaty secretariats: Stagehands or actors?, in The Green Globe Yearbook 1994, Bergen, Norway: Fridtjof Nansen Institute. Sjostedt, Gunnar (ed). 1993. International Environmental Negotiation, Park, CA: Sage.
Newbury
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Susskind, Lawrence, and Babbitt, Eileen. 1992. Overcoming the obstacles to effective mediation of international disputes, inMediation in InternationalRelations, Jacob Bercovitch and Jeffrey Rubin, (eds). London: Macmillan. Susskind, Lawrence. 1994. EnvironmentalDiplomacy, Press.
New York: OxfordUniversity
The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, 1994. The Green Globe Yearbook 1994, Bergen, Norway, The Fridtjof Nansen Institute. UnitedNations, 1971. Conventionon WetlandsofInternationalImportanceespecially as Waterfowl Habitat, Ramsar, United Nations. United Nations, 1973. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Washington, DC, United Nations. United Nations, 1989. Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, Basel, United Nations. United Nations, 1992. Framework Convention on Climate Change, Rio de Janeiro, United Nations. United Nations, 1994. Designation of the Permanent Secretariat and Arrangements for Its Functioning, FCCC/CP/1995/5/Add.2, Framework Convention on Climate Change, Berlin, United Nations. Weiss, Thomas. 1975. International Bureaucracy: An Analysis of the Operation of Functional and Global International Secretariats, Lexington, MA, Lexington Books.
VIEWPOINT
INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL TREATY SECRETARIATS: A CASE OF NEGLECTED POTENTIAL?
Rosemary Sandford Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Secretariats are the Cinderellas of international environmental treaty systems. They are often neglected, regularly criticized, and seldom rewarded for assisting governments in meeting their treaty implementation obligations. Yet secretariats play a crucial role in ensuring that treaty goals are transformed from legal text into practical achievements. Despite their significance as the executive support systems of treaties, the importance of secretariats as organizational actors in treaty implementation has been overlooked by scholars. Until now, most studies of environmental treaties have focused on nation states -and to a lesser extent on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) - as the main actors and stakeholders in environmental treaty making. Although diplomats and lawyers negotiate treaties, it is primarily national and international civil servants who coordinate and manage their implementation. Whereas it may take several years for a treaty to be negotiated and to enter into force, it can take generations to ensure that it is implemented effectively. Neglecting the impacts of civil servants as influential actors in theinternational environmental policy process is a major oversight. Secretariats are well placed to make a significant contribution to the success, or failure, of treaty implementation by virtue of: (1) the centrality of their institutional position, (2) the tasks they perform in assisting parties to implement a treaty, and (3) the approaches they use to overcome major organizational constraints of resource dependency and limited authority. Significance of Secretariats
To a practitioner and scholar of environmental policy implementation, environmental treaty secretariats are conspicuously absent from the literature. Address requestsfor reprints to: Ms. Rosemary Sandford, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. ENVIRON IMPACT ASSESS REV 1996;16:3-12 0 1996 Elsevier Science Inc. 655 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10010
0195-9255/1996/$15.00 SSDI 0195-9255(95)00103-4
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This is particularly the case in the fields of political science, international law, public management, and organization theory. Although some consideration has been given more recently to the role of secretariats in international environmental negotiations (Susskind and Babbitt 1992; Sjostedt 1993; Susskind 1994), secretariats have generally not been viewed as significant units of analysis (Weiss 1975; Pitt and Weiss 1986). This lack of attention means several things. First, the focus of international treaty development in recent years has been on treaty negotiation, not treaty implementation. This is understandable as scholars and politicians alike prepared for the signing of the several environmental treaties at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992. Second, treaty implementation lacks the glamour and fanfare of negotiation. Implementation is a long and arduous process carried out primarily by civil servants away from the limelight of negotiations. However, treaty negotiations have limited value if they are not implemented effectively. European scholars have acknowledged that the potential of international civil servants to influence policy outcomes has been underestimated, “especially in issue areas [such as environment] where information is a more important resource than brute force” (Jonsson 1993, p. 9). Mouritzen (1990, p. 133) notes that there are two major reasons to study international civil services such as secretariats: (1) They exert an influence of their own, even where the odds are most unfavorable; and (2) if they are to function as more creative international institutions, then we must be able to prescribe reforms for them. Two other factors highlight the significance of secretariats. First, there has been a huge increase in the number of international environmental treaties signed in the past 20 years, and it seems that the need for international treaties to protect the global environment will continue (Jacobson and Brown Weiss 1994). A second and perhaps countervailing factor is that some national and global media report that the enthusiasm for environmental protection that gave rise to UNCED is abating and that membership of environmental NGOs is declining in many of the developed countries that so actively supported the UNCED negotiations. Whether the demand for environmental treaties continues or whether it declines, the services of secretariats will still be required to carry out the following tasks: helping parties meet their commitments; assisting developing countries with capacity building; working with NGOs; and helping prevent and manage implementation conflicts. If the demand for environmental agreements decreases, secretariats will have an additional responsibility-ensuring that any diminishing support for environmental conservation does not erode the conservation gains achieved to date. Erosion is likely to take the form of increased noncompliance by member countries, for example, failure to submit annual reports. Countries may also be reluctant to impose the requisite national policies and national
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legislation. In these cases, it falls to the secretariat to remind parties of their treaty obligations and to stibtly persuade recalcitrant countries to comply. Both of these trends suggest that regardless of whether the demand for international environmental agreements increases or decreases, secretariats will continue to play a critical role in treaty implementation. What Are Secretariats? Secretariats are the intergovernmental organizations created by the treaty parties to assist them in managing and implementing treaties. The formal mandate of a secretariat is limited. Its role is to provide management and administrative support to the members of a specific environmental convention. This role is outlined in the treaty text and in subsequent decisions of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and its subsidiary bodies. A secretariat is often described in the treaty text as a servant of the parties. The COP is the supreme decision-making body of the convention, and it meets in full session, on average, every 2 or 3 years. Between sessions, representatives of the COP constitute a steering committee to take decisions as required, and the secretariat reports to this committee. In reality, it is the secretariat that keeps the treaty system running on a day-to-day basis. Secretariats are staffed by international civil servants with a diverse range of scientific, technical, economic, legal, policy, and administrative expertise. Personnel are recruited mainly from national bureaucracies, environmental NGOs, industry, and the United Nations (UN) system at large. Secretariats act as linchpin organizations-that is, they direct information flows; smooth communications; and coordinate and oversee implementation from a regional or global, as distinct from a national and sub national, perspective. Their professional staff are boundary spanners, that is, they link the organization to treaty stakeholders (parties, nonparties, environmental NGOs, industry, the media, the general public, professional and scientific organizations, and academic institutions). Secretariats are thus important instruments of policy implementation. Perhaps the most important organizational quality of a credible secretariat is that it is trusted by its members and other stakeholders to perform its tasks competently and efficiently and to honor the objectives of the convention with integrity and impartially. Internationalism rather than nationalism is supposed to be the core value of a secretariat. In summary, secretariats are crucibles of interdisciplinary expertise. They are the information hub of the treaty system. They coordinate information flow among stakeholders within the system and between the system and the rest of the world. They are the institutional memory of the system. They act as its in-house conscience by reminding governments of their common, and their individual, treaty obligations, and they play a pivotal role in assisting parties to meet these obligations.
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Identifying the Challenges The key constraints facing global environmental treaty secretariats are that they are small, resource- dependent organizations with limited formal authority and comparatively small budgets, relative to the number of parties they are expected to assist and to the parties’ expectations of them. This profile of environmental treaty secretariats contrasts markedly with common perceptions of secretariats as “bloated, overpaid ineffective bureaucracies” (Beigbeder 1988, p. 2). Such comments, fail to make a distinction between environmental treaty secretariats and the secretariats of UN agencies and programs, such as the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the UN Secretariat, to which these comments are directed. The secretariat of Ramsar (Convention on Wetlands of International Importance especially as Waterfowl Habitat 1971) has a total of 17 staff, including six professionals, to assist 85 parties; the CITES Secretariat (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora 1973) has a total staff of 22 (14 professionals) to service 128 parties; the Base1 Secretariat (Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal 1989) has four professional personnel to deal with 83 parties; and the FCCC Secretariat (Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992) has 19professional staff and atotal staff complement of 31 to assist 118 parties. In contrast, the UN Secretariat has a staff in excess of 500,000 (New York Times October 1995). Financially, environmental treaty secretariats are at the mercy of the parties. Their core budgets are funded by national contributions based on the UN scale of assessments and supplemented by additional, often called extra budgetary, contributions from individual countries that are used to fund specific projects. Persuading countries to pay, and to pay on time, is one of the recurring chores of a secretariat. As their budgets are minuscule by international organization standards, late payments can severely hamper a secretariat’s ability to plan strategically and to carry out its tasks.’ This is a very real problem when the late payments are those from major contributors such as the United States, which contributes up to 25% of many environmental treaty budgets. However, my research2 has found no evidence so far to substantiate criticisms of ‘The CITES Trust Fund is $USD 3 million; Ramsar’s administrative budget is SFr 2.2 million (approximately); and the BASEL secretariat’s budget is %USD 1.8 million (Source: The Green Globe Yeurbobk 1994). The net total of the FCCCSecretariat’s core budget for 1996 is %USD 8.3 million (Source: FCCC/CP/1995/5/ Add.2) 2Ms Sandford’s dissertation research is a comparative study of the roles and influence of global environmental treaty secretariats in treaty implementation. In particular, she has been studying the activities of secretariats in: assisting the parties to achieve compliance; assisting developing countries with capacity building; working with NGOs; and preventing and managing implementationcontlicts.MsSandfordhascompletedover 1OOpersonalinverviewswithmembers of treaty secretariats, government and NGO representatives.
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unfettered expansion and expenditure in relation to global environmental treaty secretariats. Dealing with the Challenges
Despite the constraints they face, environmental treaty secretariats have the potential to have a considerable effect on treaty implementation. It seems that, in large measure, their significance derives from their role as linchpin organizations and as the institutional memory of each treaty system. Special note should also be taken of the contributions of secretariat personnel, especially those professionals who perform boundary-spanning roles. Staff appear to demonstrate a professional and personal commitment to the achievement of treaty objectives that is substantially above and beyond the call of duty. Working in a secretariat can be a pretty thankless task. The workloads and deadlines can be punishing, and employment is usually by short-term, rolling contracts. Employment uncertainty seems to be the name of the game, as country contributions to the core budget from which most salaries come, are often late. To a large extent, it is the satisfaction that personnel appear to get from their commitment to help implement a treaty that keeps many of them going under difficult conditions. The secretariats use a range of approaches to deal with the organizational and political constraints they face, and to deliver the goods. They: 1. Act as Linchpin Organizations As the organizational and information hub of a treaty system, secretariats play a key role in agenda preparation and in the coordination of information flows, policy interactions, and feedback. A. Agenda Preparation The secretariat coordinates agenda preparation for meetings of the COP and subsidiary bodies such as scientific committees and policy working groups. In doing this, it may make recommendations for the inclusion (and exclusion) of items on the agenda and the ordering of agenda priorities. It helps ensure that agenda items of concern to less powerful members are not overlooked. It is also instrumental in bringing parties’ attention to the concerns of nonparties, NGOs, and the wider public, and in encouraging members to include these issues as agenda items. B. Information/Data Coordination All secretariats play a central role in the coordination and management of data/information flows. In many cases, they are directly responsible for the global coordination of data/information collection by individual countries, information analysis, and the preparation of reports for the COP and its various committees. Secretariats also play a key role in assisting members with interpreting
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complex scientific data and translating this into policy for implementation by non-scientists. Secretariat reporting on parties’ fulfillment of their obligations is considered a particularly important role in achieving compliance. Parties rarely take more drastic enforcement action, for example, invoking sanctions, even when the treaty text makes provision for such. The imposition of sanctions is a last resort, prior to which repeated attempts by the secretariat and other parties to encourage the noncompliant party to meet its obligations have failed. The CITES Secretariat (assisted by WWF/Trafhc) is responsible for ensuring the collection of international trade statistics from all parties and notifying the COP when parties do not comply or are having difficulty complying with permit or trade regulations. The CITES Secretariat also has recommendatory powers, unlike many secretariats (Article XII). This gives it more formal clout than most environmental treaty secretariats. For example, when Italy was found to be in breach of CITES trade regulations, the secretariat-after thoroughly investigating the allegations - recommended to the COP that sanctions be invoked against Italy. The COP agreed. CITES member countries then ceased to trade with Italy, and Italy responded by rapidly lifting its game. A similar situation occurred in relation to Thailand’s trade in endangered species. In this case, the secretariat recommended that Thailand be given additional time to get its national implementing institutions up to scratch and assisted it in doing so. Thailand complied. It worked closely with the secretariat in implementing the necessary changes, and sanctions were not imposed. Another example of a secretariat’s linchpin role in data coordination is that of the CCAMLR (Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources 1989) Secretariat. The CCAMLR secretariat manages the convention’s data center. The secretariat collates the mass of fisheries catch and satellite data from individual country and scientific reports. These data form the basis of the monitoring and enforcement provisions of the treaty. The secretariat then analyzes the data and prepares reports as required for decision-making by the Commission and the Scientific Committee. 2. Encourage Boundary Spanning Boundary spanners formally and informally link the organization to the treaty parties and others through information processing and external representation. Information processing as an example of a boundaryspanning activity, has already been discussed in relation to the trademonitoring activities of the CITES Secretariat and the data management activities of the CCAMLR Secretariat. External representation is where secretariat personnel represent treaty interests in forums external to the treaty system. This is a core task for
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the executive head of a secretariat. External representation provides opportunities for an executive head to educate (and potentially intluence) external interests about specific treaty implementation goals and activities. For example, the Executive Secretary of CCAMLR formally represents CCAMLR interests at FAO meetings and presents the CCAMLR perspective on matters such as the ecosystem approach to management of fisheries and marine resources. Seemingly as consequence of CCAMLR expert input, FAO recently incorporated CCAMLR’s ecosystem approach in its code of fisheries conduct on the high seas. 3. Maintain Extensive Networks Secretariats are master networkers. They develop and maintain extensive formal and informal networks both within the treaty system and in the world outside the system, for example, with nonparties, the media, academic institutions, professional and scientific associations, industry organizations, and environmental NGOs. As part of their mandate to assist countries in implementing a convention, secretariats establish and maintain regular contacts with agency heads and senior managers in all relevant national bureaucracies. These contacts include officials in departments of foreign affairs (in accordance with diplomatic protocol); development and environmental management agencies (as the agencies responsible for implementing a treaty at the national level); and national finance departments, which channel the national contributions to the COP via the secretariat. Secretariat personnel repeatedly stress the value of personal, face-toface contact, as distinct from letter, telephone, fax, or electronic communications. This is especially important in countries where there is a frequent turnover of governments and bureaucratic staff. In these circumstances, a secretariat is always starting again. That is, a secretariat is forever reestablishing networks and educating incoming personnel about a treaty and about a country’s obligations every time there is internal political and bureaucraticchange. It is the endurance of secretariat networks (professional and personal) that keep many environmental treaty initiatives alive, and it is personal contact that builds trust between the secretariat and the members. This trust built up over the years is fundamental to the success of a treaty. Secretariat networks are also instrumental in raising money to fund policy initiatives. Networks are used to identify sources of external funding and to get support for individual projects that can not be undertaken using core funds. In effect, secretariat networks help match donor and recipient countries and projects. An example of this is where the CITES Secretariat assists in matching external funding with a country’s needs. In the case of Guyana, NGO funding has been used to help Guyana develop domestic legislation to implement CITES.
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4. Employ Expert and Quality Personnel The quality and expertise of staff is critical to the quality of a secretariat’s output and its credibility. NGOs and government representatives credit secretariat success with the quality of its output, which in turn depends on the expertise and skills of its leadership and personnel. Several factors are important here: First, in addition to the interdisciplinary nature of the organization and thecommitment of personnel to the treaty goals, personnel recruited to a secretariat bring with them a wide range of presecretariat experience and networks in national bureaucracies, NGOs, and the UN system. These experiences and networks are organizational and treaty system assets. Another important point is that secretariat personnel are the only dedicated, or treaty-specific, personnel in the treaty system. That is, secretariat personnel work on a particular treaty only. Ramsar Bureau staff work only on Ramsar matters. They do not work on CITES, World Heritage (Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage 1972), or any other environmental treaty, unlike many national officials who may be concurrently responsible for several environmental treaties within a national environmental management agency. For example, the Australian Conservation Agency (ANCA) is responsible for coordinating the national implementation of CITES, Ramsar, and Bonn (Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) 1979). 5. Provide Policy Guidance The secretary general or executive head is trusted to lead the secretariat in providing policy guidance to the parties. Many countries do not have the resources, time, or the global overview necessary to lead internsitional policy initiatives. Countries tend to have a national perspective, which is inevitably and understandably partisan, so the secretariat is often asked to prepare policy documents as a basis for discussion and decisionmaking by the COP and its representatives. This is a good opportunity for a secretariat to demonstrate its policy expertise and creativity in the identification of policy options and actions, while remaining aware of potential resistance from some parties who may be less than enthusiastic about secretariat initiatives. 6. Act as Informal Intermediaries Secretariats may act as impartial, third parties or intermediaries in an informal capacity within the treaty system. For example, they act as bridge builders by persuading parties with differing or opposing points of view to sit at the same table to discuss policy problems. They also facilitate meetings and workshops. For example, CCAMLR secretariat officials have been asked to facilitate scientific workshops to assist parties in reconciling their disparate objectives in the development of fisheries
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and conservation management plans; and the Ramsar Bureau has facilitated meetings among the parties to assist them in developing joint management plans to deal with problems over transboundary wetlands.
Conclusion Secretariats provide an essential service to environmental treaties. The tasks that they perform are fundamental to the successful implementation of a treaty. Secretariats also appear to use their linchpin status, boundaryspanning activities, networks, and professional expertise to significant effect in overcoming organizational constraints of limited authority and resources. That they are trusted to provide policy guidance to the parties, to oversight compliance processes, and to act as impartial intermediaries to help ease difficult situations that arise during treaty implementation, is testament to a secretariat’s credibility and to the symbiotic relationship between the parties and their “servant.” The neglect of secretariats in studies of treaty implementation cannot be justified. Evidence from my research indicates that environmental treaty secretariats should be valued as treaty assets, not neglected as bureaucratic liabilities.
References Chayes, Abram, and Chayes, Antonia H. 1991. Compliance without enforcement: State behavior under regulatory treaties. Negotiation Journal 7(3):3 1l-330. Jacobson, Harold, and Brown Weiss, Edith. 1994. Improving Compliance with International Environmental Accords: A Preliminary Report, Washington, DC: ISA Conference. Jonsson, Christer. 1993. International organization and cooperation: An interorganizational perspective. International Science Journal (138). Mouritzen, Hans. 1990. The International Civil Service: A Study of Bureaucracy in International Organizations, Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth. Pitt, David, and Weiss, Thomas (eds). 1986. TheNatureof UnitedNations Bureaucracies, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Sandford, R.A. 1992. Secretariats and international environmental negotiations: Two new models, in International Environmental Treaty Making, L. Susskind, E. Dolin, and W. Breslin (eds). Cambridge, MA: Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School. Sandford R.A. 1994. International environmental treaty secretariats: Stagehands or actors?, in The Green Globe Yearbook 1994, Bergen, Norway: Fridtjof Nansen Institute. Sjostedt, Gunnar (ed). 1993. International Environmental Negotiation, Park, CA: Sage.
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Susskind, Lawrence, and Babbitt, Eileen. 1992. Overcoming the obstacles to effective mediation of international disputes, inMediation in InternationalRelations, Jacob Bercovitch and Jeffrey Rubin, (eds). London: Macmillan. Susskind, Lawrence. 1994. EnvironmentalDiplomacy, Press.
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