Definitions

What are International Environmental Agreements ?

The IEADB defines an international environmental agreement (IEA) as an intergovernmental document intended to be legally binding with a primary stated purpose of preventing or managing human impacts on natural resources.

Defining "international"

Although "international" can have broader meanings, the IEADB narrowly defines international agreements as intergovernmental agreements. The IEADB includes only agreements to which two or more states have (or are allowed to) become parties. It excludes instruments between single governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), between single governments and international organizations, and between or among corporations, NGOs, or international organizations. For the purpose of this definition, the European Union is considered analogous to a state rather than an intergovernmental organization.

Defining "environmental"

The IEADB defines agreements as environmental if they seek, as one of their primary purposes, to manage or prevent human impacts on natural resources; plant and animal species (including in agriculture); the atmosphere; oceans; rivers; lakes; terrestrial habitats; and other elements of the natural world that provide ecosystem services (Daily 1997).

To identify the primary purposes of an agreement, we look at its title, preamble and first few articles. An agreement can be considered as environmental even if it does not explicitly state that environmental protection is one of its objectives, as long as it includes several commitments that clearly aim at protecting the environment.   

An agreement can have more than one primary purpose, including seemingly conflicting objectives. However, a secondary objective is not considered as a primary purpose. For example, merely acknowledging efforts to protect the environment is not an indication of a "primary purpose". Also, providing environmental exceptions to the main obligations of an agreement is not sufficient to consider that an agreement primarily aims at protecting the environment.

The definition intentionally errs in being too broad (assuming those with narrower definitions can more readily discard included agreements than identify excluded ones) while trying to avoid including agreements most scholars and practitioners would not classify as environmental.

Importantly, this definition does not consider the actual effect of a treaty. It might be the case that some IEAs included in the dataset have harmful consequences on environmental protection and other treaties not included in the IEADB positively contribute to environmental protection. A definition of IEAs based on their environmental effects would diverge significantly from common usage. It would also have the analytic drawback of requiring that agreement effects be identified before they can be categorized as environmental. If used literally, it would preclude analysis of why some environmental agreements fail (because those that have no environmental effects would be defined as not environmental). 

Agreements addressing human health; conflict; cultural preservation; trade; uses of oceans, lakes, and rivers; outer space, nuclear radiation, transportation, weather, labor, and similar issues are not included unless those agreements addressed environmental issues as a primary concern.

An agreement's "primary purpose" was operationalized by searching for terms corresponding to this conception in agreement titles, preambles, or articles specifically designating agreement goals [search terms delineated in various tables below].

Defining "agreements"

The IEADB considers any treaty, regardless of its designation, as an agreement. It includes agreements designated as conventions, accords, charters, understandings, acts, arrangements, protocols, and their non-English equivalents.

The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties' defines a treaty as "an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law" in which states express a "consent to be bound" [Articles 2(1)(a) and 11 through 17].

When the legally-binding nature of text is unclear, the IEADB considers reliable sources of opinion, such as a secretariat, UNEP, or published legal analysis. 

The IEADB provides a historical record of signed agreements. It is not limited to agreements in force, since it includes agreements that never entered into force and others that have been terminated. 

Amendments to agreements are considered as agreements for the purpose of the IEADB. 

The IEADB does not include action plans, agreed measures, codes of conduct, declarations, resolutions, and similar soft law instruments. It also excludes European Union directives because they are distinct in several important ways from other international agreements (Burns 2002; Burhenne and Jahnke 1993; Brown Weiss 1997).

inclusion

The variable "inclusion" in the dataset provides a three-letter code for each instrument listed. The first letter is either B (bilateral), M (multilateral), or O (others, such as transnational institutions). The second letter is either E (environmental), N (non-environmental), or U (uncertain). The third letter is either A (agreement) or N (non-agreement).

Key variables

Mitch-ID

Mitch IDs are unique identification numbers assigned to thousands of documents, including some that are excluded from the dataset because they do not fit the definition (to leave a trace for the reason of their exclusion). There is no particular order to the Mitch-ID. Related datasets use to the Mitch-IDs as a key to make these datasets interoperational with the IEADB. 

Bilateral (BEA) or multilateral (MEA) agreements

An agreement is considered as multilateral if it has three parties or more. 

Lineage 

A lineage is any set of legally-related agreements that are linked by the fact that they modify, replace, extend or otherwise constitute agreements that have a legal relationship to each other. The lineage concept is intended to help scholars and practitioners see the legal development of an issue area in ways that are not usually readily apparent. 

For example, the marine pollution (MARPOL) lineage includes the original 1954 OILPOL agreement; the 1962, 1969, and 1971 amendments to that agreement; the 1973 MARPOL agreement that replaced the 1954 agreement; the 1978 Protocol to the MARPOL agreement; and numerous amendments of the 1973/78 MARPOL agreement as well as several separate related conventions. 

The Sequence Number for a lineage is a numbering system devised to show the legal sequence of agreements, using the following conventions:

• Hundreds are used to designate agreements (e.g., 100.00 is the first agreement in a lineage, 200.00 is the second agreement in a lineage, 300.00 is the third agreement in a lineage).
• Units are used to designate protocols (e.g., 601.00 is the first protocol to the sixth agreement in a lineage, 307.00 is the seventh protocol to the third agreement in a lineage). 
• Decimals are used to designate amendments (e.g., 103.01 is the first amendment to the third protocol of the first agreement in a lineage, 205.04 is the fourth amendment to the fifth protocol of the second agreement in a lineage).

Subjects

Nature - general environmental protection

This category seek to capture agreements related to efforts to conserve, manage, preserve, and protect natural resources, natural systems, and wilderness or to foster sustainable development. Coding terms used for INCLUSION are:

Species

This category and subcategories seeks to capture all agreements aimed at protecting or managing human interactions with plant and animal species. It includes all agreements related to fish and fisheries management as well as all agreements related to agriculture (although not including commodity agreements). Coding terms used for INCLUSION are:

Pollution

This category and subcategories seeks to capture all agreements related to all forms of pollution, whether affecting air, land, oceans, or freshwater systems at regional or global scales. Coding terms used for INCLUSION are:

Habitat and oceans

These categories seek to capture agreements related to particular ecosystems, including the ocean. With respect to ocean protection, agreements related to ocean exploration and ocean science are also included. Coding terms used for INCLUSION are:

Freshwater resources

This category and subcategories seeks to capture agreements related to regulation of lakes and rivers. In most cases, agreements to protect freshwater resources are designated by the name of the relevant water body with little specificity in the title as to what environmental aspect is being protected. I have assumed the word "protection" of a river or lake involves environmental protection. In other cases, however, I have used the preamble in an attempt to distinguish environmental protection of freshwater resources from those agreements respecting rivers or lakes that only target navigation. Coding terms used for INCLUSION are:

Energy, nuclear issues, and conflict

This category and subcategories seeks to capture agreements that address energy production, including nuclear energy. Those related to nuclear weapon free zones; nuclear weapon testing; nuclear accidents; and radioactive waste are also included, although the numerous IAEA nuclear safeguard agreements. Agreements related to conflict are EXCLUDED as non-environmental with the exception of those related to bacteriological, chemical, and toxin weapons. Coding terms used for INCLUSION are identified here: