An examination of whether accountability mechanisms in global
environmental governance that focus on monitoring and enforcement
necessarily lead to better governance and better environmental
outcomes.
The rapid development of global environmental governance has been
accompanied by questions of accountability. Efforts to address what has
been called "a culture of unaccountability" include greater
transparency, public justification for governance decisions, and the
establishment of monitoring and enforcement procedures. And yet, as this
volume shows, these can lead to an "accountability trap"--a focus on
accountability measures rather than improved environmental outcomes.
Through analyses and case studies, the contributors consider how
accountability is being used within global environmental governance and
if the proliferation of accountability tools enables governance to
better address global environmental deterioration. Examining public,
private, voluntary, and hybrid types of global environmental governance,
the volume shows that the different governance goals of the various
actors shape the accompanying accountability processes. These
goals--from serving constituents to reaping economic benefits--determine
to whom and for what the actors must account.
After laying out a theoretical framework for its analyses, the book
addresses governance in the key areas of climate change, biodiversity,
fisheries, and trade and global value chains. The contributors find that
normative biases shape accountability processes, and they explore the
potential of feedback mechanisms between institutions and accountability
rules for enabling better governance and better environmental outcomes.
**Contributors
**Graeme Auld, Harro van Asselt, Cristina Balboa, Lieke Brouwer,
Lorraine Elliott, Lars H. Gulbrandsen, Aarti Gupta, Teresa Kramarz,
Susan Park, Philipp Pattberg, William H. Schaedla, Hamish van der Ven,
Oscar Widerberg
