INSTITUTIONS AND ECONOMIC INSTRUMENTS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADMINISTRATION:

THE INTERNATIONAL REGIME FOR TROPICAL FORESTS

Abstract

The growing concern with environmental protection and the multiplication of international congresses and agreements in the area have been a significant feature in international politics since the late 1980s. In the case of tropical forests, despite the lack of formal legal institutions, there are several economic and legal instruments that together form a kind of informal international regime. The study considers, first, how the international trade system, represented by the gatt/World Trade Organization, has been dealing with the issue of environmental protection, as well as its efforts to deal with business environmentally. Secondly, it examines the insertion of the issue of forests in the international political economy, in particular in the agreements and implications of trade and negotiations in forest products, as well as the attempts to restructure both the problems of finance and the international debts of the less aggressive to the environment. Then, the responses at the level of the international legal system, the respective instruments developed in the unced and their results are reviewed. The study concludes with an assessment of the forest regime that emphasizes its shortcomings and problematic character.