This Policy Brief focuses on three issues that are especially important in the long-term development of the climate regime: (a) the challenge of the fragmentation of negotiations and governance systems; (b) the challenge of steering and evaluating novel types of privatised and market-based...

Die aktuelle Debatte um das Anthropozän wird bislang von den Naturwissenschaften dominiert. Dies führt zu einer verkürzten Analyse von Naturzerstörungen und der zugrundliegenden Veränderungen der Mensch-Umwelt-Beziehungen. In diesem Kommentar fordern wir die Politikwissenschaft auf, sich an...

Over the past 20 years, world politics has become increasingly complex due to a proliferation of institutions, actors, norms, and discourses in global affairs. Lacking overarching organization and hierarchy, governance architectures, i.e. the “overarching system of public and private...

Multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development – institutionalized transboundary interactions between public and private actors aiming at the provision of collective goods – are a central element of contemporary sustainability governance, in particularly since the 2002...

As the issue of fragmentation of global environmental governance moved to the centre of debate on governance performance and effectiveness in addressing environmental problems, it attracted scholars from both international law and political science. Each of the disciplines have provided a set of...

This paper addresses German energy policy instruments and their compatibility with WTO rules. Germany and the EU are forerunners in international climate change policy and driving forces behind the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. German energy policy includes approaches to foster electricity generation...

Global environmental policy certainly could gain strength if the management of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) or of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) were made more efficient. However, such a minimalist strategy of efficiency improvement is no panacea: it can...

With the onset of the new millennium, the longstanding need for reform of the United Nations system has gained new momentum. Efficiency gains and better coordination are desirable, though not sufficient to bring about improvement in international relations. It could therefore make sense to look...