The United Nations Environment Programme

That table is the answer to the standing examination question about why UNEP is weak.

What it has actually done

The record is much better than the structure suggests, and an answer should say so.

1. The Regional Seas Programme, launched 1974, now covering eighteen regions with conventions and action plans. The Mediterranean was the first.
2. The ozone regime. UNEP convened the negotiations and hosts the Ozone Secretariat. The Vienna Convention 1985 and the Montreal Protocol 1987 are its work.
3. Hazardous substances and waste. The Basel Convention 1989, the Rotterdam Convention 1998 jointly with the Food and Agriculture Organization, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants 2001 and the Minamata Convention 2013 were all negotiated under its auspices and it hosts their secretariats.
4. Biodiversity. The Convention on Biological Diversity 1992 was negotiated under UNEP's auspices, and UNEP hosts the secretariats of the Convention on Migratory Species and of CITES.
5. Guidelines and soft law. The Montevideo Programme for the Development and Periodic Review of Environmental Law, running since 1982, and a long series of guidelines on shared natural resources, land-based marine pollution and liability.
6. Assessment. The Global Environment Outlook reports, and the emissions gap reports that are cited in the climate negotiations.

Seven of the instruments MU examines in this paper came out of UNEP. That is the argument for its effectiveness.

The reform question

The Governing Council was replaced in 2012, at Rio+20, by the United Nations Environment Assembly, with universal membership of all United Nations Member States rather than a rotating council of fifty-eight. That was as far as the upgrade went.

The long-standing proposal, pressed particularly by France and by the European States, is to convert UNEP into a World Environment Organization, a specialized agency with its own treaty, assessed contributions and standard-setting powers. It has never been agreed. The objections are that a new agency would fragment rather than consolidate, that the treaty regimes already have their own institutions, and that some States prefer an institution that cannot bind them.

That debate is the right way to end an answer on international institutions, because it states the structural weakness and the reason it persists.

Worked example

A new chemical is found to travel long distances and to accumulate in the food chain. What can UNEP do?

• It cannot ban it. It has no legislative power.
• It can assess it. Its scientific panels and reports establish the facts.
• It can convene. It can call a negotiating conference, as it did for ozone, waste and mercury.
• It can service the treaty. It can host the secretariat and support the conference of the parties.
• It can pay for capacity. Through the Environment Fund and as an implementing agency of the Global Environment Facility.

Five functions, none of them regulatory, and between them they produced the Minamata Convention on Mercury in eight years from the first Governing Council decision.

Quick revision

• Created by General Assembly resolution 2997 (XXVII) of 15 December 1972, under Article 22 of the Charter. Headquarters at Nairobi.
• A subsidiary organ, not a specialized agency. Voluntary funding through the Environment Fund.
• Governing Council replaced by the United Nations Environment Assembly with universal membership, 2012.
• Its work: the Regional Seas Programme, ozone, Basel, Rotterdam, Stockholm, Minamata, biodiversity, the Montevideo Programme, the Global Environment Outlook.
• The World Environment Organization proposal has never been agreed.

Test yourself

1. What is the legal difference between UNEP and the World Health Organization, and why does it matter? UNEP is a subsidiary organ created by a General Assembly resolution under Article 22 of the Charter; the World Health Organization is a specialized agency with its own constitutive treaty, brought into relationship with the United Nations under Article 63. UNEP therefore has no member States, no assessed contributions and no power to adopt binding rules.

2. Name four treaties negotiated under UNEP's auspices. The Vienna Convention on the Ozone Layer 1985 with the Montreal Protocol 1987, the Basel Convention 1989, the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992, and the Minamata Convention on Mercury 2013.

3. What changed at Rio+20, and what did not? The Governing Council became the United Nations Environment Assembly with universal membership. UNEP was not upgraded to a specialized agency, and the World Environment Organization proposal remains unaccepted.