International Environmental Agreements: Effective or Not?

Kira Boegeman
Dr. Michael Rudy, Faculty Mentor

This study investigates whether the number of United Nations-backed international environmental agreements (IEAs) ratified by a country has a significant effect on reducing pollution levels. This research applies a multivariate linear regression model to a systematic random sample of 59 countries and controls for regime type, state capacity, GDP per capita, urbanization, and dependence on pollution-intensive industries, which accounts for 79.6% of the variance in environmental quality. It finds that as participation in UN-backed IEAs increases, environmental quality increases at a statistically significant (p < 0.05) level. This finding addresses a gap in the existing literature, which focuses on individual agreement design rather than whether there is a compounding effect of participation that increases environmental quality. This research suggests that states should continue to ratify UN-backed multilateral international environmental agreements to further improve environmental conditions worldwide.

Keywords: International Environmental Agreements, Multilateral agreements, International cooperation, United Nations, Pollution, Environmental quality, Quantitative methods, Tragedy of the Commons

Topic(s):Political Science
Environmental Studies

Presentation Type: Oral Presentation

Session: TBA
Location: TBA
Time: TBA