Environmental Cooperation as an Instrument of Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding: Conditions for Success and Constraints
Publisher: Alexander Carius
Date: 2007
Topics: Conflict Prevention, Cooperation
Since the beginning of this decade, the warnings of high ranking government officials and representatives of international organizations about future water wars and environmental refugees, have been slowing giving way to the growing hope that environmental cooperation will promote stability and peace between conflicting parties. Thus, transboundary cooperation for environmental conservation (Peace Parks), international river basin management, regional marine agreements and joint environmental monitoring programmes can enhance cooperation between communities or countries. The more such initiatives exist and the more momentum they gain, the more they will help communities resolve conflicts in a constructive and consequently non-violent manner. Surprisingly, there is still relatively scant information on what form transboundary initiatives for environmental cooperation could take, and the conditions under which these could best contribute to conflict prevention, conflict transformation and peacebuilding. Little is known about the constraints they would be subject to, and under what conditions environmental cooperation can develop into broader forms of political cooperation and generate a social and political dialogue going beyond environmental issues. There is insufficient empirical evidence so far to substantiate either the theory of environmental wars or environmental peacebuilding.