International Environmental Institutions

The international institutional framework concerning the environmental dimension of sustainable development is characterized by the proliferation of legal instruments and institutions that generate broad global environmental governance. Studies have shown that this circumstance has fostered the configuration of a fragmented management with little coordination among the multiple international institutions that operate within the multilateral environmental system. Despite this growth in environmental institutions, the worrying loss of biological diversity, the degradation of ecosystems, the effects of climate change and persistent poverty have raised doubts about their efficiency. This environmental institutional reality stimulated a political and academic debate at the international level that led to a reform process whose primary intention was to strengthen coordination among the main multilateral entities with a view to ensuring greater efficiency in the fulfillment of their legal and operational mandates.