Debt‐for‐nature swaps and the limits to international cooperation on behalf of the environment

Abstract

One approach to international relations theory, exemplified by the writings of Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, is concerned with identifying those conditions most likely to generate co‐operation among states. Initially labelled the transnational actor approach, it recognises two factors as particularly conducive for expanding international co‐operation: the diffusion of science and technology and the existence of institutions ‐ particularly non‐governmental organisations (NGOs). The approach provides a critique of the classic realist school which asserts that states are likely to be constrained from co‐operation by the anarchic condition characteristic of international politics. This essay will show that international environmental regulation illustrates the classic problem inherent in forging collaborative policies in a world of sovereign states. However, through a discussion of the debt‐nature swaps that follows, evidence is presented to show that the processes identified by Keohane and Nye are indeed at work in international politics. Thus the innovation of debt‐nature swaps provides some means for overcoming one major political obstacle to international environmental regulation even though the impetus for the agreements has come largely from NGOs.