In times when multilateralism appears in retreat and environmental concerns are pushed aside for economic gains, the influence of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) is often considered minuscule. With their new book project, Henrik Selin and Noelle Selin bring a message of sober realism with a dash of hope to Vienna. Through a four-step analytical framework they show that evaluating the effectiveness of MEAs is a dynamic and political process, deeply shaped both by competing interests and science. During the Environmental Politics Research Group’s IPW Lecture the two professors from Boston University and MIT gave prescient insights into what makes an environmental agreement effective.
Written by Hristina Talkova
For Henrik Selin the story begins with his graduate studies in the 1990s and 2000s. This period saw the formulation and subsequent ratification of many environmental agreements. However, it does not offer a lot of empirical literature analyzing them. Now, over thirty years later, there is a wide array of environmental agreements which have different goals, parties and implementation methods and due to the longer time frame also a plethora of empirical research based on years of data collection. This makes comparative research and analysis much more salient.
What is in an effective international agreement?
The analytical framework proposed by Henrik and Noelle Selin, who have a background in social and natural sciences and address both fields, provides a comparative analysis of several international environmental agreements. They propose a four-stage model consisting of Agreement, Translation, Attribution, and Reformulation, considering institutional design and subject matter along the way.
Instead of focusing on scholarly assessments of effectiveness, they propose to look at how treaty parties themselves judge the effectiveness of each agreement. As Henrik Selin, who is the social scientist of the pair, noted, this might be counter-intuitive for natural scientists, but the process of indicator selection is all about “politics, politics, politics”!
The framework therefore aims to focus less on theory and more on the practice of parties when assessing effectiveness through collective evaluation mechanisms. While periodic reviews that evaluate how parties have achieved goals are often unique to each case, the proposed analytical framework is adaptable and able to offer comparative analyses.
Making the case – which agreements to look at
For their upcoming book, Henrik and Noelle Selin have focused on looking outside of climate treaties and more towards international agreements on specific substances such as mercury, pollutants and the “ozone case” of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons – synthetic compounds containing carbon, chlorine, and fluorine that were once widely used as refrigerants, aerosol propellants, and solvents). They apply their analytical framework to assess the effectiveness of each separate agreement, while also looking into the aims of member states – is it clear what they want to achieve? Is there an accountability mechanism to see whether states are “actually doing what needs to be done”?
They view the debate on ozone protection and the underlying international agreement (entered into force in 1985) to have the longest continuous evaluation timeframe among MEAs. Their preliminary research showcases member states learning from their own implementation mistakes over time. There also do not seem to exist deep political division, as possibly in other areas such as climate change. From a scientific perspective, recovering the ozone layer has been confirmed to work. However, while the involvement of technical and scientific expertise in the implementation processes is necessary for member states to understand the options they have, the framework does not address the opinions of scientists on the effectiveness of agreements.
The focus of this lecture was on analyzing the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). Noelle Selin, an atmospheric chemist by training, explains that POPs remain in the ecosystem for long enough to affect states on the global scale, e.g. a chemical used in Morocco can be detected with a polar bear in Greenland. This is why the Stockholm Convention focuses on the full life cycle that can have global effects, while locally used pesticides are tackled via national measures. It is important to note that states often have to negotiate a specific framework for the effectiveness evaluation, which also brings in separate challenges such as agreeing on the concrete measures on implementation, the timeline for reporting and the capacity-building required.
Within their framework, Henrik and Noelle Selin come to the preliminary comparative conclusion that effectiveness evaluations help improve international governance. In the case of the Stockholm Convention on POPs, the Conference of the Parties has met consistently during the past 15 years and has amended the international agreement nine times in total. Starting from an original 12 POPs (“dirty dozen”), 24 new chemicals have been discussed and added to the framework of the Convention. While politically controversial discussions inevitably delay the inclusion of some chemicals over others, there has been much positive to note from the presented analysis.
What can international agreements do better?
International agreements can be criticized through many lenses: agreeing on concrete measures of implementation often takes longer than necessary, financial and administrative issues arise, adequate inclusion of non-governmental voices is often insufficient. However, there is (still) no better opportunity than an international agreement to make states align on how to solve a specific problem while being on an equal footing around the negotiating table.
The Paris Agreement on climate change presents an interesting case: with ambitious targets in force since 2015, some are labelling it as insufficient and inefficient. Still CO2 emissions can also be an example why even limited action is better than no action: they are not going down as much as states intended, but with no international agreement and coordinated action, they could have gone up more: is that a success?
It is therefore even more important to conduct processes such as the global stock take (which is currently ongoing for both the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity), aiming to check whether states are on the right track to meet their goals. A global stock take may look at “are we collectively on track” for our goal but is not intended as a finger pointing exercise for individual shortcomings. Therefore, an international agreement always only serves as part of the solution, never solely the solution – if things don’t move forward on the national level, it is difficult to ultimately solve the problem.
If the aim of an agreement is the phasing out of a certain chemical, but also technology transfer, capacity building, financial assistance for implementation, achieving all but the first goal, why should the agreement be considered ineffective? Goals surely differ between all international agreements, but this is part of what this analytical framework analyzes: the insider’s perspective on the workings of treaties, and how that might make a difference to further understanding the subject.
Most importantly, effectiveness evaluations often have no meaning if they are not conducted on a rolling basis, considering lessons learned across the way. Furthermore, more indicators do not always mean better implementation: in the case of the Stockholm convention on POPs, some indicators were adapted or merged in the rolling process of effectiveness evaluation. Additionally, availability and use of data are relevant for this aspect, as it is difficult to assess how effective implementation is if there is not enough monitoring data.
Ultimately, effectiveness evaluation cannot help if countries are not aligned on their goals, but it can help to keep countries on track and make them learn along the way.
A cloudy future with a chance of improvement?
The US has in the past been a driving force for open data, verification, and transparency, through maintaining a variety of global data sources, satellite infrastructure, and modelling capacities. The political turnover under the current administration puts these infrastructures under pressure and has already resulted in a loss of access for scientists and civil society. It therefore also has negatively impacted evaluations by the global community, which will have to find new ways of producing reliable and accessible data.
It is therefore easy to slide back into a cynical mindset of saying that ‘treaties don’t work’ or that international law is toothless and unresponsive, however what would happen if the United Nations was abolished? There is no alternative global organization which can serve as an international forum for the realm of multilateral negotiations where every state actor has an equal voice. Thus, there is not yet a better way for the global community to collectively determine what their desired trajectory is.
Lively discussion with students and practitioners
Following the presentation, moderated by Prof. Alice Vadrot, with Prof. Patrick Müller as a discussant, the exchange with the audience focused on different aspects. Questions referred to the role of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) as a technical cooperation project, but also as a funding mechanism with limited capacity; to what extent the effectiveness evaluations change the institutions in which they are part of; the role of data and monitoring infrastructure; cooperation initiatives surrounding the new treaty of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ); the newly adopted monitoring framework for the GBF as part of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The lecture took place on 20.November 2025 between 5 and 7:30 pm at the Institut für Politikwissenschaft. An audio recording of the lecture can be found here: https://youtu.be/csJvXtGjn5E?si=cFZMH7IgdVQRay32
Upcoming events:
The Environmental Politics Research Group is organizing a workshop on “Discursive and Epistemic Selectivity in Global Environmental Negotiations” with Prof. Colin Hay (Sciences Po) on 23. January 2026. If you are interested in participating, please see here for the application requirements (deadline 15.December 2025): https://envpol.univie.ac.at/workshop-with-colin-hay/
Additional reading:
Selin, H., Keane, S.E., Wang, S. et al. (2018). Linking science and policy to support the implementation of the Minamata Convention on Mercury. Ambio 47, 198–215 https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-017-1003-x
Selin, H. and Selin, N. E. (2020). Mercury Stories: Understanding Sustainability through a Volatile Element, MIT Press (For more information and sample chapters see https://www.mercurystories.org/)
The new book mentioned above is expected to be available in 2027 from the publisher MIT Press.
Further links:
https://politikwissenschaft.univie.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/mueller/
