How states retain control: Delegation in international environmental law
States often delegate authority over responses to environmental problems to international organizations — but there is variation in when and how that delegation is done. In the current issue of Governance, Jessica F. Green and Jeff Colgan explain that states “make this decision with care.” Then tend to delegate functions with lower sovereignty costs (such as monitoring rather than rulemaking) and are more likely to delegate when policy preferences among states are heterogeneous. “States remain firmly in control,” Green and Colgan conclude, “deciding how they will permit other actors to help them govern and delegating authority only in those instances.” Read the article.
