ABSTRACT
Regional organizations can be a forum for environmental policy and an actor in global environmental politics. First, organizations such as the EU or to a lesser extent also ASEAN have harmonized environmental policies or practices of their member states. Whereas environmental cooperation in a regional organization such as ASEAN is characterized by non-binding agreements, non-interference in domestic politics of its member states, and project-based cooperation (Elliott 2012), the EU has adopted a broad range of legally binding environmental policies with a deep impact on the policy autonomy of its member states. Having adopted hundreds of pieces of environmental legislation, it has the strongest and most comprehensive regional environmental regulatory framework in the world, covering almost all environmental issues, including chemicals, biodiversity, waste, noise, and climate change ( Jordan and Adelle 2013). Whereas EU environmental policy has for a long time been characterized by a top-down regulatory approach, yet also with implementation problems in the member states, an evolution towards more freedom for the member states and towards softer instruments of environmental governance can be gradually observed.
