ABSTRACT
The compliance systems of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) operate against a backdrop of North–South power imbalances, and the traditional diplomatic practices of international environmental law. In this chapter, I argue that adopting administrative procedures in MEA compliance systems is beneficial to (1) help to level the playing field for less powerful states by giving them greater voice in compliance deliberations, (2) facilitate the responsiveness of decision making to states’ diverse capacities and circumstances and (3) justify the imposition of potentially intrusive consequences for non-compliance. Such procedural safeguards are important to provide a counterbalance to asymmetric power relations between states.
