ABSTRACT
Ozone depletion is a clear example of, in the words of a former head of UNEP, “a global problem that requires global action”. 1 The revolutionary implications of the global ozone issue for international politics and diplomacy are by now well recognized. As one of the policy-makers in the 1980s put it:
Throughout most of the twentieth century, diplomats have concentrated on questions of political and economic relations among nation-states, the traditional subjects of diplomacy. In the period following World War II, other issues arose, spurred by the information revolution, the development needs of newly independent nations, and technical advances in nuclear energy and electronics. As the century closes, a third set of international problems—those relating to the health of the planet—is coming to the fore, presenting new challenges to diplomacy. These problems will test the ability of governments and their diplomats to organize themselves for new dimensions in foreign relations, and to negotiate agreements that require departures from the traditional nation-state orientations of diplomacy towards patterns of global management still to be developed. The threatened depletion of the Earth’s ozone layer is a prime example of such challenges. 2
