ABSTRACT
Global environmental problems constitute a riddle for the international community to solve. Deeply entwined in the process of trying to understand the nature of the problem and finding an effective response strategy is the need to coordinate action between states. Establishing international environmental treaties is a way of coordinating and promoting action. Ideally, these agreements solve the problem of cooperative action in transboundary environmental problems and find a way to manage shared resources effectively. Verification 1 (including all monitoring, reporting and review processes) and compliance procedures (which are intrinsically linked to the verification system) perform certain crucial functions in the formation and implementation of international environmental treaties:
enhancing cooperation between states, by demonstrating each state’s level of effort and by deterring free-riding; 2
measuring and promoting overall and individual state’s progress towards a treaty’s goals.
