ABSTRACT
Almost all international environmental treaties foresee a secretariat to fulfill fundamental administrative and some executive functions in implementing the agreement. While some like the Secretariat of the Agreement on the Conservation of the Populations of European Bats have only a few staff members, others employ hundreds of international civil servants, such as the secretariat of the climate change regime. Different approaches argue about the actual influence of treaty secretariats. The biodiversity secretariat enjoys a reputation among parties and is trusted as a credible and balanced facilitator of international cooperation. The biodiversity secretariat helps to organize the negotiations rather inclusively and thereby facilitates the implementation of the convention. In the case of the biodiversity secretariat, its organizational and conceptual expertise constitutes an important source of influence that has earned it the reputation of a trusted provider of information and knowledge at large.
