ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the case for redesigning international institutions to better respond to environmental conflict. It proposes a modification of the UN system that would strengthen environmental interests. There are three weighty justifications for building new international environmentally-oriented institutions. The first is quite clear. Without the dedicated and systematic coordination of regional and national environmental protection and restoration activities people face the very real threat of global environmental disaster. There is then a second justification for supranational environmental institutions. This is that people have to avoid the danger of possible severe political, racial or military tensions between different regions, states, or even blocks of countries which could have their roots in environmental degradation: trans-regional and trans-boundary air pollution; dirty rivers poisoning distant seas; and so on. The third justification for international and global environmental institutions is, however, maybe the most important.
