ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the roots, the structure, the work, and the effects of environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). It argues that they have collectively played an important role in influencing the nature of various international regimes—such as those dealing with trade and development—and have become important sources of pressure for international action on environmental management. The period since 1945 has seen an unprecedented growth in the activity of international organizations, a phenomenon that has forced people to rethink the way they try to understand global politics. Environmental NGOs were also active before, during, and after the convening of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The most fundamental division within the NGO community is the philosophical one that exists between groups based in the industrial countries of the North and those based in the emerging states of the South. Environmental NGOs also differ according to the means they use to achieve their objectives.
