ABSTRACT
When resource depletion, the erosion of the ozone layer and the protection of biodiversity first emerged on the international agenda, the United States (US) was the staunchest supporter of international environmental cooperation. US administrations were consistently at the forefront in promoting agreements such as the 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, the 1972 World Heritage Convention, the 1973 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. By contrast, the European Economic Community (EEC) had not yet developed any explicit competences in the environmental policy domain, and many of its member states were recalcitrant participants in international environmental negotiations. By the end of the Cold War, however, the situation started to reverse. In the wake of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, the US began to display an increasing reluctance to commit to binding environmental agreements. The newly created European Union (EU), on the contrary, started to forcefully champion the development of international environmental governance, playing a leading role in securing the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol after US withdrawal and developing the most ambitious greenhouse gases (GHG) emission trading scheme worldwide.
