ABSTRACT
One objective of this chapter is to assess the special difficulties of dealing with risks that become agenda items in international negotiations on transboundary environmental issues. Environmental risks represent possible future ecological deterioration, including reduced health and safety for human beings. This is a neglected research area, although risk taking is a salient element of negotiation and bargaining theory. In this special context of risk management in negotiation, environmental risks as such are drivers of intergovernmental cooperation. But they are also associated with other types of risk pertaining to the construction of negotiated agreements to manage transboundary environmental problems. Such risks of ineffective abatement and implementation failure may affect the willingness of governments and other actors in international environmental negotiations to commit themselves to allocating scarce resources to cope jointly with an environmental issue. Like environmental risks addressed in a negotiation, risks associated with abatement and implementation may also appear as issues on the negotiating table; in other words, they may manifest as negotiated risks.
