ABSTRACT
The distribution of values that arise from an institution can impact the willingness of states or social actors to obey international rules. Conflict about the equitable character of distributional consequences has become widespread in international institutions.1 Industrialized countries were confronted with demands to support the special needs of developing countries or countries with economies in transition to implement policies of environmental regimes, but the character of distributional consequences has also been raised as an issue in relations among industrialized countries. The debate over distributional consequences was not constrained to the level of the international state system. Global governance systems faced also the challenge to justify their distributional outcomes vis-à-vis social groups such like consumers, car drivers, wood cutters in tropical forests, workers, trade unions, industrial firms or environmental NGOs.
