ABSTRACT
Global environmental norms can be defined as changes made and constraints accepted in the behaviour, habits and practices of human actors—states, firms, individuals or others—as a result of beliefs as to the disadvantages that would otherwise follow for the (global) environment. We can think of such norms as commodities—abstract, invisible commodities like insurance. The likelihood of a given norm arising—being ‘produced’—will, as with other commodities, depend on the interaction of supply and demand. The demand side is concerned with such questions as: what environmental consequences are we threatened with, and what changes or constraints are needed to avert them, either wholly or to any specified degree? And on the supply side, we ask: how are such norms generated —in other words, what circumstances, arrangements, etc., are conducive to the adoption, worldwide, of such behavioural restraints? This chapter concentrates on the analysis of the ‘supply side’.
