Compliance Scheme as a Dispute Prevention Mechanism in Multilateral Environmental Treaties

Global environmental issues require continuous monitoring, ongoing management, and the periodic recalibration of policies and responses. The recent trend in international environmental law is toward the use of non-adversarial conciliation and non-compliance mechanisms in addition to the right to go to arbitration and to international tribunals. By examining the mechanisms currently existing to enforce multilateral international environmental treaties this paper discusses a variety of considerations and consequences these compliance systems entail and presents several suggestions to enhance the current system.