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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Science and Global Environmental Governance
- 3 Balancing Expertise: Critical Use and the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer
- 4 “Should We Be Voting on Science?”: Endosulfan and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
- 5 Getting the Science (Committee) Right: Knowledge and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification
- 6 Institutionalizing Norms of Global Science Advice
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Methods
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - Institutionalizing Norms of Global Science Advice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2019
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Tables
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Science and Global Environmental Governance
- 3 Balancing Expertise: Critical Use and the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete the Ozone Layer
- 4 “Should We Be Voting on Science?”: Endosulfan and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
- 5 Getting the Science (Committee) Right: Knowledge and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification
- 6 Institutionalizing Norms of Global Science Advice
- Epilogue
- Appendix: Methods
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
August 28, 2014. Auckland, New Zealand. About 200 participants, some representing universities, others national science academies and yet others government agencies, have gathered for a two-day conference on “Science Advice to Governments.” At center stage are the practitioners: chief science advisors to a government or members of a national, regional or global science advisory bodies. This event, held in advance of the General Assembly of the International Council for Science (ICSU), is also the launch of a broader initiative: establishing a network of science advisors. Indeed, as many presenters note over the course of the conference, the post of science advisor rarely comes with a guidebook and it does not necessarily build on skills covered in disciplinary degrees. As I listen to these conversations mostly informed from the provision of science advice in national or regional settings I wonder: how is science advice in these other settings being influenced by precedents set among the committees I study?
A hole in the ozone layer. Pesticides poisoning the Arctic. Degraded lands. The three science committees that are the central focus of this book have influenced, and been shaped by, the political realms they were established to advise. Had the Methyl Bromide Technical Options Committee not adjusted its practices, would it have spelled the end of the Montreal Protocol? What if members of the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) Review Committee had not overcome their fixation on consensus, and misgivings about voting? How much longer would the use of endosulfan have persisted? Without the institutional innovation that fostered greater engagement of the scientific community, would the Convention to Combat Desertification have been able to advance a concept like land degradation neutrality, or, moreover, take on a leadership role in its management?
Science committees continue to frame their work, and their membership, as disinterested and “insulated” from politics. Maintaining an air of legitimacy requires preserving the narrative that they, and their work, merely convey research findings, and the state parties are the ones doing the interpreting and decision making. But the global scale at which science committees operate brings inescapable political pressures.
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- Science Advice and Global Environmental GovernanceExpert Institutions and the Implementation of International Environmental Treaties, pp. 131 - 158Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2019