Political Aspects of the Management of International Environmental Conflicts

An environmental conflict (including an international one) can be defined as the interaction of two or more parties who perceive their goals for changing (or preserving) the state of the natural environment (life support systems-ecosystems) as incompatible. Specific characteristics that make international environmental conflicts more difficult to manage include the presence of a large number of parties and participants; a large number of issues; the inability to quantify costs/damage; and the potential irreversibility of negative conflict outcomes; the conflict goes beyond one jurisdiction; the implementation of the agreements reached depends on governmental bodies. The possibility of developing solutions outside of formal legal procedures seems to be an advantage of most alternative methods of resolving (out-of-court settlement) disputes, including the resolution of environmental conflicts. Environmental conflicts and disputes can involve a wide range of public policy issues, so it is important in some cases to expand existing environmental knowledge in order to achieve the long-term goals of society. International public participation, “public diplomacy”, consideration of cross-cultural factors and other circumstances contribute to extrajudicial decisions that may require concerted action by international, national, regional and local authorities in order to be implemented. In order for mediation to be successfully used to resolve international environmental conflicts, a number of conditions are required: one or more parties must be aware of the problem; a willing, competent and trustworthy mediator is required; the parties to the dispute must have approximately equal powers and capabilities; each potential participant in mediation must recognize others as legitimate and equal participants; none of the interested parties should be excluded from the negotiation process; the results of mediation should be tangible and have a significant effect. The most important condition for successful mediation is the presence of a “zone of compromise”, that is, solutions that the parties will prefer to no agreement. The article concludes that the main features of mediation as an institution for resolving crossborder and international environmental conflicts that occur between parties belonging to different cultures and socio-economic structures are its flexibility and informal nature; voluntary participation of the parties and the choice of a mediator; equality of the parties in the negotiation process; confidentiality of the mediation process; and neutrality (impartiality) of the mediator. Mediation allows taking into account cross-cultural differences through direct communication.

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