Concept
An international environmental agreement or sometimes environmental protocol, is a type of treaty binding in international law, allowing them to reach an environmental goal. In other words, it is "an intergovernmental document intended as legally binding with a primary stated purpose of preventing or managing human impacts on natural resources." An agreement between two nations is known as a bilateral environmental agreement. If the agreement is made among three or more nations, it is called a multilateral environmental agreement (MEA). Such agreements, primarily produced by the United Nations, cover subjects such as atmospheric policies, freshwater policies, hazardous waste and substance policies, the marine environment, nature conservation policies, noise pollution and nuclear safety. The use of multilateral environment agreements began in 1857, when a German agreement regulated the flow of water from Lake Constance to Austria and Switzerland. International environmental protocols came to feature in environmental governance after trans-boundary environmental problems became widely perceived in the 1960s. Between 1857 and 2012, a total of 747 multilateral environmental agreements have been concluded. Following the Stockholm Intergovernmental Conference in 1972, creation of international environmental agreements proliferated. MEAs were popularized by the United Nations, the majority of MEAs have been implemented since the 1972 at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (also known as the Stockholm Conference). The Stockholm Declaration was adopted by all 113 countries in attendance at the conference, and was the first universal document of importance on an environmental issue. A complex networking system is needed for a functional MEA system. Levels of government within a nation may impede each other about climate change (for example) due to opposing views or parties, making implementation more difficult and impacting external relationships. Policies surrounding an MEA are determined by the participating countries.
