Blog Post 1

               One of the biggest issues that unilateral organizations face is that of the population and nations. There are many recent examples of citizens being against a group that has the ability to make rules that all states must follow. The United Nations has always faced fierce opposition by the conservative American population. The World Trade Organization consistently deals with people who think they do not have Earth’s best interest at heart, but only care about making trade fair. In my opinion, many of those that oppose these unilateral organizations are only thinking about their effects in the short term. I believe that these organizations are important in our society, especially when it comes to the environment, and that we need to follow the laws they put in place and maybe even help them construct these laws.

               In the Conca book, we read a chapter about the ecology-sovereignty debate. A lot of the problems states had with these trans-national organizations was the unilateral laws that they created. Nation feel that their sovereignty is eroded when they have to abide by these laws. They believe they lose the right to govern themselves. The natural order between states is anarchic, there is no governing body between them. Due to this, states only look out for their best interests. This is very similar to the Sorcratic definition of human nature, in which there is only one thing man cares about—and that is survival. To me, acceptance of this barbaric definition of human nature is barbaric. If our nations follow the same suit there is no chance at a peaceful world.

               The Desombre and Barkin article, “Turtles and Trade” showed this Socratic nature between states, especially within the United States. The original law that the United States proposed may have seemed pro-environment, but there definitely seemed to be some underlying motivations besides just saving sea turtles. If the proposed law had passed, countries would have had to use technology that the United States produced in order to participate in the shrimp trade. This is unfair to countries who could not develop this specific technology because they were restricted from trade with the US, which gave an advantage to United States based shrimping companies. The environmental groups had a very hostile reaction to the rejection of the proposed American law. They thought that the World Trade Organization was being anti-environmental and held protests against them. Little did they know, the WTO had legitimate reasoning for rejecting this law. When the bill was eventually passed, with tweaks, there were no protests. It almost seemed as if the environmental NGO’s did not want to concede defeat to the WTO and instead chose to not give the new law any notice.  

               To me, the way the environmental NGO’s acted showed a lack of foresight when it comes to the environment. The WTO is focused on non-discriminatory trade which can lead countries to become more developed. Currently, many of the world’s developing nations are the biggest contributors to pollution and other environmental hazards. If these countries are negatively impacted by trade restrictions, then they do  not have the opportunity develop and will continue to be environmental hazards. So while the WTO does not explicitly favor environmental policy, it is inherent in their goal to have all of the world’s nation to be developed. Some environmental NGO’s, and sometimes environmentalism itself, can be anti-capitalism. This puts it at odds with the WTO as it promotes free trade between nations. However, if these NGO’s put more of their energy into working with these unilateral organizations then they can have more input on environmental issues on a global scale and be able to work healthily with different economic systems.