Science, Technology and International Collaboration, 1999

This survey was set up and completed as a collaboration project between scientists at The School of Marine Affairs, The University of Washington, Fridtjof Nansen Institute and the University of Oslo, Department of Political Science. The project arouse from a common interest in more precise knowledge about why some international regimes “succeed” while others “fail”. The study was based on two explanations. One of them seeks the answer in characteristics of the problem the regimes are going to solve. The other seeks the answer in characteristics of the institutions and systems that deals with the problem. The assumption here is that some institutions and systems have a greater capacity than others to solve particular types of problems. The study then attempted to specify each of these theses in a set of more precise hypotheses, and tested this against the empirical material. The database provides information about fourteen international regimes and variance in regime effectiveness. The regimes included dealt with the following list of issue-areas: Satellite telecommunication, nuclear non-proliferation, dumping of low-level radioactive waste at sea, ship-generated oil pollution, marine pollution in the Northeast Atlantic: Oslo Dumping Convention, Marine Pollution in the Northeast Atlantic: The Paris Convention, Marine Pollution in the Mediterranean: The Barcelona Convention, Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP), Stratospheric ozone depletion, international trade in endangered species (CITES), International Whaling (IWC), high seas salmon fisheries in the North Pacific (INPFC), Antarctic resources (CCAMLR) and South Pacific tuna fisheries (FFA).