• Journal of Environmental Policy
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.31-54
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• 2004

This paper aims at analyzing the issues on how to improve UNEP's roles in international environmental governance context. Although UNEP has been presumed to play a leading role in addressing global environment problems, several problems (such as collective action problem, fragmentation, lack of authority and insufficient legitimacy) in its governance have led to losing its leadership to other entities such as the World Bank, OECD and CSD. While a position of changing UNEP's status to an independent international organization has not been developed enough, several efforts, which might not be sufficient to respond to the changing environment of international environmental governance, have been made to strengthen UNEP's roles in the short run. These include universal membership, strengthening the financing of UNEP, and issues concerning MEAs. Whether current efforts for enhancing UNEP's roles in international environmental governance will be successful or not, would rely on to what extent interested parties hold political wills for its reforms and how to draw a compromise on critical issues among those parties.