Andrew Long (University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law) has posted Global Integrationist Multimodality on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This brief article explores the concept of “integrationist multimodality” – developed by Professor Tony Arnold in Fourth Generation Environmental Law: Integrationist and Multimodal, 35 W. & Mary Envtl. & Pol’y Rev. 771, 771 (2011), and the subject of the symposium for which this article was written – in the context of international and global environmental law. While Professor Arnold discussed the evolution of U.S. environmental law addressing complex problems toward greater use of multiple modes of regulation in integrated ways, this article shows that these features of U.S. environmental law have corollaries in international environmental law and, ultimately, reflect broad trends in global environmental law development (of which U.S. environmental law is an integral part). Acknowledging important distinctions between international environmental law global environmental governance, the article briefly traces the evolution of international environmental law aimed at addressing global problems to highlight the forces encouraging integrationist multimodality and provides evidence that this approach is an important feature of recent international environmental law innovations (such as REDD) and ways of understanding global environmental governance (such as the concept of “regime complexes”). Then, the article suggests that, following the significant failures of the unimodal and fragmented approach of the 1990s (embodied by top-down multilateral regimes such as the UNFCCC), the emergence of integrationist multimodality at multiple scales may signal the evolutionary maturation of environmental regulation to the point where it can begin to significantly affect the trajectory of massively complex global environmental challenges. Finally, the article offers some ways in which global integrationist multimodality can be encouraged, which will enhance the prospects of successfully addressing problems that have thus far appeared nearly intractable due to their enormous complexity.