Over the past thirty years nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have played an increasingly influential role in international negotiations, particularly on environmental issues. NGO diplomacy has become, in the words of one organizer, an "international experiment in democratizing intergovernmental decision making." But there has been little attempt to determine the conditions under which NGOs make a difference in either the process or the outcome of international negotiations. This book presents an analytic framework for the systematic and comparative study of NGO diplomacy in international environmental negotiations. Chapters by experts on international environmental policy apply this framework to assess the effect of NGO diplomacy on specific negotiations on environmental and sustainability issues. The proposed analytical framework offers researchers the tools with which to assess whether and how NGO diplomats affect negotiation processes, outcomes, or both, and through comparative analysis the book identifies factors that explain variation in NGO influence, including coordination of strategy, degree of access, institutional overlap, and alliances with key states. The empirical chapters use the framework to evaluate the degree of NGO influence on such negotiations as the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations on global climate change, the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety, and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Contributors: Steinar Andresen, Michele M. Betsill, Stanley W/ Burgiel, Elisabeth Corell, David Humphreys, Tora Skodvin

Michele M. Betsill is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University.

Elisabeth Corell, the Wallenberg Fellow in Environment and Sustainability at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs from 2001 to 2006, is currently an independent scholar.

Steinar Andresen is a Senior Research Fellow at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Norway.

Michele M. Betsill is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University.

David Humphreys is Senior Lecturer in Environmental Policy at The OpenUniversity. He is author of Forest Politics: The Evolution of International Cooperation (1996) and was a “resource person” to the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. He co-edited (with Alan Thomas and Susan Carr) and contributed to Environmental Policies and NGO Influence: Land Degradation and Sustainable Resource Management in Sub-Saharan Africa (2001).

Michele M. Betsill is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University.

Michele M. Betsill is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Colorado State University.

Elisabeth Corell, the Wallenberg Fellow in Environment and Sustainability at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs from 2001 to 2006, is currently an independent scholar.

Elisabeth Corell, the Wallenberg Fellow in Environment and Sustainability at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs from 2001 to 2006, is currently an independent scholar.