The Marketing of Environmental Treaties: Non-Binding Signature as Information and Raising Public Awareness

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that state executives may use their non-binding signature power to claim value from environmental treaties in the form of obtaining ego rents and in response to international pressures. This paper advances the literature by demonstrating how the attachment of signature also has the capacity to alter the dynamics of the ratification decision which follows it. Multilevel modeling on a dataset of 49 environmental treaties agreed between 1980 and 2000 is used to demonstrate that the state executive’s non-binding signature helps to overcome the information asymmetry regarding treaty design faced by the ratification actors and to politicize the treaty itself, making ratification more likely in wealthy states.

Keywords: Ratification, Environment, Signature, Multilevel Models, Treaties