Beyond Resource Wars

Scarcity, Environmental Degradation, and International Cooperation

Edited by Shlomi Dinar

Publication Year: 2011

An argument that resource scarcity and environmental degradation can provide an impetus for cooperation among countries.

Published by: The MIT Press

Contents
Search Inside This Book
Book Details

This book was the product of a workshop titled Refl ections on Resource Scarcity and Degradation: Confl ict, Cooperation, and the Environment, which took place at Florida International University (FIU) as part of the Ruth K. and Shepard Broad Educational Series. Inspired by the rich ...

Contributors

pdf icon Download PDF (61.4 KB)
pp. xi-xii

I. Introduction

1. Resource Scarcity and Environmental Degradation

pdf icon Download PDF (119.6 KB)
pp. 3-22

The relationship among resource scarcity, degradation, and confl ict has received a great deal of attention in both the international relations and environment and security literature. Both theoretical and empirical works have considered, either directly or indirectly, the environmental and ...

II. Scarcity and Degradation of Global Commons

2. Climate Change, Cooperation, and Resource Scarcity

pdf icon Download PDF (149.6 KB)
pp. 25-42

Climate change is certainly one of the most daunting environmental problems facing society because emissions come from all inhabited corners of the planet, the impacts affect the entire world, and the pollution is long lasting. The emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ...

3. Ozone Depletion

pdf icon Download PDF (95.3 KB)
pp. 43-58

International cooperation to protect the ozone layer is frequently seen as one of the hallmarks of successful international environmental cooperation. In response to potential future harm to a shared resource, states tried to limit their use of important industrial chemicals — before the ...

4. Biodiversity Protection in International Negotiations

pdf icon Download PDF (137.4 KB)
pp. 59-86

This chapter focuses on the issues of loss and scarcity related to biological diversity and the value of biodiversity. Biological diversity is a broad concept that includes the variability among all species and ecosystems as well as the diversity within species — the genetic diversity.¹ The loss of ...

III. Scarcity and Degradation in a Regional Context

5. Transboundary Cooperation to Address Acid Rain

pdf icon Download PDF (132.4 KB)
pp. 89-116

Acid rain is a serious challenge afflicting many parts of the world, including Europe, North America, and East Asia. Acid rain, the popular term used to describe the deposition of acidic compounds, can result in considerable ecological destruction and affect human health as well. It can ...

6. Conflict and Cooperation in the Mediterranean

pdf icon Download PDF (114.2 KB)
pp. 117-138

The Mediterranean region combines many challenges, both politically and environmentally. The Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP), designed for all riparian states, was instituted to enable the Mediterranean states to come together to address environmental concerns pertaining to the ...

IV. Scarcity and Degradation of Renewable and Nonrenewable Resources

7. Degradation and Cooperation on the High Seas

pdf icon Download PDF (117.2 KB)
pp. 141-164

High seas fisheries were once seen as essentially limitless resources. Fishing in the open ocean, thousands of miles from home, was hard and dangerous work, but the risks did not include stock depletion. Modern fishing technologies, however, have created a condition of scarcity on the ...

8. Conflict and Cooperation along International Rivers

pdf icon Download PDF (172.1 KB)
pp. 165-200

Predictions of water wars, such as the one above, continue to resonate today, largely in the popular media.² On a whole, scholars have distanced themselves from extreme predictions of water wars, yet ultimately have found themselves hypothesizing similar violent scenarios ( Homer-Dixon ...

9. Is Oil Worth Fighting For?

pdf icon Download PDF (167.3 KB)
pp. 201-238

At some point in the twenty-first century, the world will begin to run low on oil. Demand around the world is skyrocketing for the nonrenewable resource, far outpacing the growth of the supply, and most projections indicate that the pace will continue. While oil will not likely ever ...

10. Responses to Alternative Forms of Mineral Scarcity

pdf icon Download PDF (320.5 KB)
pp. 239-286

Humans have used mineral resources since prehistoric times. People with access to flint were more successful hunters. People who could build sturdy shelters were protected from the elements and potentially from enemies as well. Those with stores of precious metals had an advantage ...

V. Conclusion

11. Resource Scarcity and Environmental Degradation

pdf icon Download PDF (98.6 KB)
pp. 289-306

This volume has sought to investigate how resource scarcity and environmental degradation motivate interstate cooperation. As Paul Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch (2001 , 4) have commented, “ the environmental security field remains handicapped in its theoretical focus on only one

Index

pdf icon Download PDF (132.7 KB)
pp. 307-335