Transparency in Global Environmental Governance: Critical Perspectives

5 Global Pesticide Governance by Disclosure: Prior Informed Consent and the Rotterdam Convention

5 Global Pesticide Governance by Disclosure: Prior Informed Consent and the Rotterdam Convention Kees Jansen and Milou Dubois Accounts of human suffering and environmental contamination in developing countries because of pesticide use often propose closing the knowledge gap between industrialized (pesticide-exporting) countries and developing (pesticide-importing) countries as a solution (Hough 1998). In such narratives, improved provision of information on pesticide risks and pesticide trade will enable developing countries to design and implement appropriate measures to control pesticide risks. This is the basic premise underlying the major global governance framework that addresses global pesticide flows, the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (hereinafter “the convention”). Transparency, in the form of governance by disclosure through prior informed consent (PIC), is the key pillar of the emerging global system of pesticide regulation. The PIC procedure stipulates that industry in exporting countries is allowed only to export listed chemicals after receiving consent of the importing country . The Rotterdam Convention calls for the sharing of information between states about hazardous chemicals entering international trade and about the regulatory actions taken in participating countries (Rotterdam Convention 2008). A basic concern of the convention is the differential capacity of countries to assess and manage potential risks posed by hazardous chemicals and pesticides (pesticides, the focus of this chapter, form the largest group of chemicals dealt with in the convention). In particular, the convention intends to support developing countries to make sound regulatory decisions. Transparency, the opposite of secrecy, means deliberately revealing one’s actions instead of hiding them (Florini 1998) and has, in this sense, a positive connotation. Recent research, however, has questioned the transparency turn in environmental governance and commented on the 108 Kees Jansen and Milou Dubois overvaluation of what transparency can achieve (Etzioni 2010). Scholars of transparency policies no longer assume a priori that the mechanism of transparency necessarily leads to accountable, legitimate, inclusive, and effective governance (Fung et al. 2007; Gupta 2008, 2010b). The debate has focused on two assumptions that underlie transparency initiatives (Gupta 2008). First, instead of mandating outcomes, priority is given to the establishment of procedures, which are seen as progressive, potentially emancipatory, and opening up the possibility for decision making by the participants themselves. The second assumption is that governance by disclosure can empower through the provision of information. Gupta questions these assumptions, arguing that because of different values behind its provision and interpretation, information itself is subject to conflict . In this critical theoretical reading, information about, for example, pesticide risks cannot be seen as a neutral force that will solve normative or political conflicts. Nor will access to information necessarily change power relations and improve the position of developing countries. Instead , contextual power relationships shape the effects of transparency. For example, transparency may increase inequality when poor nations cannot fulfill their transparency requirements or when recipients (in our case governments) are not able to understand disclosed information (Mol 2010). The perils of an undue emphasis on process in governance by disclosure include that “getting the process right” may divert resources from substantive outcomes, that procedures are left vague and open, and that those with power may undermine desired objectives by providing so much information that receiving parties are not able to process it (“drowning in disclosure,” Gupta 2008, 4). This chapter addresses some of the key questions raised by critical transparency studies for the Rotterdam Convention: we explore the extent to which the convention informs, empowers, and/or improves environmental performance or helps mitigate risk (Gupta 2010b). We will contextualize the convention by discussing Gupta and Mason’s argument (this book, chapter 1) that the uptake of transparency is driven by democratization (responding to calls for open and more inclusive forms of collective choice) and marketization (the use of market-based and voluntary transparency in order to minimize market-restricting effects). Here, we will argue that without these drivers, the convention would not exist in its current form, but that other aspects, in particular the nature (or materiality ) of the pesticide issue and classical notions of sovereignty, have also had a key impact and cannot be sidelined theoretically as secondary factors. Global Pesticide Governance by Disclosure 109 In developing our argument, we adapt Tyfield’s characterization of different approaches to science policy, which also play a role in the formulation of risk management strategies (Tyfield 2012). First, a techno-statist Keynesian governance approach...