Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet (review)

BOOK REVIEWS. Elliot A. Posner, editor Benedick, Richard Elliot, Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet ................................ 168 Bland, Douglas L., The Military Committee of the North Atlantic Alliance: A Study of Structure and Strategy .......................... 170 Jordan, Robert S., Alliance Strategy and Navies: The Evolution and Scope ofNATO's Maritime Dimension ......... 170 Calingaert, Daniel, Soviet Nuclear Policy Under Gorbachev: A Policy ofDisarmament ................................. 172 Chomsky, Noam, Deterring Democracy .......................... 173 Clifford, Clark with Richard Holbrooke, Counsel to the President: A Memoir ............................................. 174 Gleijeses, Piero, Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954 ........................... 176 Goodman, Melvin A., Gorbachev's Retreat—The Third World .......... 178 Kanet, Roger E. and Edward A. Kolodziej, eds., The Cold War as Cooperation .............................. 180 Langley, Lester D., Mexico and the United States: The Fragile Relationship ................................. 182 Lowenthal, Abraham F., ed., Exporting Democracy: The United States and Latin America ...................................... 184 Stein, Arthur A., Why Nations Cooperate: Circumstance and Choice in International Relations ................................. 186 167 168 SAISREVIEW Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet. By Richard Elliot Benedick. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. 211 pp. $10.95/ Paperback. Reviewed by Alexander Wood, MA. Candidate, SAIS. In 1974, two articles appeared in scientific reviews describing the chemical interplay occurring in the stratospheric ozone layer between ozone molecules and atoms ofchlorine. The chlorine, borne into the stratosphere in compounds known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), were breaking down the ozone particles. Although there was no evidence at that point of serious and lasting damage to the layer, it was feared that any deterioration of the ozone, which shields the Earth from excessive levels of biologically active ultraviolet (UV) radiation, could have serious consequences on human, animal and plant health. It was especially ironic that the damage being inflicted to the ozone was directly attributable to the CFCs, which had long been considered the sweetheart of the chemical industry . Indeed, the quality which had made CFCs so popular, their stability, was now in large part the root of the problem. A compound as stable as CFCs, instead of breaking down or being rained out in the lower levels of the atmosphere , would only break down when exposed to the solar radiation ofthe upper stratosphere, where their effect would be most marked. These initial articles gave rise to a considerable body of scientific evidence, including the first in a series of influential National Academy of Sciences reports in 1976, and eventually to the banning ofthe use of CFCs in nonessential aerosols in the United States, Canada and the Nordic countries. Despite these scientific findings, however, there was considerable delay in obtaining any kind of international action. But by the early 1980s, a growing international consensus, fueled by incontrovertible scientific evidence, initiated negotiations that eventually resulted in the Montreal Protocol on Ozone Depleting Substances of September 1987. The story ofthose tortuous and difficult negotiations is told in Richard Elliot Benedick's Ozone Diplomacy: New Directions in Safeguarding the Planet. Benedick, the chief U.S. negotiator for the Montreal Protocol, the framework Vienna Convention that preceded them, and the London Revisions that completed the cycle in June 1990, recounts how opposition to regulated CFC (and eventually halons and other harmful compounds) consumption (from the developing world) and production (from the European Community) was overcome through a combination of forceful American leadership and growing irrefutable scientific evidence. Benedick's account does suffer, as most firsthand accounts invariably do, from a certain lack of objectivity, especially in the repeated descriptions of the "unique . . . unprecedented . . . and unparalleled" cooperation and goodwill demonstrated throughout the negotiation process. The trouble with all ofthis is that Benedick becomes a cheerleader for a process that, by his own admission, is far from perfect. As a result, the reader is often left with the impression that an apology is being offered instead of a reasoned explanation. Benedick's position gave him the advantage of being privy to some of the more interesting behindthe -scenes negotiations, which he recounts in some detail and which add an BOOK REVIEWS 169 interesting dimension to the story. In his conclusions, however, Benedick demonstrates a certain lack of imagination that robs the book ofwhat might have been its most important contribution to the process. In the final chapter...