Includes bibliographical references (p. 325-357) and index.

Putting the cart before the horse : neoliberalism, interests and norms -- The gentle art of persuasion : constructivism and norms -- Frozen in time : minerals and the campaign to preserve Antarctica -- The International Whaling Commission and the elusive great white whale of preservationism -- Let's be careful, it's a jungle out there : the International Tropical Timber Organization and sustainable forestry.

Gerry Nagtzaam contends that in recent decades neoliberal institutionalist scholarship on global environmental regimes has burgeoned, as has constructivist scholarship on the key role played by norms in international politics. In this innovative volume, the author sets these interest- and norm-based approaches against each other in order to test their ability to illustrate why and how different environmental norms take hold in some regimes and not others.