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This dissertation examines four still unanswered questions. What factors impede effective international environmental cooperation both in general and in protecting stratospheric ozone? Do existing theories of regime creation and change adequately explain the ozone regime's development? Does an alternative framework provide a more accurate explanation? How can we begin a more systematic examination of the ozone regime's impact on the practice of international environmental governance?
In the first section, I find that environmental issues possess inherent characteristics which make effective cooperation difficult. I also find that ozone protection politics contains notable example of these difficulties.
In the second section, I delineate the predictions of existing regime theory for the ozone regime and compare these predictions to practice. I find that despite offering several insights, existing approaches are contradicted by important facts of this case and largely ignore causal factors central to the regime's development.
The third section examines an alternative framework that focuses on three sets of causal factors: expanding scientific knowledge; changing economic interests; and negotiation and regime structure. I find that these factors played primary roles in shaping regime options and structuring actors toward particular outcomes and offer a better explanation of the ozone regime's development than existing theory.
In the fourth section, I begin a more systematic examination of claims for the ozone regime's precedence for the climate negotiations. I propose that breaking down the relevant definitions of precedence allows us to focus on several key questions. I then argue that by examining the principle characteristics of each issue--the obstacles to cooperation, the structure of the regimes, and the causal factors examined in section three--it becomes a simple process to analyze key points of precedence, why climate negotiations present more difficult problems, and what types of strategies could be effective in the future.