Improving international policy-making in the absence of treaty regimes: the international forestry, migration and water policy cases

Distinguishing between international regime features and national implementation problems affecting policy effectiveness in many areas of international policy-making is an area of increasing concern to practitioners and academics alike. While many observers have traced problems with existing global governance architectures to deal with contemporary problems to the lack of appropriate treaties at the international level, recent work on regime fragmentation and the interplay between regimes suggests that a lack of a central and integrated international regime may be overcome through improved multi-level governance efforts. Much can be learned in this area from sectoral experiences in areas such as water and forestry as well as non-resource areas such as migration where such strong regimes have failed to develop.