Country differentiation in the global environmental context: Who is ‘developing’ and according to what?

Abstract

Several multilateral treaties and International Governmental Organizations have introduced different legal obligations for countries based on the developing/developed (or equivalent) dichotomy. Such differentiation can (re)produce a range of material and symbolic consequences for those labelled developing or developed. Much has been researched about this topic in the environmental regime yet an important gap remains: what does this differentiation look like empirically? This article answers this question through a qualitative analysis that compares about two dozen multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) on (1) how they specify what makes a country be developing (or not) and (2) the result of this choice, that is, exactly which countries are labelled developing under each MEA. The research reveals at least four important points: (1) the absence of any converging approach to classifying countries in the global environmental context; (2) almost 1 out of 4 countries in the world have mixed classification (developing or developed depending on the MEA); (3) ‘switching’ groups is relatively infrequent, but can be both moving to or away from the developing label; and (4) most countries with mixed classifications appear to be comfortable in the situation. This research contributes to a finer-grained understanding of differentiation in global environmental governance.