In 2004, Europe celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Convention on
Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP). This Convention was
evaluated as ‘paving the way for extensive and fruitful cooperation among up
to now 49 Parties in the region of the United Nations Economic Commission
for Europe (UNECE) to meet specific environmental targets’ (Dovland et al.,
2004, p. 1). In fact, it was not only the first international legally binding
instrument to tackle regional problems, but has also brought about tangible
results in reducing emissions and improving the atmospheric environment. All
parties to the Sulphur Protocol had achieved a 30% reduction, and all parties
together reduced their emissions by more than 50% (Sprinz and Vaahtoranta,
1994). Some critics point out, however, that this is not enough for actual
success as these numbers show in order to combat acid rain in this region
(Vaahtoranta, 1990).
Many studies have examined the great success of this convention and
tried to answer the question of why some states promote international regulations
vigorously whereas others do not. More specifically, there have been
many studies on why European countries have succeeded in forming regimes
to deal with transboundary air pollution problems despite the disputes
and political obstacles (see, e.g. Jackson, 1990; Levy, 1993; Sprinz and
Helm, 1999).
Northeast Asian countries have initiated regional environmental
cooperation in the early 1990s, which was comparably late (Nam, 2002). In
spite of some progress in the understanding of regional environmental problems,
there are still great limitations in promoting effective national and
regional responses due to various obstacles, such as the ‘heterogeneity of economic
and environmental conditions, a lack of scientific and political consensus
on regional environmental problems, and a deficiency of national capacities
necessary to comply with new rules of regional governance’ (Nam, 2002,
p. 168). Various studies have illustrated a regional agenda for collaboration on
environmental concerns in Northeast Asia (Hayes and Zarsky, 1993; Kim,
1998; Harris, 2002; Lee, 2002; Nam, 2002; Yoon, 2003) However, few studies
have examined intensively the specific reasons for the sparse degree of regional
environmental cooperation of Northeast Asia. Thus, this paper tries to answer
the question of why Northeast Asia does not have any environmental regime comparable to Europe’s that has been successful in dealing with regional air
pollution even though both regions seem to face a similar problem.
一些人对此次公约取得的成功进行了研究，并试图解释为什么一些国家积极拥护进行国际制约而另一些国家则反对。说得更具体点，许多研究致力于解释为什么欧洲国家之间即使存在分歧及政治上的障碍，在处理越界空气污染问题上依然取得成功。
亚洲东北部的一些国家在二十世纪九十年代初进行了区域环境合作，这相对欧洲来说算比较晚的了。即使在理解区域环境问题的前提下取得了一些进展，由于各方面的障碍，他们在推行有效地地方区域合作时依旧存在许多限制。例如：经济环境条件的差异性、在区域环境问题上缺少科学和政治上的共识以及地方能力不足，而这些能力是执行地方新制度所不可或缺的。关于亚洲东北部环境问题的合作，许多人经研究后都提出了区域议事日程。然而，很少有人致力于研究亚洲东北部环境合作不能实施的具体原因。因此，这篇文章试图回答这个问题：即使面临相似的问题，为什么亚洲东北部不具备欧洲那种曾成功解决地方空气污染的团体。
