The Accountability Gap in Multilateral Environmental Agreements: Challenges and Future Pathways

Abstract The institutional arrangements of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs), notably those organized around conferences of the parties, have given rise to increasingly powerful and autonomous actors in global environmental governance. The expanding authority of these actors has outpaced the development of robust accountability mechanisms, allowing decisions that exceed mandates or undermine other regimes, often without oversight or redress. This accountability gap poses a structural risk to the legitimacy and effectiveness of global environmental efforts. We examine two potential pathways for closing this gap: (i) the Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations, which offer a legal framework for institutional responsibility, and (ii) public accountability mechanisms that promote transparency, contestation, and learning. Each approach has limitations when applied in isolation, but their principles, if adapted to and developed for the specific institutional contexts of MEAs, could jointly inform a more coherent and layered framework of accountability. We propose institutional and policy reforms that link the legal recognition of institutional responsibilities under MEAs with embedded oversight and review mechanisms, laying the groundwork for more credible, responsive, and just global environmental governance.