Case for Global Environmental Organization

This essay will critique Daniel Esty's chapter, "The Case for a Global Environmental Organization" in Managing the World Economy. The first part of the essay will discuss the arguments presented by the author. The second part of the essay will criticize these arguments with regard to practicability.

The purpose of Esty's chapter is to propose the formation of a global environmental organization (GEO) to address the environmental problems in the world. Esty immediately notes that the Bretton Woods agreement was reached long before environmental issues were considered serious enough to be addressed by world organizations. At the time the Bretton Woods agreement was reached (at the end of the Second World War) environmental issues largely consisted of local public health problems and minor conservation matters. As a result, the world organizations established by the agreement did not take into account world environmental issues. Environmental issues have only come to the forefront of public attention since the late 1960s. While local and national politicians have attempted to push local a