Linkage as Leverage: OECD Accession as an Informal Graduation Mechanism in the Climate Regime
Type
conference contribution
Date Issued
2025-08-27
Author(s)
Abstract
The graduation of developing countries poses a major challenge in many international institutions. The international climate regime is no exception. A long-standing concern with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has been that its binary distinction between Annex I parties which are obliged to limit their greenhouse gas emissions and non-Annex I parties that lack a similar obligation has proven to be ‘too rigid’ to allow for meaningful cooperation once global power relations begin to change. In brief, the regime has been criticized for lacking a graduation mechanism. In our paper, we argue that the view that the climate regime lacked a graduation mechanism holds only if we focus on formal institutional mechanisms and look at the UNFCCC in isolation. Once we take informal norms as well as regime interaction into account, however, the OECD accession process comes into view as an informal graduation mechanism in the climate regime. We examine the effects and limitations of this mechanism in relation to the OECD accessions of Mexico (1994), South Korea (1996) and Chile (2010). Our analysis reveals that the informal ties between the UNFCCC and the OECD created an informal graduation mechanism that significantly enhanced the climate policy ambitions in two of three accession cases. However, the mechanism had important shortcomings. First, existing members did not activate it all cases we study. Second, new OECD members could retract their enhanced ambition after changes in government. Third, major emitters among developing countries failed to develop a sufficiently strong interest in joining the OECD. By capturing a mechanism that has thus far been overlooked in the academic literature, the paper contributes to a better understanding of the different ways in which international institutions organise the graduation of developing countries. Such an understanding will be central to understanding and managing future challenges around graduation.
Event Title
18th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, International Rela_[404 Not Found]: Politics for a Broken World
Event Location
Bologna, Italy