Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/46981

The central hypothesis in this paper concerns the issue of environmental protection among several nations; how to realize an effective cooperation to conserve an ecosystem that permeates national boarders, where the basic behavioral principle under the so-called Westphalian System is for each sovereign nation-state to protect its national interest. Situated in the context of multi-national cooperation for a protection of the North Sea, I explore why an effort under the frame of international law had not been successful, while an international conference has actually promoted the protection of the North Sea. Examining the difference between the law and a commons, the system which mainly existed in the pre-modern era to facilitate wise use of the natural environment, I argue that the conference actually brought into being three necessary conditions for creating a sustainable commons: an identification of an ecosystem, generation of privies (those who have the most intimate relation and have voluntary involvement with the concerned ecosystem), and lastly an system of mutual coercion which forces privies to follow rules which are agreed on by the concerned parties.