UO political science professor Ronald Mitchell has created an online searchable database of the world’s environmental treaties.

“There are a lot of theories out there about which treaties worked and which didn’t, but we still don’t have a good handle on what it was that made a particular treaty successful,” Mitchell said. “We want to know what the active ingredients are.”

With the help of a grant from the National Science Foundation, Mitchell is attempting to do just that. The project began in 1999 with a question: Why do some environmental treaties perform so much better than others? To answer it, Mitchell began building a comprehensive database of international environmental treaties, something that to date did not exist. Compiling data on the treaties was a daunting undertaking. Numerous graduate students from both the University of Oregon and Stanford University have assisted Mitchell, laboring for long hours on the project.

Mitchell’s doctoral research, which studied the effectiveness of one treaty, provided a springboard for the current project. “(The dissertation) was an interesting project, but the field and my own thinking about it have changed. Now we’re at a stage in the collective research enterprise that we can ask, ‘Which one worked better and why?’ By comparing a number of treaties we can see what particular aspect worked,” said Mitchell, who has a doctorate in public policy from Harvard.

With more than 800 multilateral environmental agreements cataloged, Mitchell said he believes his database is one of the most comprehensive in the world. The database, which is publicly accessible, allows researchers access to the full text of more than 700 of those treaties. Mitchell said he hopes to provide even more information in the near future, including data showing relevant environmental changes over time and a breakdown of each treaty’s specific elements. “It’s going to be a clearinghouse for existing, difficult-to-find data,” he said.

Among the litany of elements, which could potentially affect the efficacy of an environmental treaty are: the use of sanctions versus rewards; the use of specific versus vague language; whether a treaty bans particular actions or limits them; and whether a treaty requires monitoring or self reporting.

“There is little empirical evidence to show which elements are most effective,” Mitchell said. “Hopefully the database will help provide some of the answers.”

One of the greatest obstacles to finding these answers is the dearth of available data about the actual environmental changes that occur after a treaty has been enacted. “There could be a wetlands treaty, for example, but regardless of what the treaty says we don’t have any good data on what is happening to wetlands,” Mitchell explained. “So how can we measure its effectiveness?”

When changes in the environment have actually been measured, another challenge presents itself: knowing whether those changes are actually the product of the treaty or some other environmental variable.

Researchers will have to puzzle that out as they work through the data. Some academics are already attempting to do just that. Researchers from around the United States as well as others from as far away as Chile, Sri Lanka and Britain have utilized Mitchell’s data for their research.

Although some academic research in political science is viewed as esoteric and irrelevant by policy makers and politicians, Mitchell said he hopes his database can actually influence policy and affect a measure of change in the real world of international politics. “We’re trying to address the questions policy makers are asking. They don’t ask ‘Should I do this treaty?’ They’re saying, ‘I want to do this treaty, how should I do it?’ That’s what we’re trying to answer.”

Addressing this question could have far ranging impacts, including helping the drafters of the next Kyoto Protocol create the most effective agreement. But Mitchell says his project has other important uses right here on campus, first and foremost as an instructional tool to teach students critical thinking and analytical skills.

“Too often people think faculty only does research. They ask, ‘When are they going to teach my kids?’” Mitchell said. “But good teaching requires good research and good research requires good teaching.”

“He was definitely trying to get us to think about the entire research process and to use precise data to determine our conclusions,” said Alaina Pomeroy, a senior majoring in environmental studies and Spanish, who used the database for a class project. “His (international environmental politics) class was the first time I had been challenged like that in a class. That was why I ended up going to him and asking him to be my advisor for my honors thesis.”