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Treaty Congestion In International Environmental Law: The Need For Greater International Coordination, Bethany Lukitsch Hicks

University of Richmond Law Review

The number of multilateral environmental agreements in the international community has proliferated greatly since the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, Sweden. When the conference was held in 1972, there were approximately three dozen multilateral environmental agreements in existence. In 1989, the United Nations' Environmental Programme (UNEP) Register of Environmental Agreements listed a total of 139 treaties. Today, there are more than 900 international legal instruments, including treaties and binding or non-binding agreements that "are either focused on [the] environment or contain one or more important provisions concerned with the environment." This growth and success …