The great seas contain immense resources and provide invaluable services to humankind, yet their environmental conditions are threatened worldwide. The authors of this comprehensive study provide a rich assessment of the seas and the efficacy of the initiatives governing them, as well as suggestions for improving governance and protection.

Environmental policy making has become an experimental field for new modes of governance. This timely book focuses on three prominent characteristics of new governance arrangements: the broad participation of non-state actors, the attempt to improve vertical and horizontal coordination, and the effort to integrate different types of expertise in an effective and democratically accountable way.

The second edition of this Handbook contains more than 30 new and original articles as well as six essential updates by leading scholars of global environmental politics. This landmark book maps the latest theoretical and empirical research in this energetic and growing field.

Previously published literature often comments pessimistically on International Environmental Governance (IEG) and, as a result, many proposals to reform IEG are criticized.