Issue: International environmental governance
Indicator: Number of parties to multilateral environmental agreements

Ratification of major multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) has progressed, indicating increasing commitment of countries to addressing environmental issues (Figure 21). Recently the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change gained sufficient ratifications to come into force in early 2005. On chemicals, the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent, and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, both entered into force in 2004. All the selected MEAs have seen the number of ratifications grow steadily, and many are approaching the maximum number of parties by now. Taking all 13 MEAs together 75 per cent of possible ratifications have been made for the world as a whole. In every region at least 60 per cent of the potential ratifications have been made (Table 2).