The contributors examine how international law is changing under pressure from global environmentalism—and how the United States has used green foreign policy to justify initiatives ranging from foreign aid programs to climate change proposals. They show how environmental issues are moving domestic and international agencies away from their original goals toward "greener" missions and reveal how energy companies and environmentalists often join forces to thwart competition and restrict sovereignty without much positive impact on the environment. In addition, they explain how increased international environmental regulations raise the risk of international tension, reduce free trade, impair U.S. competitiveness, and undermine the confidence and trust of U.S. citizens in their government. This collection of essays ultimately illustrates how expensive the greening of U.S. foreign policy has become and tells how we can find alternatives to government intervention based on free market environmentalism. If the threats of environmentalism are as real as we are led to believe, they can be better handled by returning to the traditional principles of the free society based upon a rule of law The Greening of U.S. Foreign Policy shows how we can return to that path.
From the Publisher
"The green hand of foreign policy is a threat to national sovereignty without the offsetting benefit of improved environmental quality"—Terry L. Anderson
Since then secretary of state Warren Christopher’s announcement in 1996 of an increased emphasis on environmental issues, the environmental movement has moved the policy agenda beyond local and even national boundaries into the foreign policy debate. Believing that this "greening of foreign policy" has continued too long without analytic scrutiny, the Hoover Institution and the Political Economy Research Center brought together a group of scholars to analyze the issues at stake. The Greening of U.S. Foreign Policy takes a hard look at how environmental concerns have come to help determine U.S. foreign policy.
The contributors examine how international law is changing under pressure from global environmentalism—and how the United States has used green foreign policy to justify initiatives ranging from foreign aid programs to climate change proposals. They show how environmental issues are moving domestic and international agencies away from their original goals toward "greener" missions and reveal how energy companies and environmentalists often join forces to thwart competition and restrict sovereignty without much positive impact on the environment. In addition, they explain how increased international environmental regulations raise the risk of international tension, reduce free trade, impair U.S. competitiveness, and undermine the confidence and trust of U.S. citizens in their government.
This collection of essays ultimately illustrates how expensive the greening of U.S. foreign policy has become and tells how we can find alternatives to government intervention based on free market environmentalism. If the threats of environmentalism are as real as we are led to believe, they can be better handled by returning to the traditional principles of the free society based upon a rule of law. The Greening of U.S. Foreign Policy shows how we can return to that path.
Terry L. Anderson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; executive director, Political Economy Research Center, Bozeman, Montana; and professor emeritus, Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics, Montana State University. Henry I. Miller, M.D., is a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has published extensively in prominent medical, scientific, and public affairs journals and newspapers worldwide, including the Journal of the American Medical Association, Science, Nature Biotechnology, National Review, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Financial Times (London).
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