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The World Commission on Dams and trends in global environmental governance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Ken Conca
Ken Conca*
Affiliation:
Harrison Program on the Future Global Agenda, Department of Government and Politics, 3114J Tydings Hall, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA [email protected]
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Extract

The World Commission on Dams marks a moment of real progress in the large-dams controversy. It does so in at least two ways: as a statement of the norms that should govern dam-related decision-making and as a process of dialogue between dam proponents and critics. Whether this progress translates into consistently better dam-related decisionmaking is a question that remains to be answered. Also unanswered is the larger question of whether the WCD experience will prove to be a replicable model for other environment-development controversies. The Commission emerged from a curious situation in which both dam builders and dam critics felt stymied in their ability to achieve their aims, and in which both saw opportunities in the idea of stakeholder dialogue. Such windows of opportunity may prove rare. The skillful leadership and interpersonal dynamics among the commissioners that helped forge a consensus document may be difficult to reproduce.

Type
Harrison Symposium I
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , March 2002 , pp. 67 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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References

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