Chapter 2 A Comprehensive Framework for ...

Chapter 2 A Comprehensive Framework for Evaluating the Integrity of the Climate Regime Complex Hugh Breakey and Tim Cadman1 Introduction This chapter introduces and applies what we term the ‘Comprehensive Integrity Framework’. The Framework distinguishes key concepts of integrity, and this chapter illustrates these distinctions with application to the global climate change regime. In so doing, the chapter defines a number of key terms used throughout this volume, including the Public Institutional Justification (PIJ), consistencyintegrity, coherence-integrity and context-integrity. In brief, consistency-integrity refers to the institution’s acts and judges whether such acts are consistent with the institution’s public proclamations. Coherence-integrity refers to internal organizational arrangements and members’ values; it judges whether these institutional qualities cohere in ensuring the institution’s professed values are reflectively endorsed and consistently implemented. Context-integrity refers to the environment surrounding the institution, and whether this context aligns with the institution’s successful pursuit of its goals. To have comprehensive-integrity requires the institution coheres around its values, behaves in a way that is consistent with its public claims and enjoys a context that supports it doing so. As it might be put, the institution is integrated with its words, deeds, internal qualities and external environment. Core Concepts of Institutional Integrity Comprehensive-integrity An institution has comprehensive-integrity if its activities, values and ethics, internal organization and external relations accord with its PIJ. This definition draws on the two inter-related ideas that integrity involves acting in accord with one’s publicly asserted values (‘consistency’) as well as being integrated (‘coherent’). It also includes attention to the way the institution fits with its external

1

Hugh Breakey and Tim Cadman ‘A Comprehensive Framework for Evaluating the Integrity of the

Climate Regime Complex’ in Ethical Values and the Integrity of the Climate Change Regime, edited by Hugh Breakey, Vesselin Popovski and Rowena Maguire, (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015), 17-27. 1

environment (‘context’). Comprehensive-integrity requires coherence-integrity, context-integrity and consistency-integrity on an ongoing basis. Public Institutional Justification To have integrity, institutions require a ‘Public Institutional Justification’ (PIJ). Usually including an account of the purpose of the institution (what it is ‘for’), the PIJ is what the institution’s members and representatives use to justify the institution and to show the public it deserves their support or at least tolerance.2 When the institution’s actions, powers or existence are called into question, institutional members and representatives aim to re-establish its credentials by asserting its PIJ. While the PIJ is wholly chosen by the institution-members/representatives, it nevertheless reflects wider community values, as local communities and relevant stakeholders make up the audience for the justification. Sometimes little more than a slick public relations document, the PIJ can be a mere fiction. At the other extreme, the PIJ might be strictly mandated in the institution’s legal charter. To attain institutional integrity, an organization must not merely assert a PIJ, but must live up to it. Consistency-Integrity If an institution’s activities are consistent with its PIJ, then it has consistency-integrity and may be said to ‘act with’ integrity. For institutions, consistency-integrity is arguably the key organizing concept: it is natural to ask whether the institution’s acts accord with its words – and often much of social import hangs on the answer to this question. While much as our intuitive notion of personal integrity orbits around internal factors such as character and intention (and so of what we call

2

Noel Preston and Charles Sampford, ‘Institutionalising Ethics’, in Encouraging Ethics and

Challenging Corruption, ed. Charles Sampford, Noel Preston, and Carmel Connors (Sydney: The Federation Press, 2002), 32–68. Many accounts of institutional integrity (or governance) include reference to a similar entity to the PIJ: For example, Daniel E. Wueste, We Need to Talk … About Institutional Integrity (New York: RIT Press, 2005); Allen Buchanan and Robert O. Keohane, ‘The Legitimacy of Global Governance Institutions’, Ethics and International Affairs 20, no. 4 (2006). 2

‘coherence-integrity’),3 much of the concern for institutional integrity focuses centrally on the importance of compliance. Integrity breaches, integrity violations, integrity measures and integrity organizations (such as corruption watchdogs and ombudsmen) all focus on institutions and institutionmembers’ actions, and the gap between those actions and laws, regulations, professional responsibilities and codes of conduct.4 Coherence-Integrity Coherence-integrity comprises two factors: members’ values and internal organizational arrangements. ‘Members’ values’ refers to the personal values, moral commitments, role-identities, professional ethos and other relevant ideals held by the institution’s members – ‘relevant’ insofar as they contribute to the institution pursuing its PIJ. These members’ values do not need to be exactly the same as each other, nor must they perfectly reflect the PIJ. However, the values do have to be congruent with the PIJ. To possess strong coherence-integrity, the institution’s members must have values that drive them to act in accordance with the institution’s over-arching goals and principles. ‘Internal organizational arrangements’ encompass the processes governing how the institution makes its decisions, the structures it employs for policing and encouraging compliance with those decisions, its policies on transparency, accountability and critical feedback, and any other arrangements that impact upon it living up to its PIJ. These internal organizational arrangements are those the institution can exert direct control or influence over; they include purely intra-institutional arrangements as well as those mediating the interface between the institution and the wider community. In the ideal institution, these two factors of members’ values and internal organizational arrangements ensure that the PIJ remains workable and acceptable to all those institution-members

3

See, for example, Damian Cox, Marguerite La Caze, and Michael Levine, Integrity and the Fragile

Self (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009). 4

Thus in the institutional context, Huberts can assert that ‘the integrity concept concerns behaviour’

rather than character or intention. Leo Huberts, The Integrity of Governance: What It Is, What We Know, What Is Done, and Where to Go (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 7. 3

bound by the PIJ. An institution with coherence on values and organizational arrangements has high coherence-integrity, as all its pieces cohere together and drive in the same direction. We saw above that consistency-integrity compares an institution’s actions with its claimed values. Over a period of time, what does the institution do? In contradistinction, coherence-integrity compares an institution’s internal constitution with its claimed values. Rather than looking at activities, it looks at internal qualities and processes. It asks: What is the institution? If the institution is constituted so as to consistently live up to its claimed values (that is, constituted so as to display consistency-integrity), then it has coherence-integrity and we can say that the institution possesses integrity. Context-Integrity Context-integrity shifts our focus to the institution’s surrounding environment and all the elements in the environment that impact upon the institution living up to its claimed values. These elements include other organizations, parties, cultural norms, (economic, social and security) pressures, potential opportunities and temptations, and so on. Two contextual factors prove especially relevant. The institution’s legal context is made up by the over-arching (domestic and perhaps international) laws and regulations governing the institution in its processes and activities. And what we call the institution’s organizational-context refers to the organizations or institutional-complexes of which the institution forms one part. When one institution forms part of a larger regime, we will say it is ‘nested’ in that larger entity. The institution possesses ‘context-integrity’ if its external environment tends to facilitate the institution acting in accordance with its PIJ; that is, an institution’s context-integrity will promote that institution’s consistency-integrity. This might occur if the institution’s external environment prevents the institution from failing to comply with its PIJ – for example by punishing it for breaches, or by limiting its raw power to act outside its mandate.5 Alternatively, the external environment might work

5

Hugh Breakey, ‘Dividing to Conquer: Employing the Separation of Powers to Structure Institutional

Inter-Relations’, Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations 12(2014). 4

in a more positive manner, by influencing the internal constitution of the institution so as to improve the institution’s coherence-integrity. There are three different ways a contextual factor, or the overall context, might impact upon the institution’s consistency-integrity. The context might, i) facilitate and empower the agent’s integrity; ii) thwart and retard the agent’s integrity; or iii) align with the agent’s integrity. Since institutions often have divergent purposes, merely ensuring an accord (rather than positive facilitation) between the institutions’ pursuits of their different PIJs is often an important achievement. ‘Integrity System’ Together the internal qualities of the institution, and the qualities of its external environment, make up the institution’s ‘integrity system’.6 The integrity system is therefore constituted by the combination of the institution’s coherence-integrity and context-integrity. It encompasses all the ‘business-asusual’ operations and factors in the agent’s world and is the natural object of reform for those attempting to improve institutional integrity. Contingency What activities the institution performs, and what effects those activities have, emerge from both the institution’s coherence-integrity (what it is) and its context-integrity (how its environment impacts upon it). But as well as these stable, ongoing factors, other events can occur that create new and unforeseen dynamics or pressures. In a given case, whether or not these events impact upon the institution’s pursuit of its claimed values is a matter of ‘contingency’. Contingency constitutes ‘sudden shocks,’ unprepared-for exceptions, and surprise events. Together, the three causal elements of coherence-integrity, context-integrity and contingency determine the activities of the institution and the extent to which they accord with its PIJ. As a result, in any given case, coherence-integrity, context and contingency together determine consistencyintegrity.

6

Preston and Sampford, ‘Institutionalising Ethics.’; Charles Sampford, Rodney Smith, and A. J.

Brown, ‘From Greek Temple to Bird’s Nest: Towards a Theory of Coherence and Mutual Accountability for National Integrity Systems,’ Australian Journal of Public Administration 64, no. 2 (2005). 5

Nested Institutions An institution can be one part of a larger institutional complex that has its own PIJ and undertakes its own activities and tasks on a larger scale. In this case we will call the institution one ‘sub-institution’ nested within a larger ‘regime’. The sub-institution’s PIJ may accord tightly with the regime’s PIJ. Indeed, an essential part of the sub-institution’s PIJ may be that the sub-institution plays an integral, official part in the regime’s pursuit of the regime’s PIJ. The sub-institution may even be legally obliged to play this role. In this case the sub-institution is a ‘formal’ part of the regime. When the subinstitution’s PIJ accords closely with the regime’s PIJ, the sub-institution’s consistency-integrity will contribute to the regime’s consistency-integrity (and, equally, a regime’s consistency-integrity may facilitate the institution’s consistency-integrity). Alternatively, the sub-institution may link less officially with the larger regime; its PIJ may only accord more loosely with the regime’s PIJ, and it is only an ‘informal’ part of the regime. This may mean that while an informal sub-institution’s activities usually support the regime’s PIJ, at some time its priorities will diverge, and its consistencyintegrity (its actions in accord with its own PIJ) may run counter to the regime’s consistency-integrity. In international governance, for example, states can feature as nested institutions alongside other bodies in larger regimes – regimes that aim to implement over-arching goals. These states play a lynchpin role in the larger regime, yet they nevertheless possess their own separate interests. These interests can drive the state to promote collective goals – or equally to spoil attempts at achieving such goals. Internal and External Scope The ‘institution’ chosen as the object of study through the Comprehensive Integrity Framework can be larger or smaller (with the proviso that each institution or sub-institution must possess a PIJ). The conceptual system remains the same when scaled up or down. At the smaller scale (for example, shifting from a specific policy mechanism to one of its sub-committees), relations or arrangements that previously featured under ‘coherence-integrity’ would then be considered as external relations (that is, external to the sub-committee) within a larger regime under ‘context’. Likewise, when scaled up (for example, from the policy mechanism to the larger regime), relations and arrangements that featured under external context would now be captured within the internal arrangements of coherence6

integrity. The following section provides an example of this shift in scope from the larger regime to a specific nested institution. Climate Regime Applications The conceptual and terminological system described in the previous section can be applied to institutions at different levels within the global climate regime. By way of illustration and as a frame to many of the forthcoming chapters, this chapter applies the Comprehensive Integrity Framework concepts and terminology to two important climate organizations. First, we apply the framework to the global climate regime complex as a whole, framed around the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Next, we employ the framework in analyzing one illustrative sub-institution nested within the UNFCCC – the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Over-arching Climate Regime: The UNFCCC Figure 2.1 maps the UNFCCC using the Comprehensive Integrity Framework. Figure 2.1

Integrity map of UNFCCC/climate regime

The core of the regime’s PIJ is provided by the Convention’s Objective, given in its Art. 2. The ultimate objective of this Convention and any related legal instruments that the Conference of the Parties (COP) may adopt is to achieve, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Convention, stabilization of greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. Such a level should be achieved within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.7 The UNFCCC’s principles, and ongoing scientific and COP developments since 1992, help to flesh out and specify this PIJ.8

7

United Nations (UN), ‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climage Change’, (1992).

8

See Maguire, Chapter 3 in this volume for a comprehensive treatment of this issue. 7

The UNFCCC’s coherence-integrity comprises two factors. First, ‘members’ values’ refers to the relevant norms, ideals, role-identities and interests of all of the members of the UNFCCC and its sub-institutions. To hold coherence-integrity, the UNFCCC’s members would need to have values and interests that are broadly congruent with the UNFCCC’s PIJ – motives that help drive the UNFCCC to succeed in its purposes. The second factor of the UNFCCC’s coherence-integrity consists of its internal organization arrangements. The key components here include the myriad decision-making bodies and subinstitutions and the relations between these, including the ways that authority, resources and information flow through the system. In Figure 2.1, for brevity we note a just handful of ‘nested’ subinstitutions: the COP; the permanent subsidiary bodies (responsible to the COP for scientific and technical advice and implementation, and which oversee the various negotiations, including the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP, the emerging replacement for the Kyoto Protocol); as well as the mechanisms under the Convention and the Protocol (for example, the Clean Development Mechanism, CDM, now moribund). But, of course, the full UNFCCC regime is vastly more complex than this brief summary suggests.9 The UNFCCC’s context impacts substantially on its capacity to operate effectively. Factors comprising context-integrity can be categorized on a variety of different dimensions. In Figure 2.1 we note three key factors: legal context, organizational context and external relations. The legal context consists of the larger international legal architecture overarching the UNFCCC’s actions, including all aspects of international law (such as the UN Charter and human rights frameworks). 10 Its organizational context situates the UNFCCC as itself one sub-institution of the larger institutions of the United Nations, and looks to the UNFCCC’s inter-relationship with, for example, the UN Secretariat and the General Assembly. Fully external relations are those interactions with entities that

9

See Cadman, Chapter 4 in this volume.

10

On the latter, see Lewis, Chapter 14 in this volume. 8

the UNFCCC is not itself part of or governed by. Notable organizations here include the World Trade Organization,11 external scientific and media bodies,12 and climate and humanitarian NGOs. Contingency refers to dynamic events outside business-as-usual within the institutional complex, including extreme weather events and security and economic crises that impact upon UNFCCC deliberation and implementation. Together, the factors making up coherence-integrity, context-integrity and contingency drive the actions of the UNFCCC and determine the results following from those actions. Whether these actions and achievements secure the UNFCCC’s PIJ is reflected in its consistency-integrity. Together, the three factors of coherence-integrity (what is the institution?), context-integrity (what is its environment?) and consistency-integrity (what does it do?) together constitute its comprehensiveintegrity. Nested Institution: The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Figure 2.2 provides an example of the application of the same conceptual apparatus (the Comprehensive Integrity Framework) applied to another institution – this time, a sub-institution nested inside the UNFCCC, the CDM. Figure 2.2

Integrity map of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the role of the CDM was to act as a mechanism for developing countries to earn Certified Emission Reduction credits (CERs) via emission-reduction projects. Under the Protocol, credits could be used by industrialized countries to meet their emission-reduction targets for the purpose of facilitating overall carbon mitigation. The CDM has now expired, but may continue in some form. As with the analysis of the UNFCCC, ‘members’ values’ refers to the relevant role moralities and identities – this time concerned only with the values of members of the CDM, and not the UNFCCC more generally. Internal organizational arrangements refer to the CDM’s sub-components. The CDM Executive Board (CDM EB) supervises project approvals, and is both guided by and

11

See Deane, Chapter 6 in this volume.

12

See Coady, Chapter 13 in this volume. 9

accountable to the COP, meeting as the Parties (CMP). The Board acts as a point of contact for CDM project participants for the registration of projects and the issuance of CERs. The CDM EB approves Designated Operational Entities (DOE), who are private certifiers that validate projects and verify emission reductions under the auspices of the Designated National Authority (DNA) – who itself approves projects and facilitates participation.13 For the CDM, elements that in Figure 2.1 were part of the UNFCCC’s coherence-integrity have now shifted to the rubric of context-integrity on CDM’s map. The legal arrangements of the UNFCCC now comprise part of the CDM’s larger legal context, while other parts of the Kyoto Protocol’s flexible mechanism, including the Joint Implementation and Emissions Trading, form part of the CDM’s organizational context. These and other external elements combine with the CDM’s coherence-integrity (and with sudden, contingent events) to produce the CDM’s activities and to determine their successfulness relative to its PIJ. Again, comprehensive-integrity pulls together internal and external factors, and the actual behaviour of the institution, all mapped against the standard of its PIJ. Ethics and Values in the Comprehensive Integrity Framework Looking through the prism of the Comprehensive Integrity Framework, how do ethical values appear in, and impact upon, global climate integrity? While the following chapters investigate different issues in greater depth, here we sketch some of the main ways that norms and values – both actual social values held by agents and institutions, and normative moral theories prescribing what should be done – impact upon institutional integrity. Let’s begin by reflecting on agents’ existing social values – that is, the actual ethical ideals and role-moralities held by various individuals and groups. This is a question of ‘descriptive morality’, as might be studied by anthropologists. The ‘members’ values’ element of the Comprehensive Integrity Framework directly references these social values – in this case, the norms, principles and professional ethos held by an institution’s members. As noted above, these values remain distinct from the PIJ, but in the ideal case

13

CDM, ‘Governance’. Available: http://cdm.unfccc.int/EB/governance.html. 10

they contribute to the formation of the PIJ, and to the institution’s capacity to live up to it. As internal qualities of the institution that bear on its capacity to hold to its values, these values form part of its coherence-integrity.14 An exploration of members’ values thus helps us determine an institution’s coherence-integrity. On a similar theme, we can look to the institution’s internal organizational arrangements and consider how far these encourage or erode institution-members’ social values and personal integrity. Institutional design can impact upon institutional culture, and so on the development and maintenance of members’ ethics and integrity.15 Social values outside the institution can also impact upon the institution’s selection of its PIJ, and its capacity to live up its PIJ.16 Recall that the PIJ is formed by institution-members and representatives working out how to ethically defend the institution, and to elicit support and tolerance for it, from relevant (for example, local and stakeholder) communities. To be effective in this role, the PIJ needs to tap into the values permeating the community. The PIJ thus represents a point of balance between the ideals and interests of the institution-members and those of the community.17 As such, prevalent community views about harm, pollution, collective responsibility and other normative concepts impact on what PIJ is formed. Once the PIJ is set down, the relationship between the PIJ, the 14

For a discussion of the nature of these values (through an examination of the principle of ‘Common

But Differentiated Responsibility’), see Maguire, Chapter 3 in this volume. For a discussion of strategies for expanding the overlapping consensus on these values, see Breakey, Chapter 17 in this volume. 15

For examples, see David Luban, ‘Integrity: Its Causes and Cures’, Fordham Law Review 72, no. 2

(2003); Hugh Breakey, ‘Wired to Fail: Virtue and Dysfunction in Baltimore’s Narrative’, Research in Ethical Issues in Organizations 11(2014). 16

On human rights as social values, and the way they can impact on the climate regime, see Rimmer,

Chapter 15 in this volume. 17

Huberts goes so far as to allow the different relevant communities to determine what counts as the

relevant rules for possessing integrity. In our view, this descriptively maps poorly onto integrity issues outside public administration (Huberts’s focus), and normatively gives too much power to external agents. As well, it threatens to collapse all distinction between integrity and morality more generally. For this reason we stress the institution itself as the ultimate decision-maker on what its PIJ will be. But Huberts is clearly correct that community values and expectations impact profoundly on the substance of what integrity requires. See, The Integrity of Governance, 12. 11

actual behaviour of the institution and the community’s values continues to be important. If there is a chasm between accepted values and the institution’s public behaviour – or even worse between the accepted values and the institution’s PIJ itself – then the environment becomes more hostile to the institution’s existence and effective functioning. As such, exploring social values within relevant communities can help us understand the institution’s context-integrity. Turning now from descriptive morality to normative morality – from the social norms that anthropologists locate in people and cultures to the prescriptive claims set down in philosophical theories – there are several ways moral theorizing can helpfully engage with integrity systems, so understood. Prescriptive moral theory can be used to assess the acceptability of an institution’s PIJ, or of its members’ norms and values.18 This does not necessarily mean we can simply ‘read off’ what an institution’s PIJ or members’ values should be from a given moral theory; integrity involves agents and institutions taking upon themselves certain responsibilities, and deciding what they stand for. Even so, moral theories can help guide this process – for example by telling us if members’ values grant appropriate respect for the institution’s needs, or alternatively if the member’s privilege the institution’s demands too far above legitimate social responsibilities. Naturally, such theorizing cannot fully replace the personal and institutional reflection that characterizes the formation of human values and purposes. So too, to be effective in furthering the PIJ in complex and challenging circumstances, characterized by other agents acting in non-ideal ways, members’ values will often need to depart from what they would be an idealized world. As such, we can gain much from reflecting on the PIJ through the lens of moral theory, but we need to take care in presuming abstract principles will always work successfully in a complicated world. Staying ‘inside’ the institution (that is, staying in the realm of coherence-integrity), we can explore whether certain types of independently desirable moral values might help promote the institution’s integrity. Consider, for example, the norms of procedural justice – requiring inclusive decision-making, stakeholder representation, constructive deliberation and certain forms of

18

See Goyal, Chapter 9 and Pickering, Chapter 7 in this volume. 12

accountability and transparency.19 Such norms might be useful for securing the institution’s purposes, as well as for reasons of natural justice. Encouraging such universal norms in members, and realizing them in institutional processes, might therefore nourish the organization’s more particular goals. Moral theory can also extend its gaze beyond the institution itself, and interrogate the moral values of the wider community, or influential members of that community. Are the values here, which ideally should be improving the institution’s behaviour by bringing it in line with more social, objective standards, playing an appropriate role? For it is always possible that these community values will prove problematic from an objective standpoint. A perennial concern is that these values may make infeasible and inappropriate demands on the institution, given the constraints under which the institution operates, and so setting it up for inevitable failure. Conclusion This chapter has introduced the Comprehensive Integrity Framework as it applies to institutions, and has employed that framework to map the key factors and concepts at work in the global carbon integrity system, including reference to the global integrity regime (the UNFCCC) and to one of its sub-institutions (the CDM). In the final section, with an eye to the core themes of the present volume, we reflected on the various ways moral values impact upon key elements – especially the coherenceintegrity and context-integrity – of integrity systems. In conclusion, as we move towards the post-Paris climate regime, understanding the complex and multifaceted structure of integrity systems in the ways set out in this chapter – and more fully in this volume – can help us construct agreements and mechanisms capable of fulfilling the roles we need them to play. Ultimately, whether a given global climate institution will fulfil its raison d’être (and act with consistency-integrity) requires attention to the formulation of its professed goals and mandated actions (its PIJ), the values driving its members and the internal arrangements that develop and implement its decisions (its coherence-integrity), and the wider legal, organizational, social, political and economic environment surrounding it (its context-integrity). To have any hope of squarely confronting the deep challenges posed by climate change during the critical post-Paris phase,

19

See Cadman, Chapter 4 in this volume. 13

institutional design and policy reform must pay attention to each of these elements, and the dynamic interplay between them.

14