Regional and Inter-Regional Associations in Norm-Building and Norm-Control in the Area of Environmental Regulation in Russia and India

The implementation of this joint project with the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES) is motivated by the idea of studying multilevel management in the field of environmental protection and climate change mitigation, which is actively promoted by regional and interregional organisations. The project aims to explore how international regulations are adopted by national and local actors and how they affect local political practices. During the implementation of the project, we plan to study how actors at the national level contribute to the formation of international governance regimes. This project will assess how effective the management methods promoted by regional organisations are and how interregional organisations increase the resilience of local communities to climate change. It will describe the most successful practices of applying environmental standards by government and international organisations at all levels in India and Russia.

Future research results can be used in the development of indicators to measure the quality of environmental regulation, and can also be used by regional and interregional organisations to develop environmental standards in the region. The results of the project can be used by government agencies to improve their national regulations. The results will also be of interest to foreign policy makers in both countries, as they will demonstrate the prospects and potential problems of creating macro-regional international governance regimes as an alternative to the global regulatory framework. The project materials will also be used in educational cases for training experts on environmental regulation and cooperation.

The current cooperation with UPES provides an opportunity to implement partner research seminars and lectures in the field of environmental regulation. This can serve as an excellent basis for the development of joint research programmes and methodologies. The UPES research team already has extensive experience in studying forms of environmental management, so working together will contribute to the creation of publications and building further academic and scientific perspectives.

Scientific research objectives:

• Study how institutional mechanisms promoted by regional and interregional organisations are developing and how they contribute to combating climate change
• Analyse how regional and interregional organisations deal with contradictions between international standards, national laws, and local regulations, especially when international regulation is based on more ambitious rules than stipulated by national legislation
• Compare the dynamics of the impact on the construction of environmental standards and their adaptation at the national level in Russia and India
• Develop policy recommendations for decision makers in the field of environmental regulation and its implementation in Russia and India
• Collect materials for the organisation of trainings and workshops for specialists in the field of environmental regulation and climate change
• Develop and further use key indicators to assess the quality of environmental regulation in the field of environmental protection at the regional/national level, as well as the ability of national actors and local communities to adapt international environmental standards
• Develop joint educational programmes on environmental regulation and sustainable development based on the collected materials