Sponsored by the KFG "The Transformative Power of Europe", and organized by the KFG alumni Wolfram Kaiser (Portsmouth) and Jan-Henrik Meyer (Aarhus), the international conference "Environmental Protection in the Global Twentieth Century" will bring together fifteen scholars from Europe and North America from 25-27 October 2012 at the Freie Universität Berlin. The conference is generally open to the public, however, space is limited. The registration is now open and is possible by sending an e-mail to jhmeyer@gmx.de until 15 October the latest. Furthermore, the program for the conference is now available and can be downloaded here (PDF).

Reaching back to the first half of the 20th century a number of papers will address the longer-term continuities and possible path dependencies, exploring conservation efforts and the diffusion of ideas well before the UN conference. Nevertheless, the conference will zoom in on Stockholm and examine the role of a variety of actors: on Brazil, speaking for the developing world, on the US as a most influential player, on the Holy See and NGOs. For the post-Stockholm period, several papers will address the emergence of new concerns within the framework of IOs such as climate change.

The papers cover IOs of very different geographical scope and degree of institutionalisation: from the International Labour Organisation to the OECD, from the rather surprising case of OPEC to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The contributions will explore the role of IOs as arenas for the exchange of ideas and mediators facilitating the diffusion of ideas with regard to a wide range of environmental problems: classical conservation issues such as national parks in South America, the protection of global commons such as the Southern Ocean Ecosystem, but also concerns about transnational river and transboundary air pollution. IO's contribution to the perception of the more recent risks of nuclear energy and climate change are covered, too. We do not perceive IOs as solitary, let alone unitary actors, but we discuss them as embedded within networks of experts, interest groups and NGOs, such as labour unions or the churches, as well as governments and other IOs.