The Organization of Global Negotiations

6

The Secretariat

The secretariat can't deliver success, but it can deliver failure (secretariat interview).

Introduction

The secretariat is usually the only full-time actor within a regime, remaining active between sessions of the COP and subsidiary bodies. Like presiding officers and bureaux, secretariats of different regimes, and at different points in time, can vary greatly in their levels of activism. Wettestad (1999), for example, distinguishes between ‘assistant’ and ‘player’ secretariats, Sandford (1994) makes a distinction between ‘actors’ and ‘stagehands’, and Miles et al (2002) identify a range, from secretariats ‘confined to office and record-keeping functions’ to those providing ‘political inputs’ and ‘promoting own ideas and solutions’. ...