This chapter examines the advisory procedure ascribed to some non-compliance mechanisms of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Given its entirely facilitative nature, this chapter argues that the advisory procedure is an efficient implementation/compliance technique while preventing environmental harm and disputes between States. To that aim, this chapter presents three sections. First, the chapter presents a brief comparative overview of the nature of non-compliance mechanisms across MEAs. Second, it examines the architecture of the UNECE Water Convention’s advisory procedure and studies its practice in the recent Cijevna/Cem River advisory procedure (Montenegro/Albania). Third, it identifies areas of opportunity for adopting a similar advisory procedure to help improve the implementation of other existing and future multilateral agreements, such as the BBNJ Agreement, the Global Treaty on Plastics Pollution or the Pandemic Treaty.

Facilitative, non-punitive compliance machinery has a stronger theoretical basis now than ever before. Previously competing rationalist and managerial approaches to compliance come together in an interdependent world where we are confronting challenges that affect all States, including climate change, pandemic prevention and high seas conservation. In these contexts it is inherently rational for all States to play their part in addressing shared challenges by implementing their commitments; facilitative implementation and compliance arrangements on the model seen in the Paris Agreement will assist and support them in their efforts. The author investigates the benefits of the Paris Agreement model for compliance provisions in new international treaties including Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ), the international agreement on pandemic preparedness and response, and the plastics pollution treaty.