Introduction

Public goods are goods non-rival and/or non excludable. They always raise governance issues. In fact, they are a source of market failure and the state is the only organization able to cope with their inefficient provision by individuals. International public goods are public goods available to people in more than one country. The issue of governance for them arises precisely because it is impossible (or difficult) to apply the solution of a super-state, i.e. of an organisation playing the same role at the international level as that of a state with respect to individuals for ordinary public goods in a national context. This book sketches a unifying analytical framework for dealing with governance and distributional issues of international public goods and relates them to the existence of conflicts over ends as well as the coordination of instruments. It also discusses specific cases of governance for the production of international public goods, with reference to the prevention of communicable diseases, water management in the Nile basin, their financing through aid. This book is the outcome of a research project financed by the Sapienza University of Rome. Among the authors, Nicola Acocella, Luisa Giuriato, Ferruccio Marzano and Umberto Triulzi are attached to this University, while Giovanni Canitano is an Independent water expert working for national and international institutions, Alessandra Cepparulo is Associate Research Fellow at the University of Exeter and Giovanni Di Bartolomeo is associate professor at the University of Teramo.