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This chapter examines the local and international politics underlying the bitter struggle to end usage of methyl bromide. Animal-based studies showed that methyl bromide is a mutagen and reproductive toxin. Upon breaking down in the atmosphere, methyl bromide, in combination with chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), also depletes the ozone layer. Following the discovery of a hole in the ozone layer in 1985 and subsequent signing of the Montreal Protocol in 1987, the United States committed to ending usage of ozone-depleting substances. An amendment to the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty to curb ozone depletion, in 1993 set a phase-out date for methyl bromide. This chapter discusses the collaborative efforts of farmworker groups and environmental organizations, including the Farmworker Association of Florida, Friends of the Earth, the Florida Consumer Action Network, and the Legal Environmental Assistance Foundation, to effect a methyl bromide ban in a battle with growers associations and industry groups.

The chapter analyzes the impact of downstream consumer markets on environmental regime design by explaining why wealthy countries have successfully phased out industrial ozone-depleting substances (ODS) but not an agricultural pesticide known as methyl bromide under the Montreal Protocol, despite the 2005 phase-out deadline for that pesticide. Since the analysis focuses on the regulation of different sectors under the same treaty, it isolates the impact of markets without the threat of major confounding variables interfering with the conclusions. It emphasizes competitive pressures and the structure of intermediate producers in the industrial and agricultural markets employing ODS to explain why methyl bromide has been handled differently from industrial refrigerants. The findings illustrate the impacts of consumer preferences and market competition on the investments of fluoro-product companies and, in turn, on the policies of wealthy countries and rules in the ozone regime.

This chapter provides a critical sociological assessment of the social organization of the Montreal Protocol, its institutional structure, and the impact of its various actors vis-à-vis social relations of power. A critical sociological perspective sheds light on the reasons for the recent shift to failure in phasing out remaining ozone-depleting substances (ODSs) in the Montreal Protocol, specifically MeBr. A case study on the delegitimization and dissolution of the Agricultural Economics Task Force (AETF) illustrates how powerful actors can vertically penetrate the horizontal “social capital” relationships, a process that is often overlooked in social capital analyses.