The role and influence of international scientific advisory committees is understudied. International relations scholars mostly focused on stand-alone global scientific committees, such as the Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecological systems (IPBES). These two cases are the trees that hide the forest. This paper seeks to understand how treaty makers have designed over 40 international scientific committees. Mobilizing literature from the field of science and technology studies (STS), it focuses on two design dimensions: the diversity of the membership and the interactive or linear process of knowledge production. These dimensions foster the boundary work between science and policy. STS literature finds they are necessary for the scientific knowledge produced to be effective in influencing decision-makers. Based on document analysis, this paper finds that these two dimensions vary widely among environmental agreements. These findings could shed light and open new questions on the variation of the effectiveness of science across international institutions.
