An overview of the long history of international environmental policy development can provide a generally complete picture of this cooperative process and an opportunity for its comprehensive evaluation. For this and to assess the effectiveness of the particular components of global environmental governance, such as the respective multilateral institutions, programs, and agreements, a number of aspects need to be taken into account. In making an appropriate assessment, inter alia, the issues of responsibility, vulnerability, and capability should be clarified. These refer to what extent the ‘actors’ (primarily political representatives/delegates of the intergovernmental deliberations) admit the share of responsibility of their countries for the emergence/existence of the environmental hazards in question, the vulnerability of their societies to the arising impacts and the capability to undertake and fulfil respective commitments to handle those problems. Judgments about the role and significance of different factors have not only varied over time but have also depended on which environmental components, drivers of those changes and/or adverse implications are the subject of such analysis. At the outset, let us advance the general observation that, despite the widespread efforts of a multitude of international organizations and the plethora of legal and policy instruments so far approved, the state of the global environment is, on the whole, worsening due to the steadily increasing anthropogenic influence.