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The evolution of international law relating to transboundary waters
Published in Alistair Rieu-Clarke, Andrew Allan, Sarah Hendry, Routledge Handbook of Water Law and Policy, 2017
It was only in the latter half of the twentieth century that agreements began to address protection of aquatic ecosystems. A leading example is the 1978 Agreement between Canada and the United States on Great Lakes Water Quality (Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement 1978) which states that its purpose is: ‘to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the waters of the Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem’. Another example from the same period, also a bilateral treaty, is the 1975 Statute of the River Uruguay. Article 36 of that treaty provides: ‘The Parties shall co-ordinate, through the Commission,6 the necessary measures to avoid any change in the ecological balance and to control pests and other harmful factors in the river and the areas affected by it’ (Statute of the River Uruguay 1975). And, according to Article 41(a) of the Statute, the parties undertake: ‘To protect and preserve the aquatic environment and, in particular, to prevent its pollution, by prescribing appropriate rules and measures in accordance with applicable international agreements and in keeping, where relevant, with the guidelines and recommendations of international technical bodies’ (Statute of the River Uruguay 1975). That these are obligations of due diligence was underlined by the International Court in the Pulp Mills case (Pulp Mills on the River Uruguay 2010).
Governance of Transboundary Water Commissions Comparison of Operationalizing the Ecosystem Approach in the North American Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea
Published in Velma I. Grover, Gail Krantzberg, Lake Governance, 2018
Savitri Jetoo-Åbo, Marko Joas-Åbo
The Laurentian Great Lakes and the Baltic Sea are two large transboundary water systems in North America and Europe respectively. Despite the geo- political, geographical and ecological differences, these water bodies share a similar history, with each signing transboundary governance agreement in the early 1970s due to concerns of water pollution. In 1972, the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was signed between Canada and the United States of America amidst concerns about the ‘dying’ Lake Erie. This led to the new role under the Agreement for the International Joint Commission (IJC), the transboundary institution tasked with oversight of this agreement. At the same time in Europe, during a period of détente in the Cold War era enhancing a revival of a state centred international organization system (with for example the creation of OSSE), negotiations were ongoing for a transboundary agreement amidst concerns about increasing pollution to the Baltic Seas. This culminated in a transboundary water agreement in 1974, the Helsinki Convention, which established the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM) as the coordinating body. Whilst these commissions can be seen as successes because they were effective in bringing the key national players to the table, the continued degradation of these transboundary water ecosystems would suggest that they are not successful in applying the ecosystem approach to governance, as called for in both transboundary agreements. The ecosystem approach is a useful approach for transboundary water governance as it looks beyond the political boundaries and more at natural boundaries, offering an integrated approach for the management of land, water and living organisms. This chapter investigates the effectiveness of these transboundary water commissions in operationalizing the ecosystem based approach to governance by assessing their adaptive capacity, the governance capacity for dealing with change. It starts by looking at the evolution of these commissions, it uses a framework for adaptive capacity from the literature and assesses the performance of these transboundary commissions against these principles. It then identifies gaps and makes recommendations that can inform policymakers.
Water governance indicators in theory and practice: applying the OECD’s water governance indicators in the North American Great Lakes region
Published in Water International, 2021
Since the 1970s, governments at all levels have been trying to improve environmental outcomes in the Great Lakes region. The International Joint Commission (IJC) established under the Boundary Waters Treaty in 1909 has been trying to tackle environmental issues in the region since the 1960s. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement signed by the US and Canadian federal governments has existed since 1972 and contains numerous environmental policy goals that require a robust water governance system and implementation infrastructure at multiple levels. Revised and updated in 1978, 1987 and 2012, the agreement forms the foundation of many different domestic policies related to implementation of 10 annexes on a wide range of environmental issues related to water quality. Complex governance arrangements involving numerous governments and a variety of users and stakeholders have evolved to collectively manage water quantity and quality in the region. The development and evolution of the agreement and the IJC are well documented.