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Columbia River Treaty: Where Do We Go From Here
This article reviews the origins and history of the Columbia River Treaty. It goes on to speculate on the future of the treaty in Canada and the United States. Swainson considers the lack of environmental ethos at the time of the Treaty and the impact this has had on the implementation of the treaty as well as possible future amendments by both sides.
“When John Krutilla wrote his classic study on the Columbia River Treaty nearly twenty years ago, he wisely devoted part of his introduction to reviewing a number of ways in which cooperative international river development can be justified. Readers of this article are encouraged to read or re-read Dr. Krutilla. At the same time it will be helpful if we begin with a reminder that while we have learned a good deal about international river development over the last generation, the advisers to the governments of Canada and the United States forty years ago were well aware at that time of the fact that the case for or against the cooperative development of shared watersheds is far from being a self-evident one. They were conscious of the relevance to it of the great range of values associated with such river development. To some extent they were also aware of the manner in which actions on international rivers, whether upstream or downstream, can produce sets of benefits and costs distributed in extraordinarily asymmetric ways between upstream and downstream riparians. Furthermore, they were sensitive to the fact that when two nations share a watershed, and when the two sectors of it have been developed to very different degrees, differing national perspectives are almost bound to complicate the processes of adjustment required when the prospect of seemingly justified cooperative development emerges.” (Taken from introduction)
Note: the item is not currently available in the CRTDL. For online availability, check: http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/narj26&div=24&id=&page=
Author: Swainson, Neil
Publisher: University of New Mexico School of Law
Date: 1986
