Canada and the United States have only been on the same page in terms of environmental policy for fifteen months out of the last decade-plus: a brief window from October 2015 to January 2017 when the Obama and Trudeau governments were both committed to combating shared environmental threats. Before that window, the United States was interested, but Canada under Harper was not; since the Trump Administration took office, the positions have flipped. Yet, as the authors of Transboundary Environmental Governance across the World’s Longest Border make clear, this situation has not stopped progress on shared transboundary issues. From migratory species to watersheds to airborne pollutants, and from the Pacific to the Great Lakes, the two states are working together, frequently at subnational and local levels.
Once one gets west of the Great Lakes, the United States-Canada border is fairly arbitrary, cutting across numerous watersheds and ecological regions. By necessity, this means the two states must cooperate, and they have, on canals, hydroelectric projects, emissions of air pollutants and water pollutants, and distribution of river water. But the arbitrariness of the border also means that neither the United States nor Canada has the upper hand; other than issues involving mining in Yukon near rivers that feed into Alaska, there is no permanent upstream/downstream dynamic. Both sides are reliant on the other for resources at various times.
This book, with contributions from a range of authors from across North America and both the academic and policy worlds, seeks to look at the international border holistically, and examine all issues facing it. Contributors were asked to assess the Canada–United States relationship in their issue areas (Great Lakes fisheries, prairie rivers, etc.) along with the environmental impact of existing regimes and institutions and the chances for reform or improvement. There has been a renewed focus on transboundary environmental governance in North America in recent years, and a corresponding increase in literature, though most of it has been focused on a single topic: only water, or climate change, or the Great Lakes. The book starts in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence region, then moves west before concluding with chapters on energy governance and climate change policy from sea to sea.
One key point the book highlights is the sheer complexity of the transboundary relationship, which goes back to at least 1909. Today, negotiations may take place between the two federal governments, between US states and Canadian provinces, within river boards made up of local stakeholders, between the federal governments, subnational units, and Indigenous groups, or a variety of other combinations. Agreements have been made between states and provinces that may not be strictly constitutional but are followed nevertheless. The authors also make an important point that doesn’t always come out in discussions of other riparian negotiations: water quantity in many of these watersheds is as important as, if not more so than, water quality.
Two subjects are omnipresent throughout the chapters: The International Joint Commission (IJC), founded in 1909 by the Boundary Waters Treaty, is the oldest and still the most important body in this issue area. Though a plethora of new treaties and organizations have risen up since the 1960s, the IJC still has at least some hand in every issue discussed in the book. The other subject is the specter of climate change and what it will do to these carefully negotiated regimes. The area between eastern Montana, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and North Dakota (discussed in chapter 5) may be most affected; the rivers there are already fully allocated and overstressed during times of drought, and if the climate gets hotter and drier, as predicted, there will not be enough water to go around. There’s a refreshing willingness to go beyond current headlines and flashpoints (the Keystone XL pipeline gets only two short mentions), and over the course of the book, nearly every major environmental problem of the last seventy-five years is mentioned: water/air pollution, dams, acid rain, climate change, and invasive species (the sea lamprey was the impetus for the creation of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission in the 1950s), among others.
It would have been better if the book contained more maps (though the one by Donald K. Alper on mining and water relations in the Pacific West is a welcome exception); the detailed descriptions of various rivers, lakes, and fisheries that straddle the United States and Canada would be strengthened by some visual supplements. And much more time in the chapters is spent on explaining the “what” of cross-border environmental relations than the “why,” though the facts and descriptions in and of themselves are valuable. Some issues are barely mentioned, such as the disputed Beaufort Sea territory between Alaska and the Yukon, or the differing stances on the Northwest Passage once it becomes ice-free in the near future, or shared fishing stocks in the Pacific and Atlantic.
Still, Transboundary Environmental Governance is useful for scholars, as well as undergraduates or graduates studying comparative environmental politics. The culture of cooperation that has developed between the two countries on this issue isn’t immediately recognizable if one only looks at Washington-to-Ottawa contacts. The authors’ deeper dive is of much use to the rest of us.