From supranational to intertribal - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 43

3 From supranational to

intertribal
Transboundary governance at
different scales

Disputes over pollution, water quality, water rights, water diversions, and exports
have played out along the Canada-U.S. border since the international border was
first demarcated. In response, over the past 100 years, distinct types of transboundary
institutions have emerged to address disagreements and facilitate exchange of
information. This chapter provides an introductory overview and analysis of four
transboundary institutions, operating at different scales, that govern water along
the Canada-U.S. border: the International Joint Commission (IJC), the North
American Free Trade Agreement's Commission for Environmental Cooperation
(CEC), the British Columbia-Washington Environmental Cooperation Council
(ECC), and the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Watershed Council. Analyzing these
transboundary institutions provides insight into how governance processes operate
at different scales, and through different frameworks, mechanisms, and guiding
principles.
Analyzing the historical circumstances under which these governance mech-
anisms were created - including who led the charge and under what socio-political
contexts - helps to identify the spatial politics of transboundary water govern-
ance, and the colonial legacies they either reify or reject. The historical context
in which these institutions were conceived reflects the priorities of the time of
development and has much to do with negotiated power dynamics. My aim of
historicizing the creation of these institutions is to bring border politics (and colonial
legacies) more directly into the discussions of transboundary water governance -
something that is largely unconsidered in the environmental governance literature.
This provides important context as we move into section two, where I discuss
mechanisms that are contributing to the “decolonization” of transboundary water
governance.
The chapter starts with a discussion of the signing of the Boundary Waters Treaty
(BWT) of 1909 and the creation of the IJC. The second a nd third sections are
more contemporary in focus, with brief overviews of the development of the
supranational CEC (1994) and the subnational ECC. The IJC provides a binational
perspective; the CEC provides a tri-national perspective; the ECC provides a
regional, bilateral governance mechanism relatively autonomous from federal
involvement; while the Yukon River Inter-Tribal Council example provides a