From supranational to intertribal - Governing Transboundary Waters: Canada, the United States, and Indigenous Communities - page 55

consider water quality and water quantity projects together (rather than as separate
entities). During this time, the IJC also attempted to diversify their pool of experts,
who until the mid-eighties largely represented senior water resource engineers and
managers. Today the experts, IJC staff, and committee members represent a wider
range of disciplines (including social scientists, environmental specialists, resource
economists and, in some instances, dedicated citizens with on-the-ground expertise
and knowledge), and include a number of subnational experts, which reflects the
trend of increasing delegation and decentralization more generally. The IJC,
however, could be more diverse in its representation. For example, to date, there
has never been an IJC Commissioner with Indigenous heritage - an inclusion that
would undoubtedly enrich the Commission and contribute to a new vantage point
from which to address shared water issues. As federal governments appoint the
Commissioners (and not the IJC themselves), it is important to advocate for greater
diversity during the nomination process. The IJC has, however, appointed board
and task force members with Indigenous heritage, which is encouraging.
Going around the IJC? Provincial-state water agreements
Subnational participation in transboundary governance of water has become
increasingly common throughout North America and beyond (Alper and Monahan,
1986; Alper, 1996; Norman and Bakker, 2009). This increased presence of sub-
national actors is part of a wider trend in environmental governance. In the Global
South, for example, integrated watershed management techniques, which rely on
the watershed scale as the primary locus of power, have become increasingly preva-
lent in water-related projects (Lautz and Giordano, 2005; Shah and van Koppen,
2007). Similarly, in Europe, the creation of the Water Framework Directive man-
dates a watershed approach to all rivers within the European Union, over 50 percent
of which are transboundary (European Commission, 2000).
This section addresses transboundary water governance exercised at the
provincial-state scale, that is, the relevant states and provinces dealing directly with
one another rather than through the federal governments, or the IJC. North
American examples include the Gulf of Maine Council, the Council of Great Lakes
Governors and Premiers, and the British Columbia-Washington Environmental
Cooperation Council. The last example is explored in greater detail below. The
enactment of binational governance mechanisms at a subnational level marks a new
era in transboundary governance of water.
The British Columbia-Washington Environmental
Cooperation Council
It is perhaps unsurprising that one of the most developed province-state trans-
boundary water agreements was developed far from Ottawa and Washington, DC,
in a part of the continent with a reputation for environmental concern. Driven by
a handful of events (not least of which was the 1988 Grays Harbor oil spill in