Thursday, January 26, 2017

Legal change and geography of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system

The Canadian Geographer recently published Jamie Benidickson's "From boundary waters to watersheds: Legal change and the geography of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system" (thanks to Canadian Legal History blog for noting it). The abstract:
It is appropriate to recognize an evolving legal and institutional perspective on the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system (GL-SL) as a means of furthering the understanding that is provided from established cartographic, bio-geological, historic, and cultural perspectives. This paper describes elements of that evolution from a one-dimensional legal conceptualization of the GL-SL as a boundary reflecting sovereign autonomy and state security, through a more complex recognition of the water system involving navigation, fisheries, and water supply, to a more comprehensive acknowledgment of basin- and ecosystem-oriented approaches where land-use activities and influences ranging from groundwater flows through air-borne contamination must be accounted for. The Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement (1972–2012) provide general points of reference.
There's a lot in this article on pollution regulation, fisheries, and more.

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