| Montreal, 23/08/2006 – On 21 August 2006, the Secretariat of the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) issued a determination terminating the process for the SEM-06-002 (Devils Lake) submission. The submission asserted that Canada and the United States are failing to effectively enforce anti-pollution provisions in the 1909 International Boundary Waters Treaty (Treaty) with respect to the construction and operation by the state of North Dakota of an outlet to drain water from Devils Lake into the Sheyenne River, the Red River Basin, Lake Winnipeg, and ultimately into the broader Hudson Bay drainage system.
The Devils Lake submission was filed on 30 March 2006, by Sierra Legal Defence Fund, on behalf of Friends of the Earth Canada; Friends of the Earth US; People to Save-the-Sheyenne River, Inc.; Thelma Paulson and Gary Pearson D.V.M. of North Dakota; and Claire Sevenhuysen and Lawrence Price of Manitoba (Submitters).
On 8 June 2006, the Secretariat found that the submission was deficient and allowed the Submitters 30 days to file a revised submission. On 7 July 2006, the Submitters provided the Secretariat with a revised submission alleging that both Canada and the United States are failing to effectively enforce Article IV of the Treaty with respect to the Devils Lake outlet. Article IV requires that “boundary waters and waters flowing across the boundary shall not be polluted on either side to the injury of health or property on the other.”
On 21 August 2006, the Secretariat determined that the revised submission still does not meet the requirements of Article 14(1) of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and therefore terminated the process for the submission. The Secretariat was unable to conclude that Article IV of the Boundary Waters Treaty meets the definition of “environmental law” in Article 45(2)(a) of the NAAEC. Under this definition, “environmental law” means “statutes and regulations” whose primary purpose is environmental protection or prevention of a danger to human life or health. Drawing a distinction between international and domestic legal obligations, the Secretariat found that it was not sufficiently clear that Article IV has the same force of law as a statute or regulation in either Canada or the United States.
The CEC was established under the NAAEC to address environmental issues in North America from a continental perspective, with a particular focus on those arising in the context of liberalized trade. The Council, the organization's governing body, is composed of the top environment officials of Canada, Mexico and the United States.
The citizen submissions mechanism of the CEC enables the public to play a whistle-blower role on matters of environmental law enforcement. Under Article 14 of the NAAEC, any person or nongovernmental organization may submit a claim alleging that a NAFTA partner has failed to effectively enforce its environmental law. Following a review of the submission, the CEC Secretariat may investigate the matter and prepare a factual record of its findings.
For more information, please visit the CEC's Citizen Submissions on Enforcement Matters page. |
