Oceanus.

v. 17, summer (1973

U.S.-Canadian Relations Regarding Diversions from an International Basin: An Analysis of Article II of the Boundary Waters Treaty

This Note argues that article II of the Boundary Waters Treaty, when applied, has failed to resolve international water disputes between the United States and Canada. Part I of this Note examines the history of the negotiations and the text of the Treaty. Part II reviews the subsequent application of article II to international water disputes. Part III analyzes recent U.S. proposals to divert water from Lake Michigan to drought-stricken areas in the context of the Treaty and customary international water law. This Note concludes that article II of the Boundary Waters Treaty is inadequate to resolve water disputes between the U.S. and Canada and should be renegotiated to reflect customary principles of international water law

U.S.-Canadian Relations Regarding Diversions from an International Basin: An Analysis of Article II of the Boundary Waters Treaty

This Note argues that article II of the Boundary Waters Treaty, when applied, has failed to resolve international water disputes between the United States and Canada. Part I of this Note examines the history of the negotiations and the text of the Treaty. Part II reviews the subsequent application of article II to international water disputes. Part III analyzes recent U.S. proposals to divert water from Lake Michigan to drought-stricken areas in the context of the Treaty and customary international water law. This Note concludes that article II of the Boundary Waters Treaty is inadequate to resolve water disputes between the U.S. and Canada and should be renegotiated to reflect customary principles of international water law

The Extraterritorial Reach of Trademarks on the Internet

The advent of the Internet means incredible opportunity for global interaction. Consumers in Asia can buy from a small business in Louisiana, and businesses can advertise to a much wider market for a fraction of the cost of traditional media. But these benefits come with a dilemma: what to do about trademark infringement on the Internet. In a virtual world with no borders, what (and where) is the law

Offshore petroleum and minerals: Plugging gaps in the present framework

For twenty years, it has been realized that there is a gap in New Zealand’s environmental law in that there is no general environmental legislation for the exclusive economic zone, and now for the extended continental shelf that includes areas more than 200 nautical miles offshore. The jurisdiction of regional councils under the Resource Management Act 1991 does not extend beyond the 12-mile limit, about 22 km offshore. (The jurisdiction of territorial authorities extends only to the mean low water mark.) That has meant that oil and gas operations beyond the 12-mile limit have not had proper environmental scrutiny. Public concern about such matters has sharpened in the light of petroleum exploration in the Raukumara Basin off the East Cape, although so far it has only reached the stage of seismic exploration. The Deepwater Horizon blowout on the Macondo prospect in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010 also looms large in public debate. With a lower profile but with a similar potential to cause environmental harm is the possibility of seabed mining operations. A company is gearing up for deep seabed mining off New Britain in Papua New Guinea. Globally, the main targets are cobalt-rich crusts, polymetallic nodules (on the abyssal plain), and massive sulphide deposits (near hydrothermal vents). In New Zealand iron sands are also attractive. Other possible future uses of the offshore are carbon capture and storage and the extraction of gas hydrates. Existing operations such as fishing by bottom trawling present risks of environmental harm to the benthic environment, especially to features such as seamounts. The Minister for the Environment has now announced his intention to introduce a bill to plug this legal gap, at least in relation to petroleum development and seabed mining. Action on this is most welcome. It is desirable to consider the strengths and weaknesses of the proposal, and of the legal framework for oil and gas well drilling in general. Some surprising gaps remain even if the Minister’s proposal is enacted

Legitimate Exclusion of Would-Be Immigrants: A View from Global Ethics and the Ethics of International Relations

The debate about justice in immigration seems somehow stagnated given that it seems justice requires both further exclusion and more porous borders. In the face of this, I propose to take a step back and to realize that the general problem of borders—to determine what kind of borders liberal democracies ought to have—gives rise to two particular problems: first, to justify exclusive control over the administration of borders (the problem of legitimacy of borders) and, second, to specify how this control ought to be exercised (the problem of justice of borders). The literature has explored the second but ignored the first. Therefore, I propose a different approach to the ethics of immigration by focusing on concerns of legitimacy in a three-step framework: first, identifying the kind of authority or power that immigration controls exercise; second, redefining borders as international and domestic institutions that issue that kind of power; and finally, considering supranational institutions that redistribute the right to exclude among legitimate borders

Mississippi v. Tennessee: Resolving an Interstate Groundwater Dispute

This commentary explores the legal background and potential ramifications of Mississippi v. Tennessee: an original jurisdiction case involving a dispute over aquifer groundwater. Although the Supreme Court has addressed water disputes between states in the past, Mississippi v. Tennessee is the first such case to center exclusively on groundwater. As a result the Court has the opportunity to resolve a question of great relevance in an era where access to water is a recurring news story; is aquifer groundwater an interstate resource subject to equitable apportionment, or an intrastate resource subject to state sovereign ownership