rly true in the context of international trade and investment agreements that are intended to transcend these same boundaries.While ecosystem-based watershed management is a desired outcome from an environmental policy perspective, in the context of National Treatment proportional sharing and investor-state litigation it invites the potential for serious and largely unpredictable consequences flowing from Canada’s commitments under NAFTA. Moreover the concept of watershed or ecosystem management is not one that NAFTA recognizes. This means that it might not be possible to distinguish between in-basin and out-of-basin users, investors or service providers without offending the NAFTA’s National Treatment obligations. This point deserves to be stressed because it would preclude entering into an ecosystem based management approach to international waters, such as the Great Lakes without opening the door to claims by investors or services providers located outside of the basin that they be accorded ‘treatment no less favorable’. Ultimately a Tribunal might conclude that out-of-basin claimants are not ‘in like circumstances’ with those within the basin. However, there is no reason to be confident about such an outcome. To sum up then, at best the imposition of these multi-lateral constraints makes the terrain of inter-provincial negotiations far more difficult to negotiate. Moreover, the success or failure of efforts to chart a safe course through the landmines established by these trade and investment regimes will only be determined after-the-fact by trade panels and tribunals operating almost entirely outside the context of Canadian law and legal institutions. 4. Would the export of water from one Canadian province have implications for other provinces and/or the federal government.The federal Options Paper we have noted specifically addresses this issue and concludes: If legislation permits bulk removal...
