Aboriginal rights and the migratory birds convention: Domestic institutions, non-state actors and international environmental governance

The 1916 U.S.-Canada Migratory Birds Convention constitutes the legal foundation of the continental regime making possible the management of migratory birds populations in North America. While considered a success in international environmental governance, the Convention failed to fully recognize the special needs and rights of Aboriginal Peoples who depend on the continuing harvest of waterfowl for their subsistence during the spring. In order to answer long-standing grievances, the national governments of Canada and the United States have attempted twice in the last thirty years to amend the Convention. A first attempt led to an agreement in 1979 but it failed to be ratified. It took a second agreement, signed in 1995, to finally succeed in amending the continental regime. How can we account for this difficult process of international regime change? What finally triggered the process of regime change after sixty years of injustice? Why did the 1995 agreement succeed while the 1979 agreement failed?; This dissertation answers these questions by providing an in-depth examination of the politics of the case. We demonstrate that changes in the domestic political environment of both countries were important in triggering efforts to change the Convention and that the constitutional rules for treaty-making in both countries played an important role in structuring the politics of regime change. In the 1980s, the U.S. Senate veto over treaty approval helped a transnational coalition of environmentalists, recreational hunters and state/provincial wildlife agencies defeat the 1979 agreement against the will and efforts of both national governments. In the 1990s, national governments successfully amended the Convention only after concessions to non-state opponents, a lobbying campaign by the Canadian government in the U.S. and changes in Canadian constitutional law helped them overcome the threat of the American Senate's veto. Overall, the dissertation suggests that our understanding of international regime change could be advanced by better accounting for the role of transnational coalitions of non-state actors and domestic political factors, such as constitutional rules for treaty-making.