What arrangements do Canada and the United States have for the sharing of boundary waters?
The longest-standing and arguably one of the most important bilateral environmental agreements between Canada and the United States is the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909. The treaty established the principles and mechanisms to prevent and resolve disputes regarding the quantity and quality of these waters. These principles provide the basis for the protection of waters shared by our two countries. Pursuant to the treaty, governments established the International Joint Commission (IJC) in 1911 as an impartial binational commission to oversee the implementation of the treaty. The treaty stipulates that the IJC’s approval must be obtained for situations involving the use, obstruction, or diversion of boundary and transboundary waters that affect the water’s natural level or flow. The treaty also allows for the governments of Canada and the United States to use the IJC as an independent fact-finding mechanism to carry out studies on matters of concern along the boundary and to make recomme
