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Fail-Safe Federalism And Climate Change: The Case Of U.S. And Canadian Forest Policy, Blake Hudson

Journal Articles

Recent research demonstrates the difficulties that federal systems of government may present for international treaty formation, a prime example being legally binding treaties aimed at harnessing global forests to regulate climate change. Some federal constitutions, such as the U.S. and Canadian constitutions, grant subnational governments virtually exclusive direct forest management regulatory authority for non-federally owned forests. With subnational governments controlling sixty-five percent of forests in the United States and eighty-four percent in Canada, the U.S. and Canadian federal governments may be constrained during international negotiations and unable to legally bind subnational governments to any agreement prescribing methods of utilizing these …