International negotiations paralyzed by domestic politics: two-level game theory and the problem of the Pacific Salmon Commission.

• Author: Schmidt, Robert J., Jr.

1. INTRODUCTION

   During the summer of 1994 the fleets were deployed.(1) The press on both sides printed inflammatory stories.(2) Politicians called for armed intervention.(3) The situation continued to deteriorate in 1995.(4) To an outside observer it might appear as if the two parties involved were preparing for war. The parties are not historical antagonists, however, but rather friendly neighbors who share the longest undefended border in the world. The United States and Canada, long-time allies and trading partners, are involved in a war of words, and the dispute was caused by nothing more than fish.

   The current struggles are a continuation of long-standing unresolved issues between the United States and Canada primarily concerned with the allocation of the catch from the economically and socially important salmon fisheries of the Pacific Ocean. The importance of effectively managing these resources stems in large measure from the monetary value of the fisheries. In 1986,. the fishers of both countries landed approximately 177 million Pacific salmon weighing about 900 million pounds, worth an estimated $682.5 million (U.S. dollars) to the commercial fishers.(5) A calculation of the fisheries' net value to the economies of the two regions yields a value between $1.37 and $2.05 billion (U.S. dollars).(6) In addition to the commercial value of salmon, there are significant recreational and cultural values attached to the fisheries.(7) With the economic health of an entire region involved, it is easy to understand why such passion attends to the management of this resource.

   What is a bit surprising are the difficulties that these two neighbors continue to endure in managing this resource. From early in the twentieth century, both countries realized that the joint management of these resources was critical to the fisheries' continued health. It is a frustrating fact of life for those charged with the management of Pacific salmon that the fisheries of the United States and Canada are inexorably intertwined. Salmon do not respect international boundaries.(8) Besides the obvious annoyance this can cause politicians, it poses a serious threat to the ability of a coastal state to manage its salmon stocks. Over-fishing by foreign fleets may create an incentive for local fishers to over-utilize the resource and reduce the incentive to undertake efforts designed to protect and enhance the resource. Over-fishing can result in serious, if not fatal, injury to the fishery.(9) The international community has recognized this problem and attempted to deal with it by allowing coastal states to expand their jurisdictions over fish stocks. The creation of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), a two-hundred-mile buffer between the coastal states and the high seas, transformed most ocean fisheries from open-access common pool resources to stocks under the jurisdiction of coastal states.(10) Attributing property rights through the EEZ did not, however, resolve all fishery problems. In the case of anadromous stocks that migrate across EEZ boundaries, the issue of interception of intermingled stocks, the capture of salmon of one country by the fishing fleets of another, has remained problematic.(11)

   In the case of the Pacific salmon fisheries of the United States and Canada, it is impossible for the two countries to exploit their salmon resources without affecting the stocks of the other. Pacific salmon generally migrate northward upon entering the ocean and return by a southerly route to their rivers of origin to spawn. As a result of this migratory pattern, salmon runs from the northwestern continental United States, including the endangered runs from the Columbia and Snake Rivers, are intercepted in the fisheries off the coast of British Columbia. Salmon from British Columbian rivers are also taken in the fisheries of southeastern Alaska. As a result of this pattern, Alaska enjoys a significant advantage while Washington and Oregon are at a geographic disadvantage.(12)

   The problem created by the interception of salmon stocks originating in one country by the fisheries of another has plagued the relationship between the United States and Canada for several decades. The current struggles are merely a continuation of long-fought battles over the allocation of a valuable resource. While attempts have been made to resolve the international issue, the differential health of the salmon stocks within the United States, one of the root causes of the international debate, has received little attention. This lack of attention has paralyzed international efforts to allocate the salmon.(13) This paper examines the historical development of the Pacific Salmon Treaty(14) in Part II and analyzes the effects of domestic constraints on international negotiations in Part III. Part III also applies the lessons gleaned from this inquiry to a critique of several potential resolutions to the current domestic impasse. After highlighting the weaknesses of several of these proposed solutions, Part IV advances a proposal to ameliorate the domestic conflict, opening the international negotiations to solutions acceptable to all interested domestic parties.(15)

2. HISTORICAL BACKROUND OF THE PACIFIC SALMON TREATY

   Before turning to the current difficulties between the United States and Canada, it is important to look at the history of the joint management efforts of these countries. The roots of the current struggles, both domestic and international, are tied up in the history of these management efforts.

   1. The Development of the Fraser River Convention

      As is often the case in the management of joint resources, it was a near disaster that first brought the United States and Canada together and signaled the interdependence of the fishing industries of the two countries. The Fraser River runs through British Columbia and drains into Puget Sound. The River has remained a very productive system, particularly for salmon,(16) and its productivity is at least partially attributable to the management efforts that followed a series of accidents resulting from poor planning in the early 1900s. In 1913, and then again in 1914, the Fraser was almost completely blocked off by the collapse of sheer canyon walls due to blasting to create a railroad right-of-way.(17) The harvest of salmon for both the United States and Canada dropped dramatically as a result of the blockage.(18) These events, and the resulting economic hardships, prompted a series of negotiations that resulted in the adoption of the 1930 United States-Canada Convention for the Protection, Preservation, and Extension of the Sockeye Salmon Fishery in the Fraser River System (Fraser River Convention).(19) While the Convention was narrowly drafted, it signalled the beginning of joint management of salmon fisheries.(20) These events, however, also laid the groundwork for one of the most difficult issues facing the fisheries today, the question of how to reduce interceptions of the other country's salmon stocks.(21)

      The narrowness of the Fraser River Convention led to one of the first salmon skirmishes between the United States and Canada in the 1950s. This particular battle was waged because of increasing U.S. interceptions of another Fraser River salmon stock.(22) In addition to sockeye salmon covered in the Fraser River Convention, the Fraser River system produces a valuable run of pink salmon.(23) In 1955 and 1956, Canadian fishers complained bitterly to the Canadian Minister of Fisheries that the United States fishers were catching large quantities of Fraser River pink salmon. In response, the Minister suggested that the Canadians "wipe their noses, pull up their socks and catch a comparable number of Puget Sound [U.S.] pink salmon."(24) The Fraser River Convention was quickly amended in 1957 to include pink salmon.(25)

   2. Early Multilateral Salmon Treaties

      In addition to the bilateral negotiations between the United States and Canada, the international situation developed further in 1952, when the three primary salmon fishing nations of the Pacific, the United States, Canada, and Japan, entered into a treaty to regulate all high seas fishing in the North Pacific.(26) In relevant part, this treaty required Japan to stop all high seas salmon fishing in the eastern half of the Pacific, while requiring the United States and Canada to manage and regulate their respective salmon fisheries cooperatively.(27) This international agreement was one of the first reached between the fishing powers of the high seas and was a precursor to the first United Nations attempts to regulate and conserve the resources of the high sea.(28) The treaty was an aggressive and relatively successful attempt by the United States and Canada to exclude Japan from the rich salmon fisheries of North America.

      There was a problem, however, which pushed the United States and Canada toward a comprehensive agreement on Pacific salmon. In effect, the United States and Canada "painted themselves into a corner" by arguing against interceptions.(29) Under the Fraser River Convention, however, the United States intercepted Canadian salmon and vise-versa. In the agreement with Japan, therefore, the United States and Canada were arguing for a principle that they did not apply to themselves.(30) While post-war Japan was hardly in a position to question this hypocrisy, other fishing nations could and, in all likelihood, would have done so.(31) The further growth of United States-Canadian cooperation on salmon fishery management was "based on a common fear that if they did not cooperate, the way would be laid open for distant-water countries to enter the North American salmon fisheries."(32) The interception problem continued to lurk in the background throughout the next several decades as both countries expanded their fishery jurisdictions.(33)

   3. The Negotiation of the Pacific Salmon Treaty

      The current chapter in salmon management began in the...