Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by David D. Caron
- TRANSBOUNDARY HARM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION – HISTORY, LEGACY, AND REVIVAL
- 1 “An Outcrop of Hell”: History, Environment, and the Politics of the Trail Smelter Dispute
- 2 The Trail Smelter Dispute [Abridged]
- 3 Of Paradoxes, Precedents, and Progeny: The Trail Smelter Arbitration 65 Years Later
- 4 Pollution by Analogy: The Trial Smelter Arbitration [Abridged]
- 5 Has International Law Outgrown Trail Smelter?
- 6 The Flawed Trail Smelter Procedure: The Wrong Tribunal, the Wrong Parties, and the Wrong Law
- 7 Rereading Trail Smelter [Abridged]
- 8 Trail Smelter and the International Law Commission's Work on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts and State Liability
- 9 Derivative versus Direct Liability as a Basis for State Liability for Transboundary Harms
- 10 Transboundary Pollution, Unilateralism, and the Limits of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: The Second Trail Smelter Dispute
- PART TWO TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – THE ENVIRONMENT
- PART THREE TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – BEYOND THE ENVIRONMENT
- Annex A Convention Between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada Relative to the Establishment of a Tribunal to Decide Questions of Indemnity and Future Regime Arising from the Operation of Smelter at Trail, British Columbia
- Annex B Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal Decision, April 16, 1938
- Annex C Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal March 11, 1941, Decision
- Index
4 - Pollution by Analogy: The Trial Smelter Arbitration [Abridged]
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by David D. Caron
- TRANSBOUNDARY HARM IN INTERNATIONAL LAW
- Introduction
- PART ONE THE TRAIL SMELTER ARBITRATION – HISTORY, LEGACY, AND REVIVAL
- 1 “An Outcrop of Hell”: History, Environment, and the Politics of the Trail Smelter Dispute
- 2 The Trail Smelter Dispute [Abridged]
- 3 Of Paradoxes, Precedents, and Progeny: The Trail Smelter Arbitration 65 Years Later
- 4 Pollution by Analogy: The Trial Smelter Arbitration [Abridged]
- 5 Has International Law Outgrown Trail Smelter?
- 6 The Flawed Trail Smelter Procedure: The Wrong Tribunal, the Wrong Parties, and the Wrong Law
- 7 Rereading Trail Smelter [Abridged]
- 8 Trail Smelter and the International Law Commission's Work on State Responsibility for Internationally Wrongful Acts and State Liability
- 9 Derivative versus Direct Liability as a Basis for State Liability for Transboundary Harms
- 10 Transboundary Pollution, Unilateralism, and the Limits of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: The Second Trail Smelter Dispute
- PART TWO TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – THE ENVIRONMENT
- PART THREE TRAIL SMELTER AND CONTEMPORARY TRANSBOUNDARY HARM – BEYOND THE ENVIRONMENT
- Annex A Convention Between the United States of America and the Dominion of Canada Relative to the Establishment of a Tribunal to Decide Questions of Indemnity and Future Regime Arising from the Operation of Smelter at Trail, British Columbia
- Annex B Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal Decision, April 16, 1938
- Annex C Trail Smelter Arbitral Tribunal March 11, 1941, Decision
- Index
Summary
Where there's muck, there's brass.
– Yorkshire Folksaying.Every discussion of the general international law relating to pollution starts, and most end, with a mention of the Trail Smelter arbitration between the United States and Canada. For example, in the American Law Institute's Restatement (Second) of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States, the only precedent cited on the topic of a state's liability to another in connection with pollution is the Trail Smelter arbitration. Such heavy reliance on a single precedent breeds overstatement as analysts attempt to reinterpret the case to fit various hypothetical circumstances and new cases. Frequently, the precedent can be applied only by raising it to a level of abstraction far beyond the range of its logic. In the Restatement itself, the proposition that the Trail Smelter arbitration is cited to support is:
The relation of cause to effect underlies the parallel principle that a state may be held responsible under international law for damage which it causes in the territory of another state. Thus Canada was held responsible to the United States under international law for the production of fumes in Canada which polluted the air in the United States.
In fact, as will be seen, the arbitration did not hold that polluting the air in the United States was the basis of Canadian liability. But more of that later.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Transboundary Harm in International LawLessons from the Trail Smelter Arbitration, pp. 46 - 55Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006