PERSPECTIVE

If you go to Trail, British Columbia, as most of the contributors to this volume did in March 2003, you can still see one of the two 409-foot smokestack built there by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company in the mid-1920s. It was this smokestack that accelerated a chain of events that ultimately produced the Trail Smelter arbitration and etched the name of this tiny Canadian town into the annals of international law. Nestled in an alcove along the shores of the remote but majestic Columbia River, Trail seems an unlikely setting for a case that would assume a prominent role in the law of nations. But viewing the fateful smokestack, which seems somewhat diminished by the combined effect of the smelter's much expanded facilities and the surrounding peaks of the Canadian Rockies, one contributor to this book was moved to exclaim “arbitration works – the arbitration worked.” It was a rare, unequivocal endorsement of international law, especially in such an improbable context.

Certainly, the Columbia River Valley, from northeastern Washington state upstream to Trail, is no longer routinely bathed in toxic fumes from the smelter. Gone are the plumes of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxide, and particulate matter that cut a swath of damage in those earlier years, even while Trail continues as one of the world's most significant centers for mining and smelting. To this extent, the arbitration was undoubtedly a success.