Review: Canada: Canada and the International Seabed
| Author | Cranford Pratt |
| Published date | 01 March 1991 |
| Date | 01 March 1991 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209104600120 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/CANADA
203
CANADA
AND
TIlE INTERNATIONAL
SEABED
Domestic
determinants
and external constraints
Elizabeth
Riddell-Dixon
Montreal:
McGill-Queen's University
Press,
1989,
Xii,
225pp,
$34.95
Canadian
diplomacy
is
often
regarded
as
having
demonstrated
both
superlative
skill
and
an
effective
commitment
to
internationalism
in
the
extended
negotiations
that
culminated
in
the
1973-82
Third
United
Nations
Conference
on
the
Law
of
the
Sea.
Some
see
this
as
evidence
of
Canada's
attainment
of
principal
power
status,
others
as a
triumph
of
middle
power
consensus-building.
However
the Canadian
effort
is
labelled,
the
final
convention
certainly
contains
a
great
deal
that
is
of
very
special
interest
to
Canada:
exclusive
authority
over
fishing
extending
to
2oo
nautical
miles
offshore;
sovereign
rights
to
the min-
eral
resources
to
the
same
distance
or
to
the
margin
of
the
continental
shelf,
whichever
is
more distant;
significant
acceptance
of Canadian
claims to
an
important
measure
of
functional sovereignty
in
the
Arctic;
and
some
safeguards
of
the
interest
of
land-based
nickel
mining
as
and
when
seabed
nodule mining
is
developed.
Elizabeth
Riddell-Dixon
has
written
a
remarkably
detailed and
quite
superb
study
of
Canadian
policy
decision-making related
to
deep
seabed
mining.
The
information,
insights,
and
indiscretions
which
senior
public
servants
shared
with
the
author
and
her
very
great
ability
in
ordering
and
presenting
this
material
make this
book
an
absolute
model
of
how
to
analyse
the
making
of
public
policy.
Those
of
us
with
whom
public
servants
are
more
reticent
are
enormously
in
her
debt.
Riddell-Dixon
is
equally
interesting,
though
less
persuasive,
in
her
effort
to
establish
that
the Canadian
policies
she
studies
are
best
explained
through
a
bureaucratic
politics
approach.
She
establishes
that
public servants
dominated
the
decision-making
process;
that
there
were
two
competing
bureaucratic
factions
on
these
issues,
one
led
by
officials
of
the
Department of
External
Affairs
and
the
other
by
officials
of
the
Departments
of
Finance
and
Energy,
Mines
and
Resources;
that
little
effort
was
made
to work
out
a
compromise
between
these
factions;
that the
major
business
lobby
supported
the
second
faction
and
the
United
Steelworkers
of
America
the
first;
and
that
nevertheless
the
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