| Photo by Robert Holmgren |
Allan Gotlieb Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley
| Photo by Robert Holmgren |
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The culminating achievement of your days in Washington is the U.S. - Canada Free Trade Treaty. And I believe that obtaining that treaty, reaching that agreement, was done through these "new rules." But you've also said that the treaty itself is an effort to institutionalize the relationship, to transcend the new rules of diplomacy. Could you explain that?
The foundation of the argument for the agreement is the fact that in our two democracies, power is decentralized (in Canada it's also decentralized, but in different ways -- in the provinces, etc.); that, indeed, if you try to deal with everything on a purely multilateral basis, and if you try to channel all decisions at the executive level, then the whole process becomes very politicized. To paraphrase George Bush, the relationship consists of a thousand points of contact. One of the things that the agreement does, and where it enters into a new ground, is it tries to create institutions which are cognizant of or founded on the fragmented character of decision making and the nature and origins of conflict. It creates institutions which recognize the various nature of the forces at work. I would compare it to a classic conflict of a special interest group moving a regulatory body to take some kind of a trade action. Such action very, very often almost escapes the executive power, and it is very hard for executive power to be wielded -- that was what the Omnibus Trade Bill was all about, trying to limit executive power. So the agreement says that in that kind of context, we'll create an international body, a new institution, which will address those issues, and which will resolve that conflict. That is very, very innovative and very, very unusual. So what I'm saying is that the Free Trade Agreement, in a breakthrough manner, moves the relationship from government-to-government to institution-to-institution. It institutionalizes the relationships between Canada and the United States in important sectors of the economic field. Now that is very unusual for both of our countries. I think it is a recognition of the enormous complexities of government decision making. For example, before, the way a conflict could arise is it could go from special interest to a regulatory body. The regulatory body doesn't handle it properly; it goes to the executive. The executive doesn't handle it properly; it goes to the Congress. The Congress tries to pass a law -- all of it part of a politicized process. Now, that kind of quarrel could be referred automatically to a consultative commission. If it becomes a quasi-judicial dispute, it goes to a binational panel. Neither country can even pass a law that derogates from the agreement without notifying the other country first, without agreeing to consultation. And if the law doesn't meet even with the spirit of the agreement, that law can be tested by a new body, a new institution (that is, the binational panels) for compatibility with the agreement. So it introduces a sort of arm's-length institution to try to channel some of all these threads, these various unpredictable points of conflict into a more rational and neutral process. Now it doesn't go miles down that direction, but it goes some yards. It begins.
But what has happened to our respective sovereignties? Here we are, we have entered the 20th century with an old 19th century concept. We've codified it in the International Law Commission of the UN. And suddenly, we are giving up control.
I think the key point, which is not understood in democracies (I don't think it's understood in Canada, I don't think it's understood in the United States, I don't think it's understood in Great Britain, on the part of the population as a whole) is that we live in an era of greatly mitigated sovereignty. Sovereignty, the 19th century concept, as a concept doesn't exist anymore. Because of interdependence and the global economy, we have all entered into vast networks of treaty obligations that don't allow us to do [whatever we choose]. Even a tariff agreement is a mitigation on our sovereignty. We cannot prevent an American, let's say, word processor from coming into Canada; we can't say, "No, keep your word processor out," or "Yes, let it come in, I'm going to charge you 1,000 percent tariff." We can't do that. We can't do it under the GATT. If that mitigates our sovereignty, then what's happened to our sovereignty? You can say, "Well, we didn't have to agree to it." Well, whatever the method, we now no longer can do what, in pure sovereignty, one can do. So sovereignty is a vastly mitigated concept.
The problem is that sovereignty doesn't exist as we knew it. It's a myth: the margin for independent action is so slight whether you're dealing with interest rates or almost any sector of society that you can't act without potentially violating treaty obligation, potentially causing effects that could hurt others and hurt you in return. Although that is true, and although the practitioners of international relations know it, it is not sufficiently understood or accepted, in my opinion, by many practitioners of domestic policy. They tend to regard these arguments as wimpish and as excuses for non-action because they operate in the domestic field. But the political discourse about sovereignty in all of the democracies is in 19th-century terms. No politicians talk in these terms when it comes to national interest. And, incidentally, this is one of the reasons for the enormous popularity of decisive action on the part of governments. When Mrs. Thatcher went into the Falklands, when President Reagan intervened in Libya -- enormously popular. This is sovereignty: "We did it." But the very examples I give you show how rare it is, and how exceptional. Public opinion still thinks about sovereignty in 19th-century terms, and politicians are fearful of rebutting that and saying, "Sovereignty! Let's not talk baloney. Let's talk real." Politicians don't talk that way. Now in Canada, the Free Trade debate was about sovereignty. Many of the parties that opposed it in the population said, "It impairs our sovereignty." And we said, "Well, what do you mean?" And they said, "We will slowly lose control over our destiny, our culture will become further diluted, we will not be able to maintain our national identity." In Canada, we even talk about cultural sovereignty.
As I hear you talking about these relations of tight dependency and interdependency, and political education work that you were doing in Washington, it reminds me of your support of Canadian Studies on various university campuses. Is that the key here, that there's a lot of education that needs to be done about Canada, about the new international relations, and so on?
That is absolutely correct. If I had to put my finger on the most important factor in international relations and the most important quality in improving and maintaining good international relations, it's understanding. Misunderstanding is the greatest danger, and I'll tell you that misunderstanding is a particular danger, an even greater danger, among nations that are very much alike, because when they are very much alike, then when they differ, there's very little sympathy because people don't understand why would they differ. We have now opened up our investment policies -- they're still more restrictive than yours -- but 15 years ago, when the elected government of the day believed that more restrictive policies were necessary, an American might say, "Why would Canada restrict U.S. ownership of energy, of oil and gas reserves? Idaho doesn't restrict them, why would Canada?" If the person doesn't realize that the public policies in Canada are going to be very different, and there's a reason for their difference, then, when conflict occurs, there can be a very bad fallout. There can be resentment, there can be distrust. Family quarrels, if I can create a metaphor, are worse than quarrels among traditional enemies, in a way. Canada and the United States are like family, but we're not the same, and there is great seed for misunderstanding in Canada - U.S. relations.
By the way, in many ways I think that those seeds can grow in spite of the Free Trade Agreement. The reason why they can grow, maybe will grow, is that more and more information is being disseminated today in cruder, more blunt, and unsophisticated terms. Information is now communicated in nine-second capsules on television. Most people in America and Canada get their information from television. You can't deal with the nuances, with the subtleties that contribute to understanding by watching a television program, even if it's a good one, even if it's on PBS. If you really want to create strong foundations for international relations, you have to address the issue of understanding foreign societies. The most effective way to do that is in the schools and in the universities. That is a long-term investment. Long-term investments, regrettably, are not as popular as they should be. You don't see immediate returns; you may not see any returns at all, in your eyes. But education and knowledge are the key components, they're the sine qua non of understanding. You don't necessarily produce it, but they're the sine qua non: you can't have it without knowledge. And therefore I think education is a fundamental element in promoting good international relations, and Canadian Studies is a pioneer effort on the part of Canada to stimulate that in the United States. Because frankly, we found the level of interest in the United States in doing that very, very low. Eminent universities -- the Harvards, the Yales, the Princetons, the Californias -- I mean, you would teach anything here, anything, but it would be impossible to learn about a country with which you have a border, the longest border in the world of two countries. A country that buys about a third of all of your manufactured exports. A country that you visit more than any other. You couldn't learn anything about it.
It strikes me that this new world which you've described so well is a world of multiple identifications, and Canadians like you educated in the United States will be relating back to American universities. It's a very complex world in which we're going to still keep our national identities, but we're going to apply them in different contexts, and they will have a cosmopolitan tinge to them.
I think that's true. It's a terribly over-worked phrase, "networking," but I think, in fact, even in the field of education and science and discipline, it's going to become even more true that scholars are going to have to relate to each other over great distances. And I see that developing very, very much in Canadian Studies. It's almost as if intellectually there was no boundary.
I want to thank you Ambassador Gotlieb. In your stay here as a Regents' Lecturer, you've demonstrated that you're the master of the game. I guess the final thing is that you came, you saw, and you understood in your role of ambassador. So thank you very much for joining us. And thank you, Professor Barnes, for joining us for this "Conversation on International Affairs."
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