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Federal Constitutions and Global Governance: The Case of Climate Change / Blake Hudson, Indiana Law Journal, Volume 87 (forthcoming 2012).working draft : http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1801648This article expands recent research published in the Colorado Law Review and applies similar analysis to other federal systems of government. The article is ultimately aimed at exploring the legal implications of federal constitutional law and structure on global resource governance. The article explores these implications through the lens of forest management law in federal systems of government (© Blake Hudson).Abstract (© Blake Hudson) :Federal  systems of government present more difficulties for international  treaty formation than perhaps any other form of governance. Federal  constitutions that grant subnational governments exclusive regulatory  authority over certain subject matters constrain national governments  during international negotiations - a national government that cannot  constitutionally bind subnational governments to an international  agreement cannot freely arrange its international obligations. At the  same time, federal nations that grant subnational governments exclusive  control over certain subject matters are seeking to maximize the  benefits of decentralization in those regulatory areas. The difficulty  lies in striking a balance between global governance and constitutional  decentralization in federal systems. For example, recent scholarship  demonstrates that U.S. federalism may jeopardize international  negotiations seeking to utilize global forest management to combat  climate change, since subnational forest management is a constitutional  regulatory responsibility reserved for state governments. This article  expands that scholarship by undertaking a comparative constitutional  analysis of five other federal systems - Australia, Brazil, Canada,  India, and Russia. These nations, along with the U.S., are crucial to  climate negotiations since they account for 54 percent of the world’s  total forest cover. This article reviews the constitutional allocation  of forest regulatory authority between national and subnational  governments in these nations to better understand potential  complications that federal systems present for global climate governance  aimed at forests. The article concludes that federal systems that  maintain three key elements within their constitutional structure are  most capable of agreeing to an international climate agreement that  includes forests, successfully implementing that treaty on domestic  scales, and doing so in a way that maintains the recognized benefits of  decentralized forest management at the local level - 1. national  constitutional primacy over forest management, 2. national sharing of  constitutional forest management authority, and 3. adequate forest  policy institutional enforcement capacity. The article also establishes  the foundation for further research assessing how the constitutional  structures of federal systems lacking key elements may be adjusted to  achieve more effective climate and forest governance.