The Law of International Watercourses is evolving with increasing importance despite its relative youth as a subject of public international law and the fact that much of the law is emerging but not as yet well established law. From times of Antiquity, when early civilizations settled along the great rivers of the world, water has played an important role in economic and social development. Apart from domestic consumption, navigation was the most important use of water, and early doctrine and State practice reflect this. Following the Industrial Revolution, competition over the non-navigational uses of international watercourses spurred the development of international water law. In recent years rules have been developed and codified through the work of the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, institutions and associations for international law including the International Law Association (ILA) and the Institut de droit international (IDI). Central is the work of the UN International Law Commission (ILC), which led to the adoption of the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1997. Water scarcity and increasing environmental pollution will inevitably result in more disputes over international watercourses in the future and, at the extreme, in armed conflict. The further codification and progressive development of the law of international watercourses is essential to prevent this.
This Research Guide is intended as a starting point for research in the field of the Law of International Watercourses. It provides the basic legal materials available in the Peace Palace Library, both in print and electronic format. Handbooks, leading articles, bibliographies, periodicals, serial publications and documents of interest are presented in the Selective Bibliography section. Links to the PPL Catalogue are inserted. The Library’s classification index code 74. Boundary Waters or Lakes, International Waterways and Canals and subject heading (keyword) International Watercourses are instrumental for searching through the Catalogue. Special attention is given to our subscriptions on databases, e-journals, e-books and other electronic resources. Finally, this Research Guide features links to relevant websites and other online resources of particular interest.
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2013 United Nations International Year of Water Cooperation
In December 2010, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2013 as the United Nations International Year of Water Cooperation (Resolution A/RES/65/154). In reflection of this declaration, the 2013 World Water Day, which will take place on 22 March 2013, also will be dedicated to water cooperation. Therefore, UN-Water has called upon UNESCO to lead the 2013 United Nations International Year on Water Cooperation, in particular because of the Organization’s unique multidisciplinary approach which blends the natural and social sciences, education, culture and communication. Given the intrinsic nature of water as a transversal and universal element, the United Nations International Year on Water Cooperation naturally would embrace and touch upon all these aspects.
The objective of this International Year is to raise awareness, both on the potential for increased cooperation, and on the challenges facing water management in light of the increase in demand for water access, allocation and services. The Year will highlight the history of successful water cooperation initiatives, as well as identify burning issues on water education, water diplomacy, transboundary water management, financing cooperation, national/international legal frameworks, and the linkages with the Millennium Development Goals. It also will provide an opportunity to capitalize on the momentum created at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), and to support the formulation of new objectives that will contribute towards developing water resources that are truly sustainable.
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The issues surrounding water embody some of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. The editors of this timely book have brought together the leading authors in the field to explore the key questions involving international law and water governance. International Law and Freshwater connects recent legal developments through the breadth and synergies of a multidisciplinary analysis. It addresses such critical issues as water security, the right to water, international cooperation and dispute resolution, State succession to transboundary watercourse treaties, and facets of international economic law, including trade in ‘virtual water’ and the impacts of ‘land grabs’. Containing detailed analysis and thought-provoking solutions, this book will appeal to researchers and academics working in the legal field, as well as international relations and natural sciences. Water practitioners, public officials, diplomats and students will also find much to interest them in this insightful study.
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The Nile River and its basin extend over a distinctive geophysical cord connecting eleven sovereign states from Egypt to Tanzania, which are home to an estimated population of 422.2 million people. The Nile is an essential source of water for domestic, industrial and agricultural uses throughout the basin, yet for more than a century it has been at the centre of continuous and conflicting claims and counter-claims to rights of utilization of the resource. In this book the author examines the multifaceted legal regulation of the Nile. He re-constructs the legal and historical origin and functioning of the British Nile policies in Ethiopia by examining the composition of the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1902, and analyses its ramifications on contemporary riparian discourse involving Ethiopia and Sudan. The book also reflects on two fairly established legal idioms – the natural and historical rights expressions – which constitute central pillars of the claims of downstream rights in the Nile basin; the origin, essence and legal authority of the notions has been assessed on the basis of the normative dictates of contemporary international watercourses law. Likewise, the book examines the non-treaty based claims of rights of the basin states to the Nile waters, setting out what the equitable uses principle entails as a means of reconciling competing riparian interests, and most importantly, how its functioning affects contemporary legal settings. The author then presents the concentrated diplomatic movements of the basin states in negotiations on the Transitional Institutional Mechanism of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) – pursued since the 1990′s, and explains why the substance of water use rights still continued to be perceived diversely among basin states. Finally, the specific legal impediments that held back progress in negotiations on the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework are presented in context.
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This book focuses on River Basin Organizations as the key institutions for managing internationally shared water resources. This includes a comparative analysis of all River Basin Organizations worldwide and three in-depth case studies from three different continents. The detailed case studies are the Senegal (West Africa), Mekong (South-east Asia) and Danube (Europe) rivers. The book contributes to the academic debate on how shared natural and environmental resources can be managed in a sustainable way and which institutional and legal mechanisms actually matter for doing so. It adopts the neo-institutionalist approach, according to which international environmental institutions do make a difference. The analysis not only confirms this argument for the specific case of shared water resources, but also refines existing hypotheses on the influence of different independent variables, namely the nature of the collective action problem, the constellation of actors and the institutional design of an international environmental institution. The work also contributes to the policy debate on how to better govern internationally shared natural resources and the environment. It provides policy makers with advice on which exogenous conditions to be aware of when managing water resources they share with co-riparians and which institutional design features and governance mechanisms to set up in order to increase effectiveness in management.
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Focusing on transboundary river systems and their basins, the authors explore the fresh water crisis of Himalayan Asia. While the region hosts some of the world’s mightiest rivers, it is also home to rapidly modernizing, increasingly affluent, and demographically multiplying societies. This combination ensures both the depletion of water resources and the increase in disputes over ownership of transboundary river waters. In a thorough investigation, based on extensive field research across Asia, the authors examine how these disputes impact the present and future interstate relations of this key region.
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The Columbia River Treaty, passed in 1964, split hydropower and flood control regulation of the river between Canada and the United States. Some of its provisions will expire in 2024, and either country must give ten years’ notice of any desired alteration or termination. The Columbia River Treaty Revisited, with contributions from historians, geographers, environmental scientists, and other experts, is intended to facilitate conversation about the impending expiration. It allows the reader, through the close inspection of the Columbia River Basin, to better grasp the uncertainty of water governance. It aids efforts, already underway, to understand changes in the basin since the treaty was passed, to predict future changes, and to determine whether alteration of the treaty is ultimately advisable. The Columbia River Treaty Revisited will appeal to those interested in water basin management–scholars, stakeholders, and residents of the Columbia River basin alike.
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Water resources and related issues are of great significance in 21st century politics. In Africa, for example, hydropolitics affect politics and policymaking at the local, national, and international levels. To investigate water politics, this unique work focuses on the issue transboundary water governance in Southern and Eastern Africa. Based on extensive field research, it offers a comparative study of the Orange Senqu and Nile basins in Africa, arguing that both causal and behavioral factors (such as localization and trust building) drive the multi-leveled development of cooperative management norms and foster the creation of regional communities of interest. The book combines theory, analysis, and fieldwork within the framework of Constructivism as well as a wide range of examples to identify and analyze the nature of norms in hydropolitics. By doing so, it will help shape the debate on how water conflict and cooperative governance should evolve and will interest anyone studying African politics, hydropolitics, and issues of development.
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An edited collection by Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi which analyzes the increasing global demand for water in economic and social development, and the dire need to efficiently manage this vital natural resource, particularly in water-scarce countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Several environmental- and human-induced factors, such as urbanization, industrialization, climate change, and agricultural needs, have created a near-crisis situation in many countries. Subsequently, there is an increasingly intense competition to utilize available water resources in these most heavily-affected regions; transboundary rivers, lakes, and streams which are shared by more than one country pose potential for political conflict, armed conflict, and, in the best of cases, cooperation. The contributors of Water Resource Conflicts and International Security present ten case studies in seven chapters, highlighting the competition between countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. In his conclusion, Dhirendra K. Vajpeyi suggests several policy measures that governments may implement in order to minimize the potential for conflict.
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On 2 February 1971, the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands was adopted. The original Contracting Parties of the Convention were driven by an anxiety that migratory waterbirds were in increasing danger because of loss of their habitats. And yet in their wisdom they created a convention focused on wetland ecosystems rather than just wetland birds.
Read moreThe Scheldt is a transboundary river which originates in North-Western France and runs through Western Belgium and the South-West of the Netherlands. The Scheldt Estuary is shared between Belgium and the Netherlands. Since the separation of Belgium from the Netherlands in 1839, the free navigation of the Scheldt and the maintenance and improvement of the navigation channel have been a bone of contention and legal controversy.
Read moreWith the emergence of the Newly Independent States (NIS) in the 1990s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, new borders cut through Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. As a result, many water allocation and pollution problems that were previously national issues within the Soviet Union have become transboundary issues.
Read moreThe Lecture Series contains a permanent collection of lectures of enduring value on virtually every subject of international law given by leading international law scholars and practitioners from different regions, legal systems, cultures and sectors of the legal profession. Lectures on the Law of International Watercourses by Stephen C. McCaffrey, Salman M.A. Salman, Chusei Yamada and Eyal Benvenisti.
Schmeier, S., Governing International Watercourses: River Basin Organizations and the Sustainable Governance of Internationally Shared Rivers and Lakes, London, Earthscan from Routledge, 2013.
Vajpeyi, D. (ed.), Water Resource Conflicts and International Security: A Global Perspective, Lanham, MD, Lexington Books, 2012.
Sultana, F. and A. Loftus (eds.), The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles, London, Earthscan, 2012.
Cosens, B. (ed.), Transboundary River Governance in the Face of Uncertainty: The Columbia River Treaty, Corvallis, OR, Oregon State University Press, 2012.
Woldetsadik, T.K., International Watercourses Law in the Nile Basin: Three States at a Crossroads, London, Routledge, 2013.
Wirsing, R.G., D.C. Stoll and C. Jasparro, International Conflict over Water Resources in Himalayan Asia, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.
