Archive for the ‘International Water Law’ Category

Notification concerning Planned Measures on Shared Watercourses: Synergies between the Watercourses Convention and the World Bank Policies and Practice

Monday, June 17th, 2019

The following essay by Dr. Salman M. A. Salman is a summary of his recently published monograph (under the same title), which appears as Vol. 4(2) 2019 of Brill Research Perspectives in International Water Law.  Dr. Salman is an academic researcher and consultant on water law and policy, Editor-in-Chief of Brill Research Perspectives in International Water Law, a Fellow with the International Water Resources Association (IWRA), and the co-recipient of the IWRA Crystal Drop Award in 2017. Until 2009, he served as the World Bank Adviser on Water Law. He can be reached at: salmanmasalman [at] gmail.com.

Notification of co-riparian states of planned measures on shared watercourses that may result in significant adverse effects has been widely accepted as one of the established principles of international water law. This wide acceptance of notification is now codified and elaborated by the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention, which includes one separate part, with nine articles, on notification.

The duty to notify other states of activities that may affect them stems from the international obligations of good faith, good neighbourliness, and reciprocity. It is an extension of the general obligation under international law to cooperate and to exchange data and information on shared watercourses. Such cooperation is no doubt the sine qua non for the equitable, sustainable, and efficient utilization and protection of shared watercourses.

It is worth noting that the notification requirement and its components have recently become the focus of attention and developments in a number of global fora, and have energized the debate on the details of operationalizing the notification obligation. The attention covered a number of issues including the content of the notification letter, and the different types of responses thereto.

One major development in the field of notification is the decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2010 in the Pulp Mills case. That decision has gone beyond endorsing the notification requirement under the Statute of the River Uruguay, concluded by Argentina and Uruguay in 1975. The ICJ considered notification as a sine qua non of cooperation, in addition to being a vital method for protecting the shared watercourse.

In that same year, 2010, negotiations over the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) among the Nile Basin countries collapsed after more than ten years of facilitation by the World Bank and some other donors. The impasse resulted from the insistence by Egypt and Sudan on the inclusion of a specific reference in the CFA to what they considered as their ‘acquired rights’ over the Nile waters (which they termed ‘water security’), as well as provisions on notification, similar to those of the UN Watercourses Convention. The CFA includes provisions on exchange of data and information, but none on notification. Because they are inter-related, these demands have been vehemently rejected by the other Nile riparians.

Another development that has highlighted the concept of notification relates to the gradual and wide acknowledgement that harm, under international water law, is actually a two-way matter with regard to the issue of quantitative allocation of the waters of shared rivers. Just as upstream riparians can harm downstream ones through storage, diversion, and use of the waters of shared rivers, downstream riparians can also harm upstream riparians by foreclosing their future uses of the shared waters through the prior use of, and the claiming of rights to such waters, and by invoking the no harm obligation. Based on this concept of foreclosure of future uses, notification has to be from all, and to all, of the riparians of the shared watercourse.

The fourth development in the realm of notification relates to the discussion and attempts of the World Bank, since 2005, to amend the provisions on notification in the Bank Policy for “Projects on International Waterways.” Indeed, the World Bank has one of the pioneering and elaborate policies, and the only practical experience, among international organizations in this field. The Policy does not establish a threshold for notification. Rather, it requires notification, as a general rule, for all projects on international waterways, and sets forth three exceptions to the notification requirement. The purpose of the proposed amendment is to align the Bank Policy with the provisions of the UN Watercourses Convention with regard to the threshold for notification.

The monograph begins with an overview of the historical and legal origins of the notification requirement. It then examines in detail the provisions of the UN Watercourses Convention as well as those of the World Bank policies dealing with notification, including the content of notification and the different types of responses that the notifying state may receive from the notified states. The monograph discusses in detail possible objections to the planed measures from riparian states, and how such objections are addressed under the provisions of the Convention and the Bank Policy and practice.

The monograph concludes by highlighting a number of comparators and synergies between the UN Watercourses Convention and the Bank Policy and practice, including the role of environmental impact assessments, shared groundwater resources, the different responses to notification, and how to handle objections from a notified state. The conclusion also stresses the potential wider positive outcomes of notification when undertaken properly and in good faith.

The full article can be accessed here.

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Adapting Watercourse Agreements to Developments in International Law: The Case of the Itaipu Treaty

Tuesday, April 16th, 2019

The following essay by Dr. Maria A. Gwynn is a summary of her recently published monograph (under the same title), which appears in Vol. 4(1) 2019, of Brill Research Perspectives in International Water Law.  Dr. Maria A. Gwynn is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Public International Law of the University of Bonn, and conducted most of the research contained in this monograph while she was an Oxford-Princeton Global Leaders Fellow at Princeton University and at the University of Oxford. She can be reached at maria.gwynn [at] uni-bonn.de.

 

The UN Convention on the non-navigational uses of international watercourses recommends that states adapt their existing bilateral and regional agreements to the provisions of the Convention to promote equitable and reasonable uses of watercourses. This monograph assesses the practical consequences of this provision, and the prospects for achieving sustainable development with such action, and uses the Itaipu Treaty as a case study.

The Parana River

The Itaipu Treaty, which was signed and ratified by Brazil and Paraguay in 1973 and continues to be in force today, was established so that these two countries would jointly pursue the advantages that could be obtained from the exploitation of the Parana River to

The former Guaira Falls

produce hydropower through the construction of a dam. The Parana River is an international watercourse on the South American continent sourced by the La Plata basin. The dam was constructed at the river’s most powerful point, the Guaira Falls, formerly the greatest set of waterfalls on the South American continent, which disappeared after the construction of the dam.

The river’s great resources were not underestimated. Today, the sheer amount of energy that the Itaipu Dam produces has placed both countries among the largest producers of clean and renewable energy in the world. However, while Brazil consumes its entire share of the energy produced, Paraguay (whose available share of energy from the hydropower facilities far exceeds its own domestic energy demands) only consumes a small part of this clean and renewable energy source. Paraguay, instead, continues to use biomass sources (burning of coal and wood) to satisfy most of its energy needs. Under the Itaipu Treaty, Paraguay sells its unused allotment of energy to Brazil.In general, the Itaipu Treaty regulates the use and consumption of hydropower produced by the dam, making the provisions of the treaty very pertinent to understanding the two countries’ energy policies.

The Itaipu Dam and Reservoir

The Itaipu Treaty entered into force before the United Nations International Law Commission had finished its task of evaluating the international law and customs on the non-navigational uses of international watercourses, embodied in the UN Watercourses Convention, and before some of the major developments concerning international environmental law came about. However, the Itaipu

Treaty contains a renegotiation provision, according to which the two states must renegotiate some of its provisions 50 years following the conclusion of the treaty, i.e. in the upcoming year 2023. The monograph argues that this is a great opportunity for both countries to adapt their watercourse agreements to the current standard and principles of international law.

The monograph provides a detailed assessment of the advantages of adapting watercourse agreements to the standard and principles of all pertinent areas of international law, such as international water law, international environmental law, and climate change law. The first part of the monograph begins with an analysis of the initial approaches to the law of international watercourses in the first half of the twentieth century. It discusses some of the main principles of the law governing international watercourses and the work of pertinent institutions concerned with this area. In this sense, the first part of the monograph describes the status of the law on international watercourses at the time when the Itaipu project was first pursued.

Signing the Acta de Yguazu Agreement in 1966

The second part of the monograph discusses the Itaipu project in its legal and historical context. An analysis of the principles of consultation and notification for projects on international watercourses are particularly instructive. The monograph describes the relevance of the role of Paraguay, which despite being a main treaty party, has often been neglected in the scholarship.  The monograph shows how escalation of disputes to an international conflict regarding sovereignty was eased by benefit sharing agreements and inter-state cooperation of the countries of the La Plata basin. The monograph also offers a comparative analysis to similar cooperation and benefit sharing agreements signed at about the same time in other parts of the world.

The Itaipu Agreement

The third part of the monograph describes the advances in the law of international watercourses and of environmental law since the 1970s, and places the implementation of the Itaipu Treaty, which in turn is analyzed in the fourth part of the monograph, within this context. The fifth part of the monograph describes recent disputes concerning the non-navigational uses of international watercourses decided by the International Court of Justice in an analysis that connects the decisions of such judgments with the monograph’s object of study.

The monograph concludes by highlighting how the treaty provisions and their implementation could be affected by the developments in international law and the UN Watercourses Convention in particular. It argues that adapting watercourses agreements like the Itaipu Treaty to the provisions of the Convention is a way to foster

The UN Sustainable Development Goals

sustainable development. Doing so would be advantageous not only to the treaty parties, but also to the other countries in the water basin and to the international community as a whole.

The monograph is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Dr. Efrain Cardozo (1906-1973) and to Prof. Dr. Ruben Ramirez Pane (1920-2004).

The entire article is available here.

 

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The International Law Association Helsinki Rules: Contribution to International Water Law

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

The following essay by Professor Slavko Bogdanović is a summary of his recently published monograph (under the same title), which appears in Vol. 3(4) 2018 of Brill Research Perspectives in International Water Law.  Professor Bogdanović was on the Law Faculty of the University Business Academy in Novi Sada in Serbia and now is a consultant on water law and policy. He can be reached at nsslavko@gmail.com.

 

The International Law Association (ILA) started in 1954 its study of the principles and rules of international law applicable to the rivers making or being intersected by state boundaries. It was a moment after WWII when the enhanced harnessing of hydropower potential of international rivers was seen as a necessity. The rising development needs of nations in parallel with growth of populations resulted in enlarging demand for electric energy production. Engineering aspects of harnessing rivers were not the problem; the challenge was the applicable law. The lack of accepted and pertinent international law rules was a major obstacle not only for the economic development of nations, but also to the economy of the world in general.

Early in the last century, the Geneva Convention relating to Development of Hydraulic Power affecting more than one State (1923) and other (scarce) sources of international water law had shown their limits and inadequacy not only for resolving pending developmental problems, but also for addressing serious interstate disputes concerning the rights of upstream and downstream states to the waters of international rivers (some of the more well-known disputes included the Helmand, Indus, Nile, Jordan and Yarmouk, and Columbia rivers). At the time, the U.N. International Law Commission was not willing to deal with the issue of codification of the applicable law considering it to be premature.

In the United Nations system, the problem was identified and investigated beginning in the late 1940s, and addressed continually through the 1990s when long-lasting efforts by different bodies and agencies finally resulted in the adoption of the UN Convention on the Law of Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses in 1997.

This monograph is the result of research aimed at highlighting the details of the initial period of the ILA’s efforts to respond to the situation. Its Rivers Committee was assigned in 1954 “to study the various legal, economic and technical aspects of rights and obligations between states as to the inland waters, […] with the purpose of elaborating practical recommendations for international arrangement”. Besides a review of the broader context in which the ILA efforts and activities were situated, the monograph is focused on detailed elaboration and analysis of the documents drafted by the Rivers Committee, which, under the strong supervision and precise guidelines of the management bodies of the ILA, led step-by-step to the approval of the famous Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers in 1966. This is followed by a discussion about the Helsinki Conference and its resolution, and then a detailed analysis of each chapter of the Helsinki Rules. The concluding part of the monograph highlights the global acceptance and wide influence exerted by the Helsinki Rules on shared water resources and related disputes, in particular the UN Watercourses Convention.

The monograph points out that the Helsinki Rules were neither ideal nor complete. As a “delicate balance between widely divergent views”, the Helsinki Rules were subject to the scrutiny of two subsequent ILA committees, which were active until 2004. Those committees studied various topics and formulated a series of articles supplementary and complementary to the Helsinki Rules with the aim of updating, upgrading and revising certain details. In that way, the Helsinki Rules served as reliable ground for further exhaustive study in this field, what eventually resulted in the comprehensive and consistent set of ILA rules compiled in the Campione Consolidation of the Rules on International Water Resources, 1996 – 1999 (2000).

The monograph also briefly indicated the attempt of the ILA to revise its entire body of international water law compiled in the Campione Consolidation, through approval of the Berlin Rules on Water Resources (2004), which diverge substantially from the key principles as set out in the Helsinki Rules and all other ILA rules subsequently approved, and from the final output of the International Law Commission on the law of non-navigational uses of international watercourses (1996), the UN Watercourses Convention (1997), and from the ICJ judgment in the Case concerning the Gabčikovo – Nagymaros Project (1997) (see Berlin Rules Dissenting Opinion).

Finally, the monograph calls for further investigation and critical analysis and evaluation of the entire body of work by the ILA in the field of international water law, including the outputs of two later ILA committees and the background leading to the approval of the Berlin Rules. The author argued that such research might show that the Helsinki Rules, in the advanced, revised and enriched form, expressed in the Campione Consolidation, are a safe pivot, marking the way out from the confusion caused by emerging proliferation of wishful concepts and ideas in this still young branch of international law.

The monograph is dedicated to the memory of Dr Dante Caponera (1921-2003), and the other members and officers of the ILA Rivers Committee.

The entire article is available here.

 

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Shared Water Resources in West Africa – Relevance and Application of the UN Watercourses and the UNECE Water Conventions

Monday, April 16th, 2018

The following essay by Nwamaka Chigozie Odili is a summary of her recently published monograph (under the same title), which appears in Vol. 3(1) 2018, pp. 1-98, of Brill Research Perspectives in International Water Law. Mrs Nwamaka Odili is a Legal Officer with Federal Ministry of Justice, Abuja, Nigeria. She can be reached at amaka142 [at] yahoo.com.

 

West Africa has twenty-five shared watercourses but only six of them are governed by legal instruments. Yet, the region, like the rest of the world, is exposed to water-related stress due to the impacts of climate change, urbanization, and overpopulation. This position results in abundance of fresh water in some countries of the region and limited or scarce availability of the resource in others. The need for a regulatory framework for managing all the region’s transboundary watercourses, therefore, cannot be overemphasized. Although the principles of customary international law apply in all cases whether there are regulatory instruments or not, treaties create obligation that are needed to strengthen the international water law system. Global framework treaties like the UN Watercourses Convention and the UNECE Water Convention provide the needed support through universal norms ‘to shape the content of instruments adopted at the regional and basin level’ (Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, ‘Freshwater and International Law: the Interplay between Universal, Regional and Basin Perspectives’ (Paris, UNESCO, 2009) at 5).

Transboundary Watercourses in West Africa

Regulated

 

Transboundary WatercourseRiparian States
Niger River BasinNigeria, Niger, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Cameroun, Guinea, Mali, Chad
Lake Chad BasinCameroun, Nigeria, Chad, Central African Republic, Niger, Libya
Volta River BasinGhana, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo, Côte d’Ivoire and Mali
Senegal River BasinSenegal, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania
Gambia River BasinGambia, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Senegal
Koliba-Korubal River BasinGuinea and Guinea Bissau

Non-Regulated

 

Transboundary WatercourseRiparian States
Cross River BasinNigeria and Cameroon
Akpa Yafi River BasinNigeria and Cameroon
Queme River Basin Nigeria and Benin
Tano River BasinGhana and Côte d’Ivoire
Komoe River BasinCôte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina Faso
Atui River BasinMauritania and West Sahara
Mono River Basin Togo and Benin
Bia River BasinGhana and Côte d’Ivoire
Sassandra River BasinGuinea and Côte d’Ivoire
Cavally River BasinCôte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Liberia
Cestos River BasinCôte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Liberia
St John River BasinLiberia and Guinea
St. Paul River BasinLiberia and Guinea
Loffa River BasinLiberia and Guinea
Mana Morro River BasinLiberia and Sierra Leone
Moa River BasinLiberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea
Little Scarcies River BasinSierra Leone and Guinea
Great Scarcies River BasinSierra Leone and Guinea
Geba River BasinGuinea Bissau, Guinea and Senegal

Since adoption of the General Act of Berlin in 1885, which dealt, inter alia, with the Niger River, more agreements have been contracted for the management of some of the shared watercourses in West Africa, particularly in the post-colonial era. Hence, West Africa contributed through these agreements to the development of international water law prior to the adoption of the UN Watercourses Convention and the UNECE Water Conventions in the 1990s. Initial instruments dealt primarily with navigation, while later agreements addressed the need for co-operation and incorporated other principles of customary international water law. The two conventions, no doubt, have influenced this trend such that water regimes in the region improved over time. This raises the question: do riparian states in West Africa need to be parties to either or both water conventions to enhance management, sharing and protection of their shared watercourses?

The influence of the UN Watercourses Convention in the region is established because water regimes implemented after adoption of the UN Watercourses Convention reflect some of its substantive and procedural provisions. Moreover some countries in West Africa are parties to the Convention. On the other hand, influence of the UNECE Water Convention in the region is limited and its potential benefits have yet to be determined. Article 25 and 26 of the UNECE Water Convention were amended to allow non-UNECE states that are members of the United Nations to become parties to the Convention. However, its mandatory provisions regarding basin organization and compliance with its stringent requirements, details, and tasks necessitates significant foreseeable financial and technical resources, which countries in West Africa now lack.

Although most West Africa water instruments are flawed by loopholes and there is need to address the problems generated by unregulated shared watercourses in the region, West Africa nations do not need to be contracting parties to both the UN Watercourses Convention and the UNECE Water Convention. What West Africa needs is a treaty position that accommodates the reality of the management of its transboundary water resources. Adoption of global treaties by the states of West Africa is not sufficient because the universal law in those treaties needs to be complemented by regional or basin agreement for realistic implementation. The important issue is not which global convention the states belong to, but rather how strong and efficient transboundary water resources management in the region has grown over time. To achieve this goal and to further address major gaps and failings in transboundary water resources management in West Africa, states in the region could negotiate a region-based water treaty to reflect the needs and concerns of the region and supplement it with basin-specific treaties.

The entire article is available here.

 

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Inter-State Water Law in the United States of America: What Lessons for International Water Law?

Monday, September 25th, 2017

The following essay by Professor Rhett Larson is a summary of his recently published monograph (under the same title), which appears in Vol. 2.3, 2017, pp. 1-82, of Brill Research Perspectives in International Water Law. Professor Larson is a Professor of Law at the Arizona State University School of Law. He can be reached at Rhett.Larson [at] asu.edu.

 

John Wesley Powell was an 19th Century explorer of the western United States. In a report to the U.S. Congress, Powell recommended that the borders of future western states be based on watersheds and warned of the risks associated with political subdivisions sharing transboundary waters. Congress ignored Powell’s advice, and established western state boundaries with many inter-state waters traversing and, in some cases forming, sub-national borders. As a result, and as I discuss in my recent monograph published in Brill Research Perspectives on International Water Law, the United States has a long and colorful history of transboundary water management that provides both encouraging lessons and cautionary tales for international water law.

For example, the common law doctrine of “equitable apportionment” developed by the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving its original jurisdiction over inter-state water disputes is similar in many respects to the principle of equitable and reasonable utilization embodied in Articles 5 and 6 of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses ( “Watercourse Convention”).

RhettLarson-Inter-State_Water_Law_in_the_USBeyond the obvious use of the word “equitable” in the articulation of both the inter-state doctrine and the international doctrine, the factors set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in determining equitable apportionment are similar to the factors laid out in Article 6 of the Watercourse Convention in determining equitable utilization. The U.S. Supreme Court considers “physical and climatic conditions,” and international law considers “[g]eographic, hydrographic, hydrological, climatic, ecological and other factors of a natural character.” The U.S. Supreme Court considers consumptive uses, while the Watercourse Convention includes considerations of the “effects of the use or uses of watercourses.” The U.S. Supreme Court considers wasteful uses, and the Watercourse Convention includes considerations of conservation options.

Despite these similarities, the U.S. doctrine of equitable apportionment and the factors included in determining reasonable and equitable utilization under the Watercourse Convention have differences that are important to note for what each doctrine may learn from the other. The Watercourse Convention expressly includes consideration of population, which seems an obvious factor missing from inter-state water law. The Watercourse Convention also considers both existing and potential uses of the watercourse, while the U.S. doctrine of equitable apportionment considers only “consumptive uses,” not necessarily potential future uses. It might also be helpful for the U.S. doctrine of equitable apportionment to expressly factor in ecological considerations in a way similar to the Watercourse Convention, because those considerations may not always be adequately captured by the concept of waste embodied in the U.S. law.

On the other hand, the U.S. equitable apportionment doctrine includes a cost-benefit analysis consideration that could be a helpful factor to evaluate equitable utilization in international water law. Additionally, the consideration of the character and rate of return flows under U.S. inter-state water law may also be a helpful factor to include in determining equitable utilization in international water law.

In Bean v. Morris, an early equitable apportionment case before the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court identified an important factor when evaluating inter-state water allocations that could be incorporated into international equitable and reasonable utilization analysis. States in the U.S. typically rely on one of two legal regimes for allocation rights to water. The approach to water rights in eastern states is generally common law riparian rights based on English and Roman laws, under which rights are apportioned to owners of property abutting water bodies based on the requirement that uses be reasonable. The approach to water rights in western states is generally prior appropriation, with water rights based on a first-in-time, first-in-right scheme, subject to beneficial use requirements and the prohibition against waste.

Neighboring U.S. states sharing transboundary waters can therefore have dramatically different approaches to allocating water rights and different policy aims in water management. These differences have aggravated inter-state water disputes over transboundary waters. The U.S. Supreme Court, in an early equitable apportionment case, sought to mitigate the impact of, if not reconcile, these different approaches to water rights. In Bean v. Morris, the Supreme Court held that it would apply principles of prior appropriation when allocating water between states that recognize prior appropriation as their own internal water rights system.

International water law could similarly look to using domestic water law principles held in common between two nations sharing a watercourse as a factor in the evaluation of reasonable and equitable utilization. Such an approach would be a more targeted application of Article 38(1)(c) of the International Court of Justice’s statute authorizing reliance on “general principles of law recognized by civilized nations” in resolving international disputes. Nations are perhaps more likely to view such a factor as reasonable and equitable if based on domestic laws already accepted and legitimized under their respective domestic laws.

Other potentially helpful lessons from U.S. inter-state water law for international water law may include the use of special masters to facilitate dispute resolution and the recognition and quantification of water rights held by indigenous peoples. Cautionary tales for international water law from U.S. inter-state water law include the inter-state problems created by the bifurcation of groundwater and surface water rights, and the over- or under-empowerment of basin-level, inter-jurisdictional commissions. Many countries with federal structures, like the United States, have been dealing with inter-jurisdictional water disputes for generations, and therefore could be fertile ground for cultivating ideas for reform in international water law.

The entire article is available here.

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New Book Explores the International Law of Transboundary Groundwater Resources

Sunday, September 17th, 2017

The following essay by Gabriel Eckstein provides an overview of his forthcoming book on The International Law of Transboundary Groundwater Resources. The book should be released on 20 September 2017.

Approximately 600 aquifers worldwide traverse international frontiers. Yet, only four of these have been the direct focus of a treaty regime. In sharp contrast, more than 3,600 treaties have been crafted for the 276 shared rivers and lakes of the world. As a result, the international law applicable to transboundary groundwater resources is far less developed and understood than its surface water counterpart. To a significant extent, international groundwater law has yet to emerge on the international stage.

 

TBA Map - colour

 

Nevertheless, increased regional scarcities and growing demand for freshwater resources have forced many governments to focus on all of their freshwater resources, including those found below the surface along their borders. In places like the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Central Asia, and the Mexico-United States border, nations have come to realize that transboundary aquifers serve as the primary or sole source of freshwater for their communities and natural environment.

As a result, various countries and international organizations are now beginning to explore legal options for the management of these subsurface water bodies.  Both the UN International Law Commission and the UN Economic Commission for Europe have issued proposed norms aimed at guiding transboundary aquifer riparians on how to develop such regimes (see UN Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers, and UNECE Model Provisions on Transboundary Groundwaters). And agencies like the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization are developing case studies and evaluating management approaches with the goal of developing equitable cooperative regimes.

While the international law applicable to transboundary groundwater resources is still in its infancy, progress is evident and preliminary trends can be discerned.  This books documents these developments and offers a fairly comprehensive look at the evolutionary process that has led to the emergence of what may yet be termed international groundwater law.

IGWLBookCoverThe book opens with a general overview of the importance of groundwater resources to communities and humanity on a global scale. It then placed groundwater in a transboundary context and recognizes the governance challenges that arise among aquifer riparians. Taking a decisively interdisciplinary approach, Chapter 2 discusses groundwater resources in accessible scientific terms and lays the foundations for applying scientifically sound laws and policies to transboundary groundwater resources. It considers groundwater within the broader hydrologic cycle and describes and defines the various hydrogeological concepts and processes that must be considered by groundwater managers and regulators.  The book then discusses in Chapter 3 groundwater in a cross-border context and presents six conceptual aquifer models to illustrate various scenarios in which groundwater resources can have transboundary implications.  The models are all scientifically valid generic models, and are based on and represent the vast majority of circumstances found in nature under which an aquifer may have transboundary implications.

In Chapter 4, the book turns to the law and explores how groundwater has been treated in various domestic legal regimes and traditions, as well as in formal and informal arrangements between aquifer riparian states. This discussion lays the foundation for the growing attention paid to transboundary aquifers among governmental, inter-governmental, and non-governmental entities, and their interest in identifying globally acceptable legal norms and rules for managing groundwater resources that traverse international boundaries.  Chapter 5 follows with an analysis of groundwater resources and aquifers under the U.N. Watercourses Convention, while Chapter 6 focuses on groundwater and aquifers under the UN Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers.

Taking into account the preceding chapters, Chapter 7 discusses the emerging trends in the evolution of international law for transboundary aquifers. It begins by reviewing the few formal and informal arrangements in existence in which nations have addressed directly the management or use of a transboundary aquifer. It then extracts those principles and norms that are common to all or most of these instruments and evaluates them as a basis for the possible emergence of international law. The book concludes with Chapter 8 where it identifies gaps in the law in light of the unique characteristics (especially as compared to surface water bodies) of groundwater resources and their potential cross-border implications. This final chapter is intended as a basis for further discussion and consideration of the continued development of this nascent but critical area of international law.

For more information about this book, please see here.  To request a review copy, see here; Instructors can request an e-book exam copy here.

 

Posted in International Water Law, New Resources & Information, Transboundary Aquifers | 3 Comments »

Disputes over International Watercourses: Can River Basin Organizations make a Difference?

Friday, July 21st, 2017

The following essay by Sabine Blumstein and Susanne Schmeier is a summary of a recently published book chapter titled “Disputes Over International Watercourses: Can River Basin Organizations make a Difference?”. Ms. Blumstein works as a Project Manager at adelphi. Ms. Schmeier is Coordinator for Transboundary Water Management at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). They can be contacted at: blumstein[at]adelphi.de.

 

Book coverDisagreements or even full-fledged disputes over the use of water resources in shared basins have increasingly made headlines in the past years. Developments in the Mekong, Nile, Syr Darya, Indus and other basins have led more and more scholars, as well as policy-makers and journalists, to warn of the risk of water conflicts or even wars. This revives – albeit in a more informed manner – the water wars debate of the early 1990s. While much progress has been made since then – especially through the creation and institutionalization of cooperative arrangements in many shared basins – disputes nonetheless continue to occur. And they do occur even in basins with River Basin Organizations (RBOs) in place, which have often been set up to solve, mitigate or prevent such disputes.

However, research on transboundary river basin management as well as empirical evidence from basins around the world suggest that RBOs do make a difference. They provide a variety of direct and indirect mechanisms for dispute resolution, as discussed in a recently published chapter which appeared in “Management of Transboundary Water Resources under Scarcity. A Multidisciplinary Approach”. In this chapter, the authors shed light on how RBOs engage in the solution of disputes that arise over water resources in transboundary basins. And they show that it is not dispute-resolution mechanisms in the narrow sense – often identified as the key if not the only instruments RBOs provide – that make a difference in whether a conflict is solved peacefully in a cooperative manner. Instead, it is the broader cooperative framework of RBOs that matters.

The authors review existing dispute resolution mechanisms of international RBOs around the world in a comprehensive manner. Their research indicates that more than 50% of the 121 analyzed RBOs have a dispute resolution mechanism in place – seemingly a good starting point. Among those, they identify three broader categories of RBO dispute resolution mechanisms: bilateral negotiations between those RBO members involved in a disagreement; RBO-internal mechanisms; and external actors’ involvement. Often, states have opted to establish more than one step in the respective dispute-resolution mechanism, structuring the processes in two instances with different mechanisms to be applied. For instance, bilateral negotiation between disputing parties (facilitated by the RBO) are often followed by a possible engagement of external actors – both 3rd party mediators and judicial ones.

The authors also provide explanations for why dispute resolution mechanisms vary around the world (in terms of existence in the first place, but also in design). Often, it is the history of cooperation (also beyond the water sector) that determines both the existence as well as the exact design of dispute resolution mechanisms. The high share of dispute resolution mechanisms in African RBOs, for example, can be explained by the past conflicts found in many African basins as well as the high presence of international donors, which often consider well-defined dispute-resolution mechanisms as a prerequisite for successful cooperation. In Europe, on the other hand, the existence of cooperation mechanisms (including specific instruments for solving disputes) in many issue-areas has limited the need for well-defined dispute resolution mechanisms within specific basins and RBOs.

Regional distribution of dispute-resolution mechanisms in RBOs

    Regional distribution of dispute-resolution mechanisms in RBOs

In the second part of the chapter, the authors analyze two conflicts in greater detail in order to shed more light on how exactly RBOs make a difference in solving or mitigating disputes in shared basins. For the Mekong River Basin, they find that while the Mekong River Commission’s (MRC) dispute resolution mechanisms themselves (see Art. 34 and 35 of the 1995 Mekong Agreement) might seem insufficient for addressing issues as complex as recent hydropower developments and related inter-state conflicts, the MRC provides ample other tools for ensuring that such disputes get addressed in a cooperative manner and on the basis of comprehensive technical data and information. Although having been criticized by many scholars, the MRC’s Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement (PNPCA) and the processes established around them (e.g. the identification of environmental and socioeconomic baselines, the establishment of guidelines for impact mitigation, etc.) have ensured that disagreements have been handled in a rather cooperative manner. This is particularly obvious if compared to similar situations of unilateral hydropower development in other basins around the world.

For the Nile River Basin, the authors find that the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) did not directly contribute to diplomatic negotiations or any other form of direct resolution of the conflict around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which can partly be explained by the absence of any NBI dispute resolution mechanism. In addition, the lack of any notification mechanism or requirement to exchange data/information on planned infrastructure measures which could potentially impact downstream countries, prevented the NBI to play any significant role in averting the dispute in the first place. Despite this limited role in conflict prevention and direct diplomatic engagement, NBI played an important role in defusing the conflict through broader activities around data and information sharing and increasingly distributing this knowledge to the broader public. The RBO’s activities regarding knowledge distribution and more neutral reporting through national media is an important contribution to de-securitize national discourses around the construction of GERD and hence a precondition for any final resolution of the dispute.

While the findings reveal that the existence of specific dispute resolution mechanisms in a narrow sense does not necessarily influence the success of dispute resolution and depends on a number of other intervening factors, RBOs as a whole do matter in 2addressing water-related conflicts. This is because RBOs provide a range of instruments beyond pure dispute resolution mechanisms: amongst others, they provide platforms for negotiation and exchange, data and information exchange or notification procedures. These instruments are of key importance to solve, contain or even prevent conflicts. Water practitioners and policy actors should therefore not exclusively focus on the specific dispute resolution mechanisms provided by RBOs but be aware of and actively use the broader repertoire of governance instruments provided by RBOs to avoid and solve evolving disputes in transboundary river basins.

 

Posted in Africa, Asia, International Water Law, New Resources & Information, Transboundary Rivers | Comments Off on Disputes over International Watercourses: Can River Basin Organizations make a Difference?

The Fairness ‘Dilemma’ in Sharing the Nile Waters: What Lessons from the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam for International Law?

Friday, June 30th, 2017

The following essay by Dr. Zeray Yihdego is a summary of his recently published monograph (under the same title), which appears in Vol. 2.2, 2017, pp. 1-80, of Brill Research Perspectives in International Water Law. Dr. Yihdego is a Reader in public international law at the School of Law, University of Aberdeen. He can be reached at zeray.yihdego [at] abdn.ac.uk.

The Nile, the longest River in the world, is shared by eleven riparian states, including Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia.  Ethiopia contributes about 86% of the Nile waters, while Egypt (and to a certain extent Sudan) rightly or arbitrarily use most of the waters. Rightly because the climate and dependency of the two downstream countries on the Nile may be used to justify their historic or existing (lion) share. Arbitrary because other riparian states with millions of people who live within the basin are denied their equitable share of Nile water resources and socio-economic development needs. The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) by Ethiopia on the Blue Nile is justified by Ethiopia based on equitable utilisation and crucial development needs, while questioned (until March 2015) by Egypt as a threat to its ‘historic’ water use rights.

This monograph articulates the key arguments and messages of enquiring into the fairness dilemma in connection with the construction, reservoir filling, and to some extent, future operation of the GERD, in light of relevant colonial-era Nile treaties, post-1990 Nile framework instruments, and international water law.

Nile_Map_UpdatedAfter providing factual, political and historical context to the GERD case in the Introduction, the monograph sets out the theoretical and normative framework around Thomas Franck’s fairness principle, and international water law (IWL), as primarily featured in the 1997 United Nations Watercourses Convention (UNWC). Franck’s theory of fairness uses procedural legitimacy (or right process) and distributive justice as two fundamental features of fairness.  These are supported by the rejection of making absolute claims and the possibility of accommodating inequality among states, as caveats to the fairness principle. It is argued that IWL, in general, and the UNWC provide rules and principles that specifically fit into the principle of fairness in all its aspects, although there is no evidence to suggest that inequality is tolerated or promoted in international (water) law.

Given that none of the Nile basin states is a party to the UNWC, and notwithstanding the relevance and application of customary international water law to the GERD, the monograph resorts to dealing with the Nile Basin Initiative and the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA), and argues that the CFA, either as a treaty regime or a codification of customary watercourses law, represents an emerging Nile basin legal framework with a potential to addressing questions of fairness in the basin. As the CFA has not entered into force and Egypt and Sudan do not constitute part of the process, however, the fairness of the GERD cannot be judged form the CFA perspective.

Following a thorough investigation of the fairness of the 1902 Nile Treaty, the 1993 Ethio–Egyptian Framework instrument, and the tripartite Declaration of Principles (DoPs) on the GERD signed by Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt in March 2015, the monograph submits that the 1902 and 1993 instruments do not provide a fair content and system for the concerned parties, albeit for different reasons. While the 1902 Nile Treaty is inherently arbitrary, and thus not compatible with the notion of fairness, the 1993 instrument incorporated modern principles of IWL, but not sufficiently, and lacks specificity of rights and duties of the two countries.  In contrast, the DoPs is founded on the globally accepted principles and rules of IWL and has

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

embraced both relevant content and legitimate process. The content of the DoPs includes the adoption of equitable utilisation and no significant harm principles. Similarly, the process agreed to in the DoPs includes the duty to exchange data and information, establishment of a National Technical Committee, the use of foreign consultancy firms and the use and endorsement of the work of an International Panel of Experts (IPoE).  All these, although not without challenges, have been negotiated in good faith, with equal participation of all concerned.

Based on this analysis, the monograph submits that:  the GERD is a symbol of a fair share of the Nile waters, the realization of which depends on, inter alia, an appropriate economic return and prevention of significant impacts; although application of the fairness principle can be complex, the notions of procedural fairness and distributive justice can be applied to define and delineate the principle with reference to a specific treaty regime; despite historical or existing injustice, a fair share of natural resources can bring sustainable and durable peace in inter-state relations.

The entire article is available here.

 

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The Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement: The Impasse is Breakable!

Monday, June 19th, 2017

The following post is by Dr. Salman M.A. Salman, an academic researcher and consultant on water law and policy and Editor-in-Chief of Brill Research Perspectives, International Water Law. Until 2009, Dr. Salman served as Lead Council and Water Law Adviser for the World Bank. He can be reached at SalmanMASalman [at] gmail.com.

A summit of the head of states of the Nile Basin countries is planned for June 22, 2017, in Entebbe, Uganda, to discuss the impasse over the Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA). The summit is to be preceded by a meeting of the ministers of foreign affairs of the Nile countries on June 20 – 21, 2017. The purpose of this Note is to clarify the differences over the CFA, and to propose a roadmap for resolving these differences.

The CFA and the Differences Thereon

The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) was born on February 22, 1999, in Dar-es-Salam, Tanzania, following the signing of the minutes of the meeting by nine of the Nile ministers of water resources in attendance. The NBI was facilitated by a number of donors led by the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The NBI was established as a transitional arrangement to foster cooperation and sustainable development of the Nile River for the benefit of the inhabitants of those countries. The NBI is guided by a shared vision “to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources.”

Work started immediately on the CFA, and lasted ten years. However, by 2009, major differences over some basic issues erupted, and could not be resolved, neither at the technical, nor at the political levels, leading to the impasse on the CFA. These major differences persisted as a result of the resurfacing and hardening of the respective positions of the Nile riparians over the colonial treaties, as well as the Egyptian and Sudanese claims to what they see as their acquired uses and rights of the Nile waters, and the rejection of these claims by the upper riparians.

Nile_Map_UpdatedThe first difference related to water security. Article 14 of the CFA required the Basin states to work together to ensure that all states achieve and sustain water security. However, this paragraph did not satisfy Egypt and Sudan who wanted to ensure, through an additional clause, that their existing uses and rights are fully protected under the CFA. Consequently, Egypt and Sudan demanded and insisted that Article 14 of the CFA should include a specific provision, to be added at the end of the Article, that would oblige the Basin states “not to adversely affect the water security and current uses and rights of any other Nile Basin State.” This demand was rejected by the upper riparains who saw it as a denial of the basic principle of equitable and reasonable utilization, and a breach of the vision of the NBI itself.

The second major difference related to the concept of notification, demanded by Egypt and Sudan and rejected by the upper riparians. The upper riparians saw it as a means for Egypt and Sudan to invoke the colonial treaties and their claim of veto power.

While the impasse persisted, on May 14, 2010, four of the Nile riparians (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda) signed the CFA in Entebbe, Uganda. They were joined five days later by Kenya, and by Burundi on February 28, 2011. The CFA has thus far been ratified by Ethiopia, Tanzania and Rwanda. It needs a total of six instruments of ratification/accession to enter into force. Egypt and Sudan continue to vehemently reject the CFA.

Developments Since Conclusion of the CFA

The upper riparians continued with their projects on the Nile notwithstanding the impasse over the CFA, and the erosion of the NBI. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which commenced in 2011, has proven a major challenge to, and a source of a bitter dispute between Ethiopia on the one hand, and Egypt and Sudan on the other. However, by December 2013, Sudan broke ranks with Egypt, and declared its full support of the GERD.

Egypt followed, albeit reluctantly, fifteen months later. Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia concluded in March 2015, through their head of states the Agreement on Declaration of Principles on the GERD (DoP). Egypt and Sudan basically accepted, through the DoP, the GERD and declared for the first time ever “the significance of the River Nile as a source of livelihood and the significant resource to the development of the people of Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.” The three countries agreed further “to cooperate based on common understanding, mutual benefit, good faith, win-win, and the principles of international law, (as well as) in understanding upstream and downstream needs in its various aspects.” The DoP went on to state explicitly that “the purpose of the GERD is for power generation to contribute to economic development, promotion of transboundary cooperation and regional integration…”

The DoP included other provisions on equitable and reasonable utilization, the obligation not to cause significant harm, as well as peaceful settlement of disputes. It also contained explicit provisions on the GERD, including cooperation on filling its reservoir, as well as its safety. The DoP was confirmed nine months later through the signature by the three countries of the Khartoum Document in December 2015 at their 4th tripartite meeting.

Breaking the Impasse

These developments clearly annulled Egypt and Sudan previously held position of securing all the Nile waters for their exclusive use through existing uses and rights, and the veto power over other Nile countries’ projects. Equality of all the riparians, as pronounced by the Permanent Court of International Justice in the 1929 River Oder case, and reconfirmed by the International Court of Justice in the 1997 Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros Project case, is now fully accepted by Egypt and Sudan. Similarly, Egypt and Sudan have confirmed their acceptance of the basic and cardinal principle of international water law of equitable and reasonable utilization.

The consequent and logical step for Egypt and Sudan is to drop their demand for recognition of their existing uses and rights as a part of the water security paragraph of the CFA. Indeed, the whole section of the CFA on water security is no longer needed, given that the CFA includes the same provisions of the United Nations Watercourses Convention (UNWC) on equitable and reasonable utilization, as well as on the obligation not to cause significant harm. It is worth mentioning that the UNWC includes no provisions on water security, as this is not a legal concept – merely a political pronouncement.

The quid pro quo for Egypt and Sudan agreeing to drop their demand for recognition of their existing uses and rights is to include provisions in the CFA similar to those of the UNWC on notification. This should cause no alarm to the upper riparians as the basis of Egypt and Sudan of their veto power in case of notification – the colonial treaties – is no longer on the table since the two countries have accepted the principle of equality of all the riparians. Besides, notification could take place through the Commission to be established under the CFA, or through the ministerial council of the Nile Basin States as happened in the latter years of the NBI before the differences erupted over the CFA.

This compromise would address the concerns of both Egypt and Sudan on the one hand, and those of the upper riparians on the other. Its details can be successfully worked out through good faith negotiations, if the political will among the Nile riparians exist. Indeed, this political will is urgently needed to resolve the differences over the CFA and conclude an agreement that is inclusive of all the Nile riparians, so as to pull the 250 million inhabitants of the Nile Basin out of their poverty, underdevelopment, hunger and darkness.

 

Posted in Africa, International Water Law, Middle East, Transboundary Rivers | 2 Comments »

The Greening of Water Law: Why and How We should Modernize Legislation to Account for the Environment

Monday, May 22nd, 2017

The following essay by Ariella D’Andrea is an introduction to the training course on “The Greening of Water Law: Implementing environment-friendly principles in contemporary water law,” which she designed and coordinated. The course is available on UN Environment’s InforMEA E-Learning Platform. Ms D’Andrea is a member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for Water Law (AIDA). She can be reached at ariella.dandrea [at] gmail.com

 

In the past century, water management focused primarily on developing the resource to satisfy human needs: irrigation, hydropower, industrial and municipal uses, and so on. National governments around the world put in place a broad range of infrastructure and mechanisms for the abstraction and use of water resources to implement their development policies.

This display of engineering skills for dam construction, diversion of watercourses, groundwater pumping and, more recently, desalination has not always been mindful of environmental concerns that may result from technological advances. More often than not, efficient water abstraction was the main objective with little thought given to the long-term availability or quality maintenance of the resource. This approach was based on the conception of water as a renewable rather than finite resource. Although water quantity and quality regenerate through the hydrologic cycle, we now know that the amount of water on Earth is constant. Of this water, only about 2.5% is freshwater and, of that volume, around 0.3% is readily accessible being found in rivers and lakes; the rest is stored in glaciers and ice caps or in aquifers underground.

All life forms need clean and sufficient water to thrive, which is produced by healthy ecosystems.  Time has shown that inconsiderate economic development may critically affect the rate at which freshwater is generated in the natural environment, thus compromising the crucial ecosystem-support function of water resources in a vicious cycle of progressive water salinization and biodiversity loss, at least in a local context.

Inspired by traditional knowledge, some countries have declared the environment or specific waterbodies as right holders. In Ecuador, Mother Nature or Pacha Mama was granted the right to the conservation of water resources (Water Resources Law 2014 based on the Constitution of 2008); New Zealand recently granted legal personality to the Whanganui River, with rights and duties as well a legal representative (Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017). Shortly after, the waterbodies and forests of the Indian State of Uttarakhand, including the Ganga and Yamuna Rivers and the Gangotri and Yamunotri Glaciers, were declared as legal entities by the High Court of Uttarakhand (Order of 20 March 2017 and Order of 30 March 2017). At this very moment, French Polynesia is considering the possibility of granting legal personality not only to its rivers but also to its ocean Te moana nui a Hiva (Parliamentary Question to the Minister of the Environment, 28 March 2017).

Greening-course2Clearly, a balance must be struck between people’s needs and those of the natural environment. Moreover, action must be taken to reverse the degradation of waterbodies, knowing that the status quo ante cannot always be restored. UN member States recently committed, under Sustainable Development Goal 6, to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”, including by implementing integrated water resources management and by protecting and restoring water-related ecosystems.

Water law can support this commitment by guiding water use and management towards sustainability. To do this, it must become ‘greener’. In practice, the water law ‘greening’ is the process by which legal provisions regulating the use of water resources progressively incorporate environmental concerns. The greening of international treaties, regional agreements and domestic legislation on water resources may be carried out by: freshwater treaty negotiators as they bring environmental principles and concerns to bear on negotiations over shared freshwater bodies; domestic legislatures embedding environmental provisions into laws and regulations, and by judges interpreting legal provisions in light of environmental law.

Legislation reflects the society it regulates; therefore, early domestic water laws generally supported the ‘development craze’ and focused on abstraction and use of water resources rather than protection and conservation. Similarly, early international water law, including bi- or multilateral agreements on shared waters, focused on allocation of those waters between riparian countries rather than preservation.

Environmental concerns started making their way in both domestic and international water law in the second half of the 20th century and, more conspicuously, after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 when the greening wave acquired momentum and depth. It was during that decade that two major treaties on transboundary waters were adopted: the 1992 UNECE Water Convention, and the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention.

The interdependence of water and nature is now widely recognized, not only in the scientific world but also by policy- and lawmakers. The environment is increasingly being recognized as a water user, competing with the different human uses of the resource, and a wide range of solutions are emerging to ensure that environmental concerns are duly accounted for in water law.

‘Green’ provisions often aim at controlling effluent discharge to minimize pollution of natural waterbodies, or more innovatively promote wastewater reuse thanks to advances in water treatment technology. They also aim at establishing an ecological flow of water in rivers to allow aquatic life or a water reserve for human and environmental benefit. An environmental impact assessment may be required before developing infrastructure that might affect water resources. Certain standards may be established to protect aquatic biodiversity (e.g. migratory fish passage in dams), prevent soil erosion (e.g. reforestation of river banks) or prevent groundwater pollution (e.g. protection of recharge areas). Legislation may also recognize ecosystem services, such as the provision of freshwater or the regulation of floods, and establish payment or compensation schemes for those who maintain healthy ecosystems.

The most progressive examples of ‘green’ provisions are generally found in domestic legislation, with international water law often lagging behind despite the ‘green’ potential of its main guiding principles – equitable and reasonable utilization, no significant harm and ecosystem protection. A vast range of multilateral environmental agreements adopted during the last 50 years, such as the 1997 Ramsar Convention on Wetlands and the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, may effectively support the process of water law greening, both at domestic and international level, by prompting normative reform and orientating judicial interpretation towards environmentally-sound application of water use principles.

Funded by UN Environment (formerly UNEP), the online training course on “The Greening of Water Law: Implementing environment-friendly principles in contemporary water law” was developed by the International Association for Water Law (AIDA) with the contribution of 10 authors and 6 reviewers, as a guide for policy makers, technocrats and experts. The course focuses on the implementation of international principles for sustainable water management, stemming from both binding and non-binding instruments, and on their implementation in domestic legislation, transboundary agreements and related court/arbitration decisions.

The program is accessible free-of-charge from the INFORMEA website. It involves a series of slides and readings, including a brief and group exercises presented as a manual for lecturers, and requires 5 days to complete considering one module per day. A condensed version of the training course will be presented in a Special Session at the XVI World Water Congress of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) that will be held in Cancun, Mexico at the end of this month.

Further reading:

Burchi S., Balancing development and environmental conservation and protection of the water resource base – the “greening” of water laws, FAO Legal Paper Online #66, June 2007

Eckstein G., et.al., The Greening of Water Law: Managing Freshwater Resources for People and the Environment, UNEP, 2010

 

Posted in International Water Law, New Resources & Information, Sustainable Development | 1 Comment »