The Law of International Watercourses

Author(s):  
McCaffrey Stephen C

This book is an authoritative guide to the rules of international law governing the navigational and non-navigational uses of international rivers, lakes, and groundwater. The continued growth of the world’s population places increasing demands on Earth’s finite supplies of fresh water. Because two or more States share many of the world’s most important drainage basins, competition for increasingly scarce fresh water resources will only increase. Agreements between the States sharing international watercourses are negotiated, and disputes over shared water are resolved, against the backdrop of the rules of international law governing the use of this precious resource. The basic legal rules governing the use of shared freshwater for purposes other than navigation are reflected in the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. This book devotes a chapter to the 1997 Convention but also examines the factual and legal context in which the Convention should be understood, considers the more important rules of the Convention in some depth, and discusses specific issues that could not be addressed in a framework instrument of that kind. It reviews the major cases and controversies concerning international watercourses as a background against which to consider the basic substantive and procedural rights and obligations of States in the field. This new edition covers the implications of the 1997 Convention coming into force in August 2014, and the compatibility of the 1997 and 1992 Conventions.

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-141
Author(s):  
Carolin Mai Weber

Groundwater is one of the world’s most important water resources. Although it is highly susceptible for pollution and overexploitation, its extraction rate is predicted to increase over the next decades. Against this background, this article discusses the contribution of the UN International Law Commission’s Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers to the protection of this precious resource. It first provides some information on the characteristics of groundwater and aquifers, then describes briefly the existing international legal regimes addressing transboundary groundwater and the evolution of the Draft Articles, and finally analyses the main criticisms and positive aspects of the Draft Articles.


Author(s):  
Maksymilian Pazdan

The position of the executor of the will is governed by the law applicable to succession (Article 23(2)(f) of the EU Regulation 650/2012), while the position of the succession administrator of the estate of a business of a physical person located in Poland is subject to the Law of 5 July 2018 on the succession administration of the business of a physical person (the legal basis for such solution is in Article 30 of the EU Regulation 650/2012). However, if the court needs to determine the law applicable to certain aspects of appointing or functioning of these institutions, which have a nature of partial or preliminary questions, these laws will apply, as determined in line with the methods elaborated to deal with partial and preliminary questions in private international law. The rules devoted to the executors of wills are usually not self-standing. In such situations, the legislators most often call for supportive application of the rules designed for other matters existing in the same legal system (here — of the legis successionis). This is referred to as the absorption of the legal rules.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (22) ◽  
pp. 130-137
Author(s):  
Omar Ahmed Hussein ◽  
Khadijah Mohamed

This paper aims to examine Iraq’s rights, being the downstream country, towards the use of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and the extent to which international water resources are protected under international law. Being the downstream country, projects constructed on the banks of Tigris and Euphrates Rivers had significantly impacted Iraq as less water flows into the country. The discussion in this paper outlines principles of the existing international conventions and protocols in this area by adopting a doctrinal legal research approach which has great significance to understand the relevant substantive law through the analysis of legal rules, court judgments, and statutes. The paper concludes that historically, Iraq had an acquired right, a right confirmed by the international rules and principles, to share the usage of water from the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers with the upstream countries comprising of Turkey, Syria, and Iran. This paper suggests that all riparian countries of the Tigris and the Euphrates should abide by the rules of international law and recognize Iraq’s historical water ratios of these rivers based on the principle of the acquired right under international law.


Author(s):  
McCaffrey Stephen C

This chapter traces the history of the use of water by human societies, discusses impediments to the development of the law in this field, and introduces the theoretical challenge inherent in application of international norms to resources within a state’s borders. The law of international watercourses has developed in tandem with the evolution of human social organization and the intensification of use by human societies of fresh water. Evidence of early canals and dikes suggests that small communities and city-states had found it necessary to cooperate in order to control and utilize effectively the waters of major rivers. When the growth of other uses—such as irrigation and the generation of hydroelectric power—began to give rise to disputes, the first reaction was often to try to apply rules from other branches of international law to the problem.


Author(s):  
C. H. Alexandrowicz

This chapter examines some of the legal problems resulting from the entry of the ‘new’ states (mainly the Afro–Asian countries) into the family of nations. The orthodox view is that such states have no choice as to the law which shall apply to them since they are born into the existing international order and must accept its tenets. However, the practice of the ‘new’ states does not supply sufficient evidence of such a fait accompli. There are legal rules that they tend to reject as well as rules they wish to have included. Among the existing principles that ‘new’ states refuse to accept or that they accepted with far-reaching reservations are the legal principles relating to economic relations. Other branches of international law that are under revisionist pressure from the ‘new’ states are the law of state succession and the law of the sea.


Author(s):  
Edward McWhinney

“The prophecies of what the courts will do in fact, and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law.”OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR.,The Path of the Law (1897).The “WINDS OF CHANGE” in the Soviet Union since Stalin's death — what, in a legal context, the leading journal Soviet State and Law has called the programme “for complete elimination of the harmful consequences of the personality cult in Soviet jurisprudence” — have done much to liberate Soviet international law thinking from the at times overly rigid positivism and rather sterile orthodoxy which had dominated it, in common with Soviet general legal doctrine, from the time of Pashukanis' downfall in the late 1930's, onwards through the period of Vyshinsky's intellectual dominance almost to the present day. For the purpose of analysis and appraisal of the contemporary state of Soviet international law doctrine and practice, both as to its main points of accord and also its main policy conflicts and differences, certain preliminary propositions can be advanced as to the nature and condition of Soviet international law in general over the years since the October Revolution.


Author(s):  
Boothby William H

This relatively brief chapter introduces the book as a whole. It positions weapons law within the framework of international law in general, and of the law of armed conflict in particular, noting the important distinctions between international and non-international armed conflicts, and between the law on the resort to the use of force and that which regulates the conduct of hostilities. The logical flow of the book is presented, and certain terms that are vital to the ensuing discussion, namely weapons, means of warfare and methods of warfare are explained. The all-important distinction between weapons law and the legal rules that regulate targeting is noted. A concluding section addresses the recently-adopted Arms Trade Treaty.


Antichthon ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 149-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tristan Taylor

AbstractThis paper examines Apuleius' Apologia from the perspective of its legal context. The paper asks three questions: first, what was the legal situation in relation to the property issues central to the motivations of Apuleius' accusers? Second, what would the legal effects of a conviction have been on these property concerns? And, finally, what light do our answers to these questions shed on the Apologia itself? The applicable legal rules suggest both that some of the concerns of the prosecutors were ill-founded and that the prosecution would have achieved little in a legal sense in terms advancing their alleged ends. These observations suggest several potential conclusions: first, that Apuleius' accusers sincerely believed their accusation of magic and thought that it was only the magical skill of Apuleius that threatened their aspirations to Pudentilla's estate. Conversely, it may be that the accusers were simply ignorant about the law, vindictive towards Apuleius, or both. Third, that Apuleius has misrepresented his accusers' motivations. Finally, these conclusions on matters of law could even be taken to suggest that the speech does not represent a genuine case, but rather is a work of fiction concocted by Apuleius for literary purposes.


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