Regulation of Fresh Water Uses
Chapter 2 traces the evolution of fresh water regulation. It identifies the various uses of fresh water that have been subject to legal rules, including boundary delimitation along international watercourses, navigation, fishing, irrigation, energy production, other industrial uses, and recreational purposes. Areas where conflicts of uses arise are also highlighted, and the way in which these are sometimes resolved by the law is explained, with an emphasis on the importance of human needs and the notion of minimum flow. The major treaties that purport to govern international watercourses, such as the UN Watercourses Convention of 1997, which entered into force in 2014, as well as other sources of fresh water and their accompanying legal regimes, are similarly presented.