New Approaches for International Water Resources

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Owen McIntyre
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Stakeholder Participation ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Benefit Sharing ◽  
Water Law ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
Management Techniques ◽  
International Water Law ◽  
International Water

As a body of rules and a basis for inter-State cooperative practice, international water law suffers from certain important shortcomings. Most significantly, it is characterised by substantive normative indeterminacy, and from related deficiencies in its associated procedural and institutional frameworks, which retard its progressive development and limit its capacity to respond to the looming challenges of the impending global water crisis. Though it has evolved progressively in recent years to incorporate a far-reaching obligation upon watercourse States to adopt an ecosystem approach to the management of shared watercourses, this very development highlights international water law’s systemic difficulty in accommodating water management techniques which are critically important to effective implementation of such an approach and, ultimately, to addressing the water crisis. Such techniques, with which international water law struggles, include multi-faceted benefit-sharing, adaptive management, and public and stakeholder participation. The latter two are considered essential for implementation of an ecosystem approach, while the former comprises a cooperative technique facilitated by an ecosystem approach, by means of which watercourse States might eliminate inefficiencies and ensure optimal utilisation of shared water resources. These problems illustrate the urgent imperative of continuing to develop and refine, if not completely reimagine, the rules of international water law.

New Approaches for International Water Resources

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Owen McIntyre
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
Stakeholder Participation ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Benefit Sharing ◽  
Water Law ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Progressive Development ◽  
Management Techniques ◽  
International Water Law ◽  
International Water

As a body of rules and a basis for inter-State cooperative practice, international water law suffers from certain important shortcomings. Most significantly, it is characterised by substantive normative indeterminacy, and from related deficiencies in its associated procedural and institutional frameworks, which retard its progressive development and limit its capacity to respond to the looming challenges of the impending global water crisis. Though it has evolved progressively in recent years to incorporate a far-reaching obligation upon watercourse States to adopt an ecosystem approach to the management of shared watercourses, this very development highlights international water law’s systemic difficulty in accommodating water management techniques which are critically important to effective implementation of such an approach and, ultimately, to addressing the water crisis. Such techniques, with which international water law struggles, include multi-faceted benefit-sharing, adaptive management, and public and stakeholder participation. The latter two are considered essential for implementation of an ecosystem approach, while the former comprises a cooperative technique facilitated by an ecosystem approach, by means of which watercourse States might eliminate inefficiencies and ensure optimal utilisation of shared water resources. These problems illustrate the urgent imperative of continuing to develop and refine, if not completely reimagine, the rules of international water law.

Shared Water Resources in West Africa

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nwamaka Chigozie Odili
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Water Law ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
International Water Law ◽  
International Water ◽  
Niger River

AbstractSince the 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. Although only six out of its numerous shared watercourses are regulated by legal instruments, West Africa contributed through these agreements to the development of international water prior to the adoption of theunWatercourses and theuneceWater 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 have, no doubt, influenced this trend, raising the question of whether riparian states in West Africa need to be parties to either or both water conventions to enhance management, sharing, and protections of their shared watercourses.

scholarly journals Problems of Definitions in International Water Law

2017 ◽  
pp. 133-138
Author(s):  
Юлия Случевская ◽  
Yuliya Sluchevskaya
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Drainage Basin ◽  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Water Law ◽  
International Rivers ◽  
Transboundary Waters ◽  
International Water Law ◽  
International Water ◽  
International River

The article studies one of the basic definitions of International Water Law – “transboundary waters”. It is noted the altered priorities of the use of water resources as well as new methods used in the natural sciences, especially in the hydrology, have an impact on the content of this definition. It is investigated the correlation of such definitions as “transboundary waters”, “transboundary watercourses”, “international watercourses”, “international river basin”, “international drainage basin”, “international rivers”, “international lakes”. It is analyzed sources of international water law, which was elaborated terminology and definitions, it is traced their evolution. The author points out the following features of the definition “transboundary waters”: 1) these include surface water and groundwater; 2) they cross the border between two or more states are located on boundaries; 3) the use of transboundary waters affects the interests of two or more states; 4) the special legal regulation of their use (the doctrine of absolute sovereignty over water resources are located within of boundaries of the state; the doctrine of belonging of transboundary waters to all states of the international drainage basin; the doctrine of optimal development of the river basin; the doctrine of limited sovereignty; the doctrine of the priority); 5) specific requirements for the protection of ecosystems of transboundary waters; 6) the large conflict potential in use of water resources.

The International Law Association Helsinki Rules

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-110
Author(s):  
Slavko Bogdanović
Keyword(s):  
Water Resources ◽  
International Law ◽  
Water Law ◽  
Intensive Study ◽  
International Rivers ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
International Water Law ◽  
International Water

AbstractAlthough the International Law Association (ILA) was established in 1873, it only turned its attention to the internationally shared water resources in 1954, when its study of the applicable principles and rules of international law thereon began. The first ILA committee assigned to this task was the Rivers Committee, which, after a decade of intensive study and through several resolutions and statements, arrived unanimously at a set of articles reflecting customary international law, known as The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers.The Helsinki Rules approved at the ILA Helsinki Conference in 1966 were soon widely accepted across the globe as a non-binding authoritative source of international water law. This monograph traces the work of ILA leading to the approval of the Helsinki Rules, analyses the Rules, and identifies their influence on, and contribution to the evolution of international water law.

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