scholarly journals A Tale of Two Systems: Conflict, Law and the Development of Water Allocation in Two Common Law Jurisdictions

Author(s):  
Paul Martin ◽  
John C Becker

This paper examines how the law governing water has evolved in the United States and Australia. The evolution of water law in these jurisdictions demonstrates that the ‘scientific modernism’ that prioritises economics and hydrology as the pivots around which water institutions are designed may be an incomplete model. From the history we recount, we suggest that, ranking equally with these considerations in shaping water law and policy, is the broader framework of laws and institutions, and legal culture within a society. These factors shape the types of solutions to conflicts in a society and determine, to a substantial degree, the solutions to water conflicts that become law, which then in part determine future legal solutions. This observation is of more than theoretical importance. Towards the end of this paper we consider the latest water modernist experiment, the Australian Water Act. We suggest that closer attention to social factors and legal traditions would have resulted in a more effective law. We believe this holds important lessons for water policy generally.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhett B. Larson

AbstractThe rich field of inter-state water law in the United States illustrates both successes and failures in transboundary water management and allocation. This monograph analyzes the three general approaches to water allocation between riparian states to certain shared watercourses in the United States, namely equitable apportionment, congressional apportionment, and inter-state compacts. This analysis is accompanied by a discussion and evaluation of the different cases of shared watercourses that applied these approaches, and a comparison of each of them to similar approaches in international water law. The monograph draws lessons for international water law from inter-state water law—highlighting the successful inter-state approaches that can be adopted by international water law, as well as the approaches that failed, and which should be avoided.


Water Policy ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Bhatia ◽  
John Briscoe ◽  
R. P. S. Malik ◽  
Lindy Miller ◽  
Smita Misra ◽  
...  

The state of Tamil Nadu, India, is in the grips of a water crisis, with demand far outstripping supply. As the economy of the state grows, this crisis is going to become ever more serious. To date the focus of state water policy has been on trying to augment supplies, from within the state (even from desalinization) and from neighboring states. In addition, the water use is regulated in a way that does not encourage the highest value uses. International experience shows that supply-side measures must be complemented by demand-side measures and that practice must move away from fixed, command-and-control allocation policies towards flexible allocation mechanisms, which facilitate the voluntary movement of water from low to high-value uses. This study addresses the question of whether such a change in allocation policies is worth doing. It addresses this question by developing optimization models for each of the 17 river basins in Tamil Nadu (including an assessment of the economic value of water in different end-uses – agriculture, domestic and industry), then using an input–output model embedded in a social accounting matrix (SAM), to assess the impact of these changes on the state economy and on different rural and urban employment groups. The results suggest that a shift to a flexible water allocation system would bring major environmental, economic and social benefits to the state. Compared with the current “fixed sectoral allocation” policy, a flexible allocation policy would, in 2020, result in 15% less overall water used; 24% less water pumped from aquifers; 20% higher state income; with all strata, rich and poor, benefiting similarly, with one important exception, that of agricultural laborers.


This chapter focuses on legal instruments that take a broad view of water regulation. There are, as yet, no framework statutory instruments at the state or Union level but drafts have been prepared and this chapter reproduces the latest draft National Water Framework Bill. The next section then moves on to water policies that have been adopted at the Union and state level for some years, highlighting here the National Water Policy, 2012. The last section focuses on an upcoming area of water law, inter-sectoral allocation of water, an issue that is not yet well covered in legal instruments. This section highlights some state-level instruments that seek to address the issue.


1984 ◽  
Vol 41 (9) ◽  
pp. 1393-1406 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. C. Healey

This paper reviews the origin and operational definition of the optimum yield (OY) concept and demonstrates how techniques of decision analysis can provide an analytical model for OY. The concept of OY was formalized as the guiding principle of fisheries management in the United States and Canada in 1976. The policies of both countries make it clear that a wide range of biological, economic, and social factors are to be taken into account in determining OY. Confusion exists, however, about precisely which of these factors should determine OY in any fishery and what is their relative importance. Uncertainty also exists about how to take biological, economic, and social factors jointly into account as the concept of OY implies one must. Established biological and economic models in fisheries are not adequate for such an analysis because their focus is single- rather than multi-objective. Operational techniques of decision analysis, such as multiattribute utility analysis, are specifically designed to deal with multiobjective problems like OY. I propose that a simple, linear, utility model be used to assess the optimality of alternative yield strategies in fisheries management. I illustrate the application of the model by assessing OY options in the New England herring (Clupea harengus) fishery and the Skeena River salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) fishery. The advantages of the model are that it is simple and intuitively appealing, that it permits a wide range of types and qualities of data to be incorporated into the evaluation of management options, that it is amenable to sensitivity analysis, and that it is adaptable to a variety of decision rules.


Water Policy ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 837-850 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. McIntyre ◽  
David C. Mays

Colorado manages water using an administrative structure that is unique among the United States following the doctrine of prior appropriation: Water rights are adjudicated not by the State Engineer, but by Water Courts – separate from and operating in parallel to the criminal and civil courts – established specifically for this purpose. Fundamental to this system is the notion that water rights are property, with consequent protections under the US Constitution, but with the significant constraint that changes in water rights must not injure other water rights, either more senior or more junior. Population growth and climate change will certainly trigger changes in water administration, to be guided by the recent Colorado Water Plan. To provide the foundation necessary to appreciate these changes, this paper reviews the history of Colorado water administration and summarizes the complementary roles of the Water Courts and the State Engineer. Understanding water administration in Colorado depends on a firm grasp on how these two branches of state government formulate and implement water policy.


Author(s):  
Judith Daar

This chapter analyzes the racialization of infertility care in the United States, and seeks to understand why ART stratifies along race and ethnic lines. Researchers and scholars have proposed several theories, including lower income levels and access to insurance in minority populations, social factors that make women of color less likely to seek treatment for infertility, historic factors that give rise to a continuing aura of mistrust in the doctor–patient relationship, and express and implied discrimination by doctors who view minority populations as less deserving of parenthood than white patients. The chapter shows how these new eugenics, like the old eugenics, can persist only so long as political power structures support and advance their agenda.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Sznycer ◽  
Aaron Lukaszewski

Social emotions are hypothesized to be adaptations designed by selection to solve adaptiveproblems pertaining to social valuation—the disposition to attend to, associate with, and aid atarget individual based on her probable contributions to the fitness of the valuer. To steerbetween effectiveness and economy, social emotions need to activate in precise proportion to the local evaluations of the various acts and characteristics that dictate the social value of self and others. Supporting this hypothesis, experiments conducted in the United States and India indicate that five different social emotions all track a common set of valuations. The extent to which people value each of 25 positive characteristics in others predicts the intensities of: pride (if you had those characteristics), anger (if someone failed to acknowledge that you have thosecharacteristics), gratitude (if someone convinced others that you have those characteristics), guilt (if you harmed someone who has those characteristics), and sadness (if someone died who had those characteristics). The five emotions track local valuations (mean r = +.72) and even foreign valuations (mean r = +.70). In addition, cultural differences in emotion are patterned: They follow cultural differences in valuation. These findings suggest that multiple social emotions are governed (in part) by a common architecture of social valuation, that the valuation architecture operates with a substantial degree of universality in its content, and that a unified theoretical framework may explain cross-cultural invariances and cultural differences in emotion.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Cohen-Cline ◽  
Hsin-Fang Li ◽  
Monique Gill ◽  
Fatima Rodriguez ◽  
Tina Hernandez-Boussard ◽  
...  

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed inequities in our society, demonstrated by disproportionate COVID-19 infection rate and mortality in communities of color and low-income communities. One key area of inequity that has yet to be explored is disparities based on preferred language. Methods We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 164,368 adults tested for COVID-19 in a large healthcare system across Washington, Oregon, and California from March – July 2020. Using electronic health records, we constructed multi-level models that estimated the odds of testing positive for COVID-19 by preferred language, adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, and social factors. We further investigated interaction between preferred language and both race/ethnicity and state. Analysis was performed from October–December 2020. Results Those whose preferred language was not English had higher odds of having a COVID-19 positive test (OR 3.07, p < 0.001); this association remained significant after adjusting for age, race/ethnicity, and social factors. We found significant interaction between language and race/ethnicity and language and state, but the odds of COVID-19 test positivity remained greater for those whose preferred language was not English compared to those whose preferred language was English within each race/ethnicity and state. Conclusions People whose preferred language is not English are at greater risk of testing positive for COVID-19 regardless of age, race/ethnicity, geography, or social factors – demonstrating a significant inequity. Research demonstrates that our public health and healthcare systems are centered on English speakers, creating structural and systemic barriers to health. Addressing these barriers are long overdue and urgent for COVID-19 prevention.


Author(s):  
Hieu Trong Truong

The goals of competition law and policy play a notable navigator in law enforcement and lead to new rule inauguration regimes. However, Vietnam avoids signifying its goals in all two competition law versions, the Vietnamese Competition Law 2004 and the Vietnamese Competition Law 2018. The practical merger regulation has been thus confusing in the circumstances. Be continued with the lengthy controversial discussions in the academic world; the paper opens the comparative approach to other major jurisdictions. Rather than the Asian earlies system of Japanese anti-monopoly law or the European Union's primary youngest competition law, the United States antitrust law contributes to the original explanation of the law's objectives and directions. It experiences that Vietnam could maintain the diverse goals of competition law with its priority interests. Rejecting the aspect of free and fair competition, or the workable competition, the analysis traces the identification of effective competition mainly according to the European Union's perspective. Notably, the industrial policy takes a significant connection with the competition policy; however, it does not always ensure competition law enforcement. Be mainly based on Japanese historical achievement; the paper leads to an appropriate direction to resolve this complicated relationship between the two conflict but reciprocity policies. These implications will contribute to enhancing the legalization of competition law in Vietnam.


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