The Persistent Transboundary Problem in Marine Natural Resource Management

Shared natural resources are vulnerable to overexploitation. Countries have established national borders on land and exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the world's oceans in part to better control exploitation of local resources, but transboundary resources—those that span multiple national jurisdictions—are still subject to incentives for overextraction. We investigate the magnitude and distribution of this “transboundary problem” as it manifests in global fisheries. We show that internationally-shared fisheries exhibit lower relative abundance, on average, than those contained in single EEZs, even in the presence of extraction agreements and modern management practices. Additionally, for the first time we show that the degree of sharing—the number of countries sharing a resource and the spatial balance of each country's share—matters in driving the severity of the transboundary problem. Alleviating the transboundary problem for the fisheries we investigate would result in an estimated 4 to 17 million metric tons more fish in the ocean. In the future, growing human demand and climate change will likely exacerbate pressures on transboundary resources, requiring coordinated international governance solutions.

Contribution of General Principles of International Law in Progressive Development of Transboundary Aquifers

Man’s ruthless exploitation of natural resources means that we are housed in a resource-deprived world. The tug of war for meager resources has led to many conflicts between States that we witness today. At the heart of the whole debate on resource crunch is the issue of shared natural resources between States. International law has formulated several legal instruments to govern the shared transboundary resources, laws on transboundary aquifers being one. The objective of this paper is to unlock the general principles of international law that regulate the transboundary aquifers. In this regard, the paper has been apportioned into three sections. The first section sets the tone by detailing the provisions of the 2008 Draft Articles on the Transboundary Aquifers dealing with general principles. The second segment of the paper lays down the cardinal principles regulating transboundary aquifers, which range from sustainable development to the principle of good faith. The final portion delves into the Israel-Palestine dispute and the India-Pakistan Indus Waters Treaty in the context of transboundary aquifers.

The Safe and Efficient Development of Offshore Transboundary Hydrocarbons: Best Practices from the North Sea and Their Application to the Gulf of Mexico

Offshore hydrocarbon resources have been developed for many decades, and with technology improvements, many fields which were once impossible to develop, are now economically and technologically feasible. This has led to a growing difficulty in determining the legislative and regulatory framework for resources that straddle the recognized borders between two states. In this paper, we examine a successful framework agreement governing the transboundary resources between the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) and Norway in the North Sea, and the agreement between the United States and Mexico governing the Gulf of Mexico. Following the 2013 Energy Reform, the Mexican energy sector has been revitalized, leading to greater exploration, development, and production than ever before. This means that in the near future transboundary resources may be licensed for production, bringing the issues highlighted in this paper to the attention of multiple government and international entities. This paper seeks to recommend improvements to the transboundary framework in the Gulf of Mexico based on the successful framework agreement utilized in the North Sea. This paper begins by introducing international law for offshore resources in Part II. Part III discusses the offshore regulatory regimes in the U.K. and Norway, analyzing how the two states have successfully used bilateral agreements to facilitate cooperation regarding effective exploitation and apportionment of costs from cross-boundary offshore oil and gas projects in the North Sea. Part IV discusses the offshore regulatory regimes in the United States and Mexico and analyzes the current transboundary agreement in place for the Gulf of Mexico. Part V compares the transboundary agreement governing the North Sea and the same governing the Gulf of Mexico. We highlight the major differences in the agreements and suggest changes to the Gulf of Mexico agreement based on the successful North Sea agreement. Finally, this paper concludes and provides key policy recommendations to improve the rules and regulations surrounding the exploitation of transboundary hydrocarbons in the Gulf of Mexico.

6. International organizations

This chapter looks at international organizations, their differences to States, and their position within the international legal order. Today, international organizations exist in virtually all fields of transnational and global collective concern. In the broadest sense, they facilitate international cooperation in all areas from the harmonization of tariffs to the management of delicate ecosystems, and range in their scope from small bilateral commissions regulating transboundary resources to regional security and economic organizations, all the way to the universalist aspirations of the UN. The chapter then considers the question of establishing the legal personality of international organizations under international law, which must be distinguished from the question of whether an international organization may also hold legal personality under the domestic law of a State.

B/ordering the environmental commons

Transboundary environmental commons are usually conceived in terms of the spatial arrangements that govern transboundary resources and coordinate responses to cross-border environmental threats and crises. Borders in this context tend to be viewed as relatively stable institutions in the administration of geographically dispersed resources with well-defined properties by a jurisdictionally divided collective of users. In practice, however, the transboundary commons defy such clear spatial resolution. This paper contributes to emerging scholarship on the transboundary commons by showing how processes of commoning and b/ordering are continually changing in relation to each other to generate flexible new geographies of conservation practice.

Introduction to the Gulf of Mexico Negotiations

Introduces the Gulf of Mexico case, presenting an overview of the chapters to follow, as well as providing context for analysis of the treaty negotiations with a summary and scope of the 2012 landmark United States-Mexico Transboundary Hydrocarbons Agreement. Outlines key stakeholders in government, industry and the NGO sectors, the decades-long history of protracted energy maritime disputes between the two countries, the vast oil and natural gas transboundary resources at stake, and the mutual gains approach that underpinned the negotiations.

Transboundary water resources of the world

This map presents 286 transboundary river basins (2016) and 592 transboundary aquifers (2015). 154 countries share river basins or aquifers with one or more of their neighbours. Some of this countries (30) lie entirely within one or more transboundary basins, making this shared resource a essential one. The extent of those transboundary resources highlights the importance for countries to cooperate with each other for the sound management of shared waters. Basin Groundwater Transboundary