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Title: CE 397 Transboundary Water Resources


1
CE 397 Transboundary Water Resources
  • International Water Conventions

2
Water Rights
  • Though the water running in the stream is
    everyone's, in the pitcher it is his only who
    drew it out
  • John Locke, Second Treatise on Government, p.
    18.
  • Legal instruments for water allocation in
    international settings
  • Extend notions of sharing from human interactions
    to those between nations

3
Watercourse
  • Definition -
  • A system of surface waters and groundwaters
    constituting a unitary whole and normally flowing
    into a common terminus (UN 97)
  • Transboundary - extends over several nations
  • Once resource has been developed and use of it is
    growing, problems defining entitlements to use
    appear

4
Transboundary Settings
  • Nationally
  • Water rights and institutions are devised to
    rationally and equitably develop and use the
    resource
  • Internationally
  • Water rights dont exist between countries
  • Laws are enforced by international agreements
    between countries, not by an overarching
    authority

5
Example Tigris Euphrates
  • Shared between Turkey, Syria, Iraq
  • Turkish projects motivated search for agreement
  • Characterized by unilateral development
    (upstream)
  • Country positions
  • Iraq Historic rights
  • Syria Shared resource
  • Turkey Reasonable Equitable Utilization

6
Example Jordan River
  • Basin States and of total basin
  • Jordan (48.44)
  • Israel (21.35)
  • West Bank (7.4)
  • Golan Heights (3.54)
  • Syria (11.54)
  • Lebanon (1.34)
  • Egypt (6.39)
  • Basin Population
  • approximately 13.3 million
  • Characterized by unilateral development
    (midstream) and international conflict

7
Nile
  • hail to thee, O Nile, that issues from the earth
    and comes to keep Egypt alive! When he rises,
    then the land is in jubilation, then every belly
    is in joy -- Anonymous
  • Basin Countries
  • Burundi
  • Dem Rep of Congo
  • Egypt
  • Eritrea
  • Ethiopia
  • Kenya
  • Rwanda
  • Sudan
  • Tanzania
  • Uganda
  • Characterized by unilateral development
    (downstream) and international conflict

8
Rio Grande/Bravo
  • The uncertainty of water demand and supply into
    this century emerges as a potential source of
    conflict between both the United States and
    Mexico and between municipal, industrial, and
    agricultural users on either side of the border.

9
Water in Transboundary Settings
  • General rules of international law which guide
    sharing of water in transboundary settings
  • Principles generally hinge on notions of
  • Equality, reasonableness, and avoidance of
    harming ones neighbors
  • In addition, the rules call for prevention of
    conflicts through
  • Information sharing,
  • Notification and consultation of neighboring
    riparians of proposed works

10
International Water Law
  • Helsinki Rules
  • Rules on the Uses of the Water of International
    Rivers (ILA, Helsinki, 1966)
  • http//www.internationalwaterlaw.org/IntlDocs/Hels
    inki_Rules.htm
  • Helsinki Convention
  • Convention on the Protection and Use of
    Transboundary Watercourses and International
    Lakes (UN-ECE, Helsinki, 1992)
  • http//www.unece.org/env/water/
  • UN Convention
  • Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational
    Uses of International Watercourses (UN, New
    York, 1997)
  • http//www.internationalwaterlaw.org/IntlDocs/Wate
    rcourse_Conv.htm 
  • Intended to be framework documents providing
    guidance for the construction of more specific
    multilateral agreements governing particular
    transboundary situations  

11
Sovereignty and Integrity
  • Absolute territorial sovereignty  a nation may
    use any amount of water flowing into its
    territory for consumption or for disposing of
    pollution with no regard for adversely affected
    downstream nations (Harmon doctrine)
  • Absolute territorial integrity  a downstream
    nation has a right to an uninterrupted flow of a
    fixed quantity of usable water from upstream
    states
  • Limited territorial sovereignty  Every nation
    bordering a watercourse has the right to use
    water flowing in its territory provided that the
    use does not harm the territory or interests of
    other nations (riparian rights)
  • Community of interest no nation may use waters
    in its jurisdiction without consultation and
    cooperation with downstream nations
  • Equitable use each nation in a river basin is
    entitled to a reasonable and equitable share of
    water consumption and disposal of pollution

12
Helsinki Rules
  • Distribution among riparians governed by
  • Contribution to the drainage basin area
  • Climatic factors
  • Prior use
  • Economic social needs
  • Population
  • Costs of meeting needs by alternative means
  • Availability of other resources
  • Avoidance of undue waste damage downstream

13
UN Convention 1997
  • Riparian states can utilize the resource in an
    equitable and reasonable manner in order to
    achieve optimal and sustainable utilisation
  • States are obligated to undertake all necessary
    measures to ensure that such utilization does not
    lead to any other riparian states suffering
    significant harm
  • Legally ambiguous terms (see Waterbury paper)
  • equitable, reasonable, significant
  • prevent unequivocal allocations of water
  • Absence of any mechanism for supranational
    enforcement
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