CE 397 Transboundary Water Resources

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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  

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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

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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

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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