The Law of International Watercourses

The Law of International Watercourses
Author: Stephen C. McCaffrey
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 562
Release: 2001
Genre: Law
ISBN:

The Law of International Watercourses examines the rules of international law governing the non-navigational uses of international watercourses. The continued growth of the world's population places increasing demands on Earth's finite supply of fresh water. Because two or more states sharemany of the world's most important drainage basins - including The Danube, The Ganges, The Indus, The Jordan, The Mekong, The Nile, The Rhine, and The Tigris-Euphrates - competition for increasingly scarce fresh water resources is likely to increase. Resulting disputes will be resolved against thebackdrop of the rules of international law governing the use of international watercourses. In addition, these rules are of importance to donor institutions and governments that provide development assistance for projects relating to shared fresh water resources. While the law of international watercourses continues to evolve due to the intensification of use of shared fresh water resources and, consequently, increasingly frequent contacts between riparian states, The basic rules are reflected in the 1997 UN Convention on the law of the non-navigationaluses of international watercourses. This book devotes a chapter to the 1997 Convention but also examines the factual and legal context in which the Convention should be understood, considers the more important rules of the Convention in some depth and discusses specific issues that could not beaddressed in a framework instrument of that kind. In particular, the book studies the major cases and controversies concerning international watercourses as a background against which to consider the basic substantive and procedural rights and obligations of states.

International Investment Law and Water Resources Management

International Investment Law and Water Resources Management
Author: Ana Maria Daza-Clark
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2016-11-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9004335307

Hydrological variability, increasing competition for water, and the need for regulatory flexibility may increasingly compel governments to adopt measures with significant economic impact on foreign investment. In International Investment Law and Water Resources Management, Daza-Clark offers an appraisal of indirect expropriation, revisiting the well-known doctrine of the police power. Through the lens of international investment law, the author explores a framework that assesses the legitimate exercise of police power with particular attention to the special nature of water resources.

Nile Water Rights

Nile Water Rights
Author: Philine Wehling
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2020-06-25
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3662607964

The book provides a comprehensive assessment of the law governing the use and management of the Nile and considers, more broadly, how international water law can guide the development of a legal and institutional framework for cooperation over shared freshwater resources. It defines the current state of international water law and discusses the content of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. On this basis, it assesses the Nile water treaties and the 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement for the Nile, and examines their compliance with international law, with a specific focus on the legal consequences of South Sudan's secession from Sudan. Moreover, the book recommends important amendments to the 2010 Agreement. Building on these recommendations, it addresses the implementation of the principle of equitable and reasonable use regarding the Nile, illustrating the extent to which the principle can provide a conceptual framework for regulating water use. The book is a valuable resource for academics and practitioners alike as it combines legal assessment with a discussion of how international water law principles can be implemented in practice.

Routledge Handbook of Water Law and Policy

Routledge Handbook of Water Law and Policy
Author: Alistair Rieu-Clarke
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 435
Release: 2017-02-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317309138

Water plays a key role in addressing the most pressing global challenges of our time, including climate change adaptation, food and energy security, environmental sustainability and the promotion of peace and stability. This comprehensive handbook explores the pivotal place of law and policy in efforts to ensure that water enables positive responses to these challenges and provides a basis for sound governance. The book reveals that significant progress has been made in recent decades to strengthen the governance of water resource management at different scales, including helping to address international and sub-national conflicts over transboundary water resources. It demonstrates that ‘effective’ laws and policies are fundamental drivers for the safe, equitable and sustainable utilization of water. However, it is also shown that what might constitute an effective law or policy related to water resources management is still hotly debated. As such, the handbook provides an important and definitive reference text for all studying water governance and management.

Legal Rights for Rivers

Legal Rights for Rivers
Author: Erin O'Donnell
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2018-10-17
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0429889607

In 2017 four rivers in Aotearoa New Zealand, India, and Colombia were given the status of legal persons, and there was a recent attempt to extend these rights to the Colorado River in the USA. Understanding the implications of creating legal rights for rivers is an urgent challenge for both water resource management and environmental law. Giving rivers legal rights means the law can see rivers as legal persons, thus creating new legal rights which can then be enforced. When rivers are legally people, does that encourage collaboration and partnership between humans and rivers, or establish rivers as another competitor for scarce resources? To assess what it means to give rivers legal rights and legal personality, this book examines the form and function of environmental water managers (EWMs). These organisations have legal personality, and have been active in water resource management for over two decades. EWMs operate by acquiring water rights from irrigators in rivers where there is insufficient water to maintain ecological health. EWMs can compete with farmers for access to water, but they can also strengthen collaboration between traditionally divergent users of the aquatic environment, such as environmentalists, recreational fishers, hunters, farmers, and hydropower. This book explores how EWMs use the opportunities created by giving nature legal rights, such as the ability to participate in markets, enter contracts, hold property, and enforce those rights in court. However, examination of the EWMs unearths a crucial and unexpected paradox: giving legal rights to nature may increase its legal power, but in doing so it can weaken community support for protecting the environment in the first place. The book develops a new conceptual framework to identify the multiple constructions of the environment in law, and how these constructions can interact to generate these unexpected outcomes. It explores EWMs in the USA and Australia as examples, and assesses the implications of creating legal rights for rivers for water governance. Lessons from the EWMs, as well as early lessons from the new ‘river persons,’ show how to use the law to improve river protection and how to begin to mitigate the problems of the paradox.

Principles of Water Law and Administration

Principles of Water Law and Administration
Author: Dante A Caponera
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 1992-01-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9789054101086

A multidisciplinary text, considering both general issues and principles of water law and administration at national and international level, dealing with current legal and institutional aspects of water resources management. New information has been added in this latest edition, including the situation in countries previously a part of the former Soviet Union. Added emphasis is given to areas of growing topical importance, such as stakeholders' influence on decisions, the need to maintain a minimum flow in water bodies and the necessity for legislation in support of water resource monitoring. There is new material on the European Union Water Framework Directive which is referenced heavily in the work. The book is aimed at those who carry out functions in water resources administration and those who deal with legal issues raised by water management. The book will be particularly useful to academics and graduate students of law, engineering, hydrology, hydrogeology, sanitary engineering and planners, as well as national and international water resources managers.

International Law and Sustainable Development

International Law and Sustainable Development
Author: Alistair Rieu-Clarke
Publisher: IWA Publishing
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2005-11-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1843390752

Implementing the goal of sustainable development has long been heralded as the means by which the needs of both present and future generations can be met. However, finding a long-term balance between economic, social and environmental interests, the basic tenet of sustainable development, has proved largely illusive in practice. This book shows that while a number of legal frameworks to help promote the goal of sustainable development have been proposed at the international level they fail to fully capture the essence of sustainable development and international law's capacity to support its implementation. The book offers a critical analysis of past attempts to develop legal frameworks for promoting sustainable development at the international level, and advocates for a fresh approach based on lessons learnt from the law of international watercourses. The book is divided into four sections. The first section includes an overview of the topic area and an understanding of international law. In section two the book explores the meaning of sustainable development and considers the term's relationship with international law. A detailed analysis of how the law of international watercourses seeks to reconcile competing economic, social and environmental interests is carried out in section three. The book concludes with a section advocating the need for a fresh approach to international law and sustainable development and offering the foundations for this approach based on lessons learnt from the law of international watercourses.

Water Law

Water Law
Author: J. W. DELLAPENNA
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 528
Release: 2021-07-28
Genre:
ISBN: 9781783476992

This volume of the Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law provides thorough and detailed coverage of the changing meanings and roles of water law, from the local to the global. It examines the rules of ownership, rights of use, and dispute resolution that address access, allocation, and protection of water resources. Written by leading scholars and practitioners from across the globe, the volume is organised into thematic parts, beginning with an overview of fundamental concepts in water law, as well as pervasive issues such as the interplay of water law, governance and politics, and the water-energy nexus. Entries then discuss topics in international, regional, and national water law, before exploring broader questions about the intersections between water law and areas such as development, infrastructure, and indigenous rights. The volume also offers insights into potential future directions of water law and governance in response to the increasingly pressing ecological issues. This authoritative volume will be a vital resource for all scholars and students of environmental law. Practitioners, policy makers and water managers will also find its accessible discussion of complex topics in water law particularly beneficial.