Groundwater amounts to 97% of available global freshwater resources. Emphasising the crucial importance of this in the context of increasing population, climate change and the overall global water crisis, Francesco Sindico offers a comprehensive study of the emerging body of international law applicable to transboundary aquifers.
Groundwater represents about 97 per cent of the fresh water resources available on earth (excluding the water locked in the polar ice), and is of key social, economic, environmental and strategic importance. Aquifers (including numerous transboundary ones) are coming under growing pressure from over-abstraction and pollution, which seriously threaten their sustainability. This publication brings together a range of binding and non-binding international law instruments dealing with groundwater, an emerging body of rules that indicate a trend towards more comprehensive international regulation in this important field.
In International Groundwater Law and the US-Mexico Border Region, Maria E. Milanes provides a study and analysis of the international groundwater law. The regulation and groundwater management along the US-Mexico border reflect the current international trends for management of transboundary groundwater. International Groundwater Law and the US-Mexico Border Region offers a new international legal and institutional framework to manage fossil aquifers and groundwater in conjunctive use with surface water, where specific guidelines and recommendations for water banking can improve water allocation and protect the environment. This framework can be adapted to any region of around the world. The US-Mexico border is the case study selected to apply and demonstrate the efficacy of this legal and institutional framework.
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.
This book provides the first comprehensive assessment of the various issues faced by countries in the European Union, where progressing climate change and urbanization pose significant cooperative challenges in a large number of river basins. Conducting a thorough analysis of the intricate web of EU water governance, it reveals that the hydropolitical stability of the European Union is already at risk. Further, given the structural nature of the shortcomings in EU water policy—e.g. the rigidity of the EU’s founding treaties or the institutional complacency of the European Commission—the book argues that these risks are likely to turn into sources of prolonged conflict, unless EU decision-making bodies take steps to address the new hydrological realities early on.
This book undertakes a scholarly assessment of the state of the art of law and policy perspectives on groundwater and climate change at the international, regional and national levels. A particular focus is given to India, which is the largest user of groundwater in the world, and where groundwater is the primary source of water for domestic and agricultural uses. The extremely rapid rise in groundwater use in many Indian states has led to a growing groundwater crisis that they must address. The existing regulatory framework has not adapted to the challenges and fails to address any environmental concerns. On climate change, India has adopted a policy framework that makes the link with water, but no legislation has followed up to make the link operational. The subject matter of this book has been widely debated with regard to each of its main two components separately. Bringing these two domains together is what makes this book unique. The link between climate change and groundwater has been acknowledged to some extent, and there is growing interest in studying the impacts of climate change on (ground)water. Similarly, in water and environmental law and policy, increasing attention has been given to the study of climate change and groundwater legal and policy frameworks but generally separately. This book contributes to filling this knowledge gap by drawing on contributions from leading experts in the field of environmental and water law and policy who have been involved in climate change and/or groundwater research. The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue of Water International.
ÔFreshwater is an essential resource. This book offers a comprehensive international look at diverse issues arising from water use for human consumption, agriculture, energy, industry, waste disposal and ecosystem conservation. The contributions, written primarily but not exclusively by legal experts, are highly informed and insightful. In addition to more traditional topics, they address the WTO and natural resources, EthiopiaÕs large-scale commercial farms, and aquifer management in the Geneva region and Latin America. An important read for scholars, policy-makers, and concerned citizens.Õ à Edith Brown Weiss, Georgetown University, US ÔThis excellent book covers the important legal and political perspectives on the worldÕs freshwater resources. The chapters, written by distinguished experts from academia and practice, systematically address issues of economics, environment, sovereignty over resources, energy, conflict resolution, and in addition offer some in depth case studies. A wonderful book and compulsory reading for who needs to have the full picture of the complex international dynamics of freshwater in our time.Õ à Catherine Bršlmann, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands ÔThis volume provides a masterful investigation of the multiple points of interaction between freshwater and international law, and compelling and insightful analyses of such interactions bearing out and substantiating the thrust of the volume à mapping out the Òmultiple challengesÓ facing international law in its water governance role at different, relevant scales à global, regional and sub-regional. The volumeÕs focus on these Òmultiple challengesÓ is particularly welcome at a time when the planetÕs freshwater endowment is coming under increasing pressure from a multiplicity of factors, forcing policymakers, lawmakers, government negotiators and private-sector players on the water scene to challenge well-established behavioural and regulatory patterns, domestically and in relation to transboundary inter-State relations. In its stimulating multifarious approach, the volume offers fresh and insightful perspectives of some tested facets of the water governance role of international law, dealing with rivers, lakes and groundwater aquifers shared by a multiplicity of States. Some novel facets like, notably, the human right to water, trans-national trade in land and water resources, the rights of local communities, and State succession to water treaties, are also canvassed masterfully, adding to the value of the volume not only to international water law specialists, but also to the vast and growing population of water professionals in general. In sum, the volume is a must for all those who know and practise international and domestic water law, who influence the international water governance debate at the global, regional, and sub-regional scales, and who, in general, interact with water resources in the transboundary but also in the domestic setting of their respective countries.Õ à Stefano Burchi, Chairman of the International Association for Water Law à AIDA ÔEssential as it is to human life, over one billion people currently lack access to safe drinking water and by 2025 this group could grow to three billion. Nowhere is this situation more critical than in the over 260 international drainage basins shared by two or more states where more than half of the worldÕs population will reside by the year 2050. International Law and Freshwater is an outstanding piece of legal and policy scholarship that poignantly, thoughtfully and effectively addresses the who, what, where, when and how of international waters governance and international law.Õ à Richard Kyle Paisley, University of British Columbia, Canada The issues surrounding water embody some of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. The editors of this timely book have brought together the leading authors in the field to explore the key questions involving international law and water governance. International Law and Freshwater connects recent legal developments through the breadth and synergies of a multidisciplinary analysis. It addresses such critical issues as water security, the right to water, international cooperation and dispute resolution, State succession to transboundary watercourse treaties, and facets of international economic law, including trade in Ôvirtual waterÕ and the impacts of Ôland grabsÕ. Containing detailed analysis and thought-provoking solutions, this book will appeal to researchers and academics working in the legal field, as well as international relations and natural sciences. Water practitioners, public officials, diplomats and students will also find much to interest them in this insightful study.
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.
The development of international groundwater law / Albert E. Utton -- Principles for international groundwater law / Dante Caponera and Dominique Alheritiere -- The groundwater legal regime as instrument of policy objectives and management / Robert D. Hayton -- Tronsboundary ground water pollution / Ludwik A. Teclaff and Eileen Teclaff -- International aquifer management / J.C. Day -- Institutional alternatives for Mexico-U.S. groundwater management / Robert D. Hayton -- Institutional alternatives for managing groundwater resources / Robert Emmet Clark -- International groundwater management / Albert E. Utton -- Documents / Ludwik A. Teclaff and Eileen Teclaff
Although the International Law Association (ILA) was established in 1873, it only turned its attention to the internationally shared water resources in 1954, when its half-century study of the applicable principles and rules of international law thereon began. The first ILA committee assigned to this task was the Rivers Committee, which, after a decade of intensive study and through several resolutions and statements, arrived unanimously at a set of articles reflecting customary international law, known as the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers.The Helsinki Rules, approved at the ILA 1966 Helsinki Conference, were soon widely accepted across the Globe as a non-binding authoritative source of international water law. This monograph traces the work of the ILA leading to the Helsinki Rules, analyses the Rules, and identifies their influence on and contribution to the evolution of international water law.
