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.
Groundwater is humanity's most vital supply of freshwater. Freshwater resources contained in aquifer systems globally are two orders of magnitude greater than those found in all rivers, lakes, and other surface freshwaters combined. Moreover, approximately one half of the world's population today is dependent on groundwater for its basic needs. While these truisms are widely acknowledged, an additional reality is now recognized - many of these subsurface freshwater reservoirs are actually transboundary formations shared amongst two or more nations. In fact, around 600 transboundary aquifers have been identified worldwide. They underlie the territory of nearly every non-island nation and are found in both humid and arid environments. Surprisingly, though, only a handful of transboundary aquifers worldwide are subject to any type of formal or informal international agreement. Transboundary groundwater resources are now receiving growing attention among the international community. Questions are being raised about how they should be managed, allocated and protected, what rights aquifer riparians can enjoy, and what responsibilities these aquifer states might owe to neighbouring aquifer riparians. This book considers all these various aspects of the management and regulation of transboundary groundwater resources. It also presents case studies and explores recent efforts to engage the international community on best practices and global standards for governing transboundary aquifers. As communities and nations continue to expand their reliance on these critical sources of freshwater, they will have to address such issues and develop governance regimes for these shared subsurface resources. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Water International.
Cross-border Water Trade: Legal and Interdisciplinary Perspectives is a critical assessment of one of the growing problems faced by the international community — the global water deficit. Cross-border water trade is a solution that generates ethical and economic but also legal challenges. Economic, humanitarian and environmental approaches each highlight different and sometimes conflicting aspects of the international commercialization of water. Finding an equilibrium for all the dimensions required an interdisciplinary path incorporating certain perspectives of natural law. The significance of such theoretical underpinnings is not merely academic but also quite practical, with concrete consequences for the legal status of water and its fitness for international trade.
This book, which was first published in 1992 and then updated in 2007, provides a tool for dealing with the legal and institutional aspects of water resources management within national contexts and at the level of transboundary water resources. Like its two previous editions, it seeks to cover all aspects that need to be known in order to attain good water governance, but it provides updates concerning developments since 2007. These relate, inter alia, to the following: - the “greening” of water law, which calls for the progressive integration of environmental law principles into domestic and international water law; - the adoption, by the International Law Commission in 2008, of the Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers, and subsequent developments; - the emergence of the right to water as a self-standing human right; - the adoption of domestic water laws supporting integrated water resources management (IWRM) and enhanced public participation in planning and decision making; - the integration into these laws of tools facilitating adaptive water management as a response to climate variability and change; - progress in the implementation of EU law; - recent international agreements and judicial decisions; - efforts of regional organizations other than the EU to steer cooperation in the management of transboundary water resources and the harmonization of national laws; - institutional mechanisms for the management of transboundary water resources (surface and underground). Unique in its scope and nature, the book identifies the legal and institutional issues arising in connection with water resources management and provides guidelines for possible solutions in a manner accessible to a wide range of readers. Thus, it is a useful reference for lawyers and non-lawyers — engineers, hydrologists, hydrogeologists, economists, sociologists — dealing with water resources within government institutions, river basin commissions, international organizations, financing institutions and academic institutions, among other things, and also for students of disciplines related to water resources.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses plays a crucial role in protecting and managing international watercourses and other sources of fresh water. Boisson de Chazournes, Mbengue, Tignino, and Sangbana head a team of experts in this Commentary, examining the travaux préparatoires leading to the Convention and the practice that has developed since the adoption of the Convention in 1997. Tackling the rationale and objectives of the provisions, they offer crucial insights to the Convention's impact on the development of a universal regime for shared water resources. Examining cross-cutting topics such as the core water principles, the prevention and settlement of water disputes, the relationship between the Convention and other legal instruments, as well as the role of the ICJ and other judicial means to solve water disputes, this book is crucial to all those who seek a deep understanding of water law.
McIntyre's work explains the legal means by which requirements of environmental protection influence the determination of a reasonable and equitable regime for allocating rights to riparian states to utilize shared freshwater resources. The work examines the means and processes by which environmental considerations can act upon the operation of the principle of equitable utilization. The volume provides a comprehensive analysis of the subject, outlining the development, scope and operation in general and customary international law of key rules of environmental protection.
