Sub-theme
6. Innovation for Water Governance and Management
Topic
6-7. Role of national and international law
Body
The last 50 years have seen exponentially increasing pressure on global water resources, pressures that will increase in the next 50 years. Many disciplines will have to develop new knowledge and be better implemented if humans and other life forms are to meet their needs 50 years hence. Among the more central needs for human societies will be the legal dimension of interpersonal and international relations, as well as human interactions with ecosystems. International water law developed rapidly over the past two centuries. From being almost non-existent in 1820, it has evolved through bilateral treaties to multilateral treaties to treaties that aspire to universal application. Various forms of state practice have emerged as well through the decisions of international tribunals (arbitral and judicial). The result has been the emergence not only a body of treaty law, but also a body of customary law, the scope and reach of which has steadily enlarged. Within the past 60 years, no less than four more or less comprehensive codifications have been completed that purport to summarize that customary law: The International Law Institute’s Salzburg Report on the Utilisation of Non-Maritime International Water (1961), the International Law Association’s Helsinki Rules on the Law of International Rivers (1966), the UN Watercourses Convention (1997), and the International Law Association’s Berlin Rules on Water Resources (2004). Of the four, only the UN Convention is properly termed a codification. Yet other projects have sought to explore more limited topics addressed by international water law, such as ecological concerns, groundwater, humanitarian law, human rights (including, but not limited to, the human right to water), pollution, or regional concerns. This paper, after summarizing the developments described above, addresses several related questions: Most importantly, whether international water law—the body of international applicable to water resources—will continue to develop at a brisk pace or has it reached a mature stage where further development will be slow and incremental? In either case, what changes are necessary to cope with the challenges of the next 50 years? Such changes could include making the implementation and enforcement of international water law more effective, or recognizing a significant role for individuals in the relevant international legal processes, or promoting, limiting, or regulating market processes for international water resources. How likely is the international community to bring about the necessary changes? And how can the International Water Resources Association contribute to fostering such changes.