Ultimately, the conclusion remains clear: the management of transboundary aquifers is still overly fragmented, divided among heterogeneous norms, weak institutions and isolated initiatives.
Faced with these limitations, mutualization emerges as a credible and fruitful prospect: it combines solidarity, sustainability and equity by offering States a common framework for jointly managing what cannot be managed separately.
This is therefore a call for genuine shared responsibility, for an assumed co-management capable of overcoming strictly national reflexes and acknowledging the deeply interconnected nature of aquifers.
A decisive question nevertheless remains open: which regional alliances and legal instruments will, in the coming decades, give institutional reality to this mutualized approach?
I would have liked to illustrate this presentation with a concrete case applied to the Iullemeden Taoudéni-Tanezrouft Aquifer System, but the time available does not allow it. You may, however, find this case study developed in detail in my book: International Law of Transboundary
Aquifers: Perspectives and Opportunities for the Mutualized Cooperation of the Iullemeden and Taoudéni-Tanezrouft Aquifer System.