The Watercourses Convention: To what extent does it provide a basis for regulating uses of international watercourses?

Review of European Community and International Environmental Law

Volumn 7, Issue 3, 1998, Pages 291-300

  Hey, Ellen ^a  

^a ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

INTERNATIONAL LAW; SUSTAINABILITY; WATER RESOURCE; WATER USE;

EID: 0032468638     PISSN: 09628797     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9388.00162     Document Type: Article

References (5)

1. The Convention was adopted by 104 votes in favour, 3 against and 26 abstentions. United Nations, Press Release GA/9248, 21 May 211997 and corrigendum of 22 May 1997. For the text of the Convention see (1997) 36 ILM 700.
2. The Watercourses Convention will enter into force ninety days after the deposit of the thirty-fifth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession (Article 36(1), Watercourses Convention). The Convention will remain open for signature until 20 May 2000 (Article 34, Watercourses Convention). States and regional economic integration organizations may sign and become parties to the Convention (Articles 34 and 35, Watercourses Convention).
3. On the development of the concept of sovereignty see Luzius Wildhaber, 'Sovereignty and International Law', in R. St. J. Macdonald and Douglas M. Johnston (eds.), The Structure and Process of International Law: Essays in Legal Philosophy, Doctrine and Theory, (Martinis Nijhoff Publishers, 1986), 425-452.
4. See Günther Handl, 'Environmental Security and Global Change: The Challenge to International Law', Y Intn'l Env L, l (1990), 3 at 31-32.
5. Ellen Hey, The Sustainable Use of Shared Water Resources: The Need for a Paradigmatic Shift in International Watercourses Law', in Gerald H. Blake, William J. Hildesley, Martine A. Pratt, Rebecca J. Ridley and Clive H. Schofield (eds.), The Peaceful Management of Transboundary Resources, (Graham & Trotman/Martinus Nijhoff, 1995), 127-152. (This article analyzes the draft articles as adopted by the International Law Commission (ILC) upon first reading (ILC Report on the work of its Forty-Third Session, Official Records of the General Assembly, Forty-Sixth Session, Supplement No. 10, (A/46/10), 1991, 161-172) in the light of Chapter 18 of Agenda 21 (UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (Vols. I-III), 12 August 1992). I concluded that the draft articles were unlikely to foster the attainment of the following three objectives that have a prominent place in Chapter 18: securing access for all people to safe and sufficient water supplies; enhancing public participation and management at the lowest appropriate level; and attaining integrated development and management of water resources. Since very few changes pertinent to the criticisms voiced in that article have been made to the provisions after further consideration by the ILC and the General Assembly, that conclusion applies equally to the provisions of the Watercourses Convention.)