Asian traditions and contemporary international law on the management of natural resources

Chinese Journal of International Law

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 273-283

  Benvenisti, Eyal ^a  

^a TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 65249123482     PISSN: 15401650     EISSN: 17469937     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/chinesejil/jmn008     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. Genesis, 29, 1-11.
2. On the spring flow tunnels, see Zip Y.D, Ron, Qantas and Spring Flow Tunnels in the Holy Land, in: Peter Beaumont, Michael Bonnie and Keith McLachlan (eds), A, Clachan (general ed.), Qantas, Karrz and Khattara: Traditional Water Systems in the Middle East and North Africa (Middle East & North African Studies Press, 1989), 211-236.
3. In some places, the tunnels reached a length of 50-100 metres and, in one place, even 225 metres (id., 224).
4. See also The Utilization of Springs for Irrigated Agriculture in the judea Mountains, in: Avsha-lom Shmueli, David Grossman and Rehav'am Ze'evi (eds), Judea and Samaria (2 vols, Canaan Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1977, in Hebrew) vol. I, 230-250.
5. A.K.S. Lambton, Qanat, IV Encyclopedia of Islam, 529-531;
6. Peter Beaumont, The Qanat: A Means of Water Provision from Groundwater Sources, in: Peter Beaumont (ed.), Qanat, n, 2, 13-31, p. 23.
7. Zvi Y.D. Ron, Development and Management of Irrigation Systems in Mountain Regions of the Holy Land, 10 Trans. Inst. Br. Geogr. N. S. (1985), 149-169;
8. Zvi Y.D. Ron, Battir - The Village and the System of Irrigated Terraces, 10 Teva va-Arets (1968), 112, 121 (in Hebrew).
9. For the irrigation systems of the Pueblo Indians in New Mexico, see José A, Rivera, Irrigation Communities of the Upper Rio Grande Bioregion: Sustainable Use in the Global Context, 36 Nat, Res, J (1996), 491, 497 (describing the acequia associations, consisting of three elected ditch commissioners and the irrigators themselves, governed by rules based on custom and tradition);
10. Robert Y, Siy, Jr (ed.), Community Resource Managment: Lessons from the Zanjera (University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City, Philippines, 1982) (describing the Irrigation system in rural parts of the Philippines).
11. On multidimensional relations as reinforcing cooperation, see Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1990), 207;
12. Russell Hardin, Collective Action (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1982), 31-33.
13. Robert Wade, Village Republics: Economic Conditions for Collective Action in South India (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York, 1988);
14. Robert Wade, The Management of Common Property Resources: Collective Action as an Alternative to Privatisation or State Regulation, 11 Cambridge j. of Econ. (1987), 95.
15. Genesis 26:15-22 (the Philistines covered the wells dug by Abraham and Isaac in an attempt to chase Isaac away from the area).
16. For examples of inter-village strife in ancient Palestine, see Ali Hasan Dawod Anbar, Soeio-Eeonomic Aspects of the East Ghor Canal Project (Ph.D. thesis, University of Southampton, 1983), 91-93;
17. for examples of inter-village conflicts in India, see Robert Wade, Village Republics, n.7. This is the typical scenario of the tragedy of the water commons and arises, for example, in areas along the Mediterranean coast, where the opportunity of many individuals to dig wells led to numerous shallow wells and a lowering of the water table which, in turn, rendered many wells dry and increased the salinity of the coastal aquifer.
18. Clifford Geerrz, Organization of the Ballnese Subak, in: E. Walter Coward, Jr (ed.), Irrigation and Agricultural Development in Asia: Perspectives from the Social Sciences (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1980), 70-90.
19. Ibid., 79.
20. Ibid., 79: "Theories of 'hydraulic despotism' to the contrary notwithstanding, water control in Bali was an overwhelmingly local and intensely democratic matter". The subak encompasses all owners of rice fields irrigated by a single dam. Organization is based on a one-person one-vote system for electing the subak head and other officials who perform allocation, monitoring, and maintenance works (80-81).
21. Ibid., 81.
22. Ibid., 88.
23. Ibid., 81.
24. Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary/Slovakia), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 1997, 7;
25. Separate Opinion by Judge Weeramantry, 88.
26. Ibid., 101-102.
27. BuSankulama v. Ministry of Indus. Dev., (2000) 3 Sri LR243, available atwww.com monSii.org/Sk/ca.ses/LKSC/ 2000/18.html (last visited 29 March 2008).
28. Ibid., 253-254.
29. Minors Oposav, Sec'y of Dep't Env'tand Natural Res., 33 I.L.M. (1994), 174 ("Needless to say, every generation has a responsibility to the next to preserve that rhythm and harmony for the full enjoyment of a balanced and healthful ecology. Put a little differently, the minors' assertion of their right to a sound environment constitutes, at the same time, the performance of their obligation to ensure the protection of that right for the generations to come").
30. See Eyal Renvenisti, Sharing Transboundary Resources; International Law and Optimal Resource Use (Cambridge University Press, 2002);
31. Collective Action in the Utilization of Shared Freshwater: The Challenges of International Water Resources Law, 90 American JIL (1996), 384.
32. Jane Ellcn Stevens, Science and Religion; Cultural Ptactices and Ecology, 44(2) Bioscicnce (1994), 60.
33. Ibid,
34. Karl A. Wittfogd, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, J 957),
35. Ibid., 109,
36. Laws of Hammu-Rabi, No, 55, Rep., in: G.R. Driver and C, John Miles (eds). The Babylonian Laws: Ancient Codes and Laws of die Near East (2 vols, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1952-55), vol. II, 31.
37. Note by this author: Corvee labour is temporary but recurring forced labour. Corvee workers were recruited seasonally, usually before the flooding period. On this type of recruitment, see Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism, n.18, pp. 47-48,
38. Ibid., 109.
39. Give Pouting, A Green History of the World (Sinclair-Stevenson, London, 1991).
40. Elinor Gstrom, Crafting Instiaitions for Self-Governing Irrigation Systems (ICS Press, San Francisco, 1992), 1-7.
41. See also World Development Report 1992 (Development and the Environment, The World Bank), 100; about 73 per cent of water withdrawals are allotted for irrigation and are heavily subsidized. In India, irrigation accounts for 93 per cent of water consumption; Salman M,A, Salman, The Legal Framework for Water Users' Associations: a Comparative Study (World Bank, Washington, DC, 1997), 1-2.
42. See William M. Adams, Wasting the Rain: Rivers, People and Planning in Africa (Earthscan, London, 1992);
43. Fred Pearce, The Damned: Rivers, Dams, and die Coming World Water Crisis (Bodley Head, London, 1992);
44. Patrick McCuily, Silenced Rivers: The Ecology and Politics of large Dams (Zed Books, London/Atlantic Highlands, NJ, 1996),
45. Edward Goldsmith and Nicholas Hildyard, The Social and Environmental Effects of Large Dams (Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1984), 17.
46. For a detailed discussion, see Benvenistt, above n,21.
47. See above n.16.
48. See above n, 18-20.
49. On the role of domestic courts, particularly Asian courts, in the development of the human right to water, see Eyal Benvenisti, Water, Right to, International Protection, in: R Wolfrum et al. (eds), Encyclopedia of Public International Law (forthcoming, 2008),