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7 Rev. Eur. Comp. & Int'l Envtl. L. 291 (1998)
The Watercourses Convention: To What Extent Does It Provide a Basis for Regulating Uses of International Watercouses

handle is hein.journals/reel7 and id is 297 raw text is: Volume 7 Issue 3 1998 Te19 uecussCneto Introduction On 21 May 1997 the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Non-Navigable Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention).' If it enters into force,2 the Watercourses Convention will be the first global treaty that specifically focuses on regulating the uses of international water- courses. The aim of this article is to examine the contri- bution that the Convention might make to such regu- lation. As will be shown below, the Watercourses Convention remains within the classical paradigm of the inter- national legal system. Within that paradigm, emphasis is on the sovereignty of states and on their concomitant discretionary powers.3 The role of international law in that conception is to regulate the discretionary powers of states in order to avoid encroachments by a state upon the discretionary powers of other states. A concep- tion that is not conducive to the attainment of sus- tainability in an interdependent world,4 but that may serve to establish a framework for avoiding disputes among states. This article will show that the Water- courses Convention fulfills this latter role only to a very limited extent. This finding together with the conclusion that I reached in an earlier article, that the Convention is unlikely to foster the policy goals agreed to for sus- tainable water use as adopted at the United Nations Con- ference on Environment and Development,5 questions the role of the Watercourses Convention in regulating the uses of international watercourses. The limited extent to which the Convention provides a basis for regulating the discretionary powers of states is illustrated by its peculiar application of the framework approach, the lack of substantive standards and the characteristics of the consultation procedure which it provides. The Watercourses Convention also contains an element that departs from this main focus on the discretion of states: the impartial fact-finding com- mission. These four elements are discussed in turn. The article then concludes with an assessment of the role that the Convention might play in the development of international watercourses law. Prior to engaging in this analysis, the relationship between the Watercourses Convention and sustainable water use is first con- sidered. The Watercourses Convention and Sustainable Water Use According to its Preamble, the attainment of sustainable water use seems to be the aim of the Watercourses Con- vention.6 Given the intensity of the demands made on scarce water resources,' attaining sustainable water use should indeed be the logical aim of any contemporary international legal instrument that seeks to regulate uses of international watercourses. However, despite the lan- guage in its Preamble and the primacy of the principle of equitable utilization over the principle of no significant harm,8 the Convention fails to provide the means and ways to attain sustainable water use. It does not require that states protect basic human needs, nor that they develop integrated water policies, nor indeed does it provide minimum standards that watercourse states are to further develop through co-operation among them- selves. These objectives would have required a shift @ Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1F, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 291 Thne Water courses Convention:m To What Extent Does it Provide a Basis for Regulating Uses of International Water courses? E//en He y The 1997 Watercourses Convention

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