Resolution of International Water Disputes

Book excerpt: This fifth volume in the Permanent Court of Arbitration/Peace Palace Papers series reproduces the work of the 6th International Law Seminar held at the Peace Palace on November 8, 2002. The Seminar's distinguished panelists and participants focused on the settlement of international disputes over that most essential of natural resources water. They explored a range of questions: Which settlement mechanisms are most promising in the field of transboundary freshwater disputes? Is adjudication a suitable method of apportioning water rights which are vital not only to human life, but to the agriculture and industry of every nation on the planet? Given the need for "win-win" solutions to most water disputes, are negotiation and regional cooperation the only realistic and viable methods for settling them? What is the potential role of conciliation, mediation, good offices and other ad hoc mechanisms? This volume also contains the 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, a multilateral framework treaty dealing with transboundary freshwater, which provides a variety of tools (such as the submission of disputes to fact-finding commissions) for the peaceful resolution of water disputes.