Although the International Law Association (ILA) was established in 1873, it only turned its attention to the internationally shared water resources in 1954, when its half-century study of the applicable principles and rules of international law thereon began. The first ILA committee assigned to this task was the Rivers Committee, which, after a decade of intensive study and through several resolutions and statements, arrived unanimously at a set of articles reflecting customary international law, known as the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers. The Helsinki Rules, approved at the ILA 1966 Helsinki Conference, were soon widely accepted across the Globe as a non-binding authoritative source of international water law. This monograph traces the work of the ILA leading to the Helsinki Rules, analyses the Rules, and identifies their influence on and contribution to the evolution of international water law.

After examining the current status of the international watercourses on the Korean Peninsula, Utilization of International Watercourses on the Korean Peninsula proposes specific strategies and concrete projects for the rational and efficient use of shared rivers between South Korea and North Korea.

The essays and commentaries in this collection were presented at a Con ference on Problems of International Law in the Western Hemisphere, the Second Conference on Problems of Regional International Law under the joint sponsorship of the American Society of International Law and the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, April 2 & 3, 1971. Contributors have been given the opportunity to revise their papers since their original presentation. The editors acknowledge with gratitude the important contributions made by the Chairmen of the respective panels, namely, Professor Louis Henkin of Columbia Law School (Water Resources Panel), Professor Richard B. Lillich of the University of Virginia Law School (panel on Intervention) and Dr. Egon Schwelb of the United Nations (Human Rights Panel). The assistance of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research in the organization of the conference and that of the New York University Center for International Studies in the editing of these papers have been indispensable. We wish to make particular mention of the unstinting secretarial support of Ms. Donna Welensky and Ms. Judith Chazen. Certain problems would have been insuperable without the critical (in all senses) aid provided by Lyn Rodley. . The descriptions of contributors are those that obtained at the time of the conference. Since then, Professors Rovine and Rodley have moved to new pastures, the former to the Department of State's Office of the Legal Adviser, the latter to Amnesty International, while Dr.

In Following the Proper Channels: Tributaries in the Mekong Legal Regime, Bennett Bearden offers in-depth policy and legal analyses of the marginalization of tributaries in the context of the 1995 Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin, law of international watercourses, hydrosovereignty, and the national economic development interests of the Mekong riparians. As a problem-based study, enlightening conclusions are made based on the increasingly state-centric nature of water resources management in the Mekong region through pursuit of national agendas in the unilateral and bilateral development of tributaries. The overarching legal and hydropolicy issue is whether states can simultaneously pursue hydrosovereignty on tributaries and ensure the Mekong legal regime’s efficacy to achieve holistic water resources management and basin-wide governance.

This timely Research Agenda provides imaginative solutions to existing and emerging challenges for the study, application, and development of water law. It argues for a dynamic approach to water law, anticipating how water and its relationship to humanity will shift due to climate change, modern societal norms and values, and technological innovation.