A global water crisis with far-reaching and interconnected environmental, social, health and economic impacts threatens the world. Healthy ecosystems and ecosystem services are degrading, and access to a sustainable water supply is increasingly inequitable both within and between States. This book demonstrates how to overcome the global freshwater ecosystem crisis by matching the scientific recommendations with an international legal framework fit for the task, which re-orientates international water law towards a stronger ecosystem approach that also protects vulnerable societies. It illustrates how to understand the fragmented legally binding and non-binding instruments of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe environmental treaties as one coherent legal regime, which contributes to strengthening general rules and principles of the law concerning transboundary freshwater ecosystems. With the recent global opening of the UNECE regime, this book explores its potential role within the European region, Central Asia, Caucasus, Africa, the Middle East and beyond.

Aquatic ecosystems are rich in biodiversity and home to a diverse array of species and habitats, providing a wide variety of benefits to human beings. Many of these valuable ecosystems are at risk of being irreversibly damaged by human activities and pressures, including pollution, contamination, invasive species, overfishing and climate change. Such pressures threaten the sustainability of these ecosystems, their provision of ecosystem services and ultimately human well-being. Ecosystem-based management (EBM) is now widely considered the most promising paradigm for balancing sustainable development and biodiversity protection, and various international strategies and conventions have championed the EBM cause and the inclusion of ecosystem services in decision-making. This open access book introduces the essential concepts and principles required to implement ecosystem-based management, detailing tools and techniques, and describing the application of these concepts and tools to a broad range of aquatic ecosystems, from the shores of Lough Erne in Northern Ireland to the estuaries of the US Pacific Northwest and the tropical Mekong Delta.

Why do states often fail to cooperate, using transboundary natural resources inefficiently and unsustainably? This book, first published in 2002, examines the contemporary international norms and policy recommendations that could provide incentives for states to cooperate. Its approach is multi-disciplinary, proposing transnational institutions for the management of transboundary resources. Benvenisti takes a fresh approach to the problem, considering mismanagement as the link between domestic and international processes. As well, he explores reasons why some collective efforts to develop the international law on transnational ecosystems have failed, while others succeeded. This inquiry suggests that adjudicators need to be assertive in progressively developing the law, while relying on scientific knowledge more than on past practice. Global water policy issues seem set to remain a cause for concern for the foreseeable future; this study provides a new approach to the problem of freshwater, and will interest international environmentalists and lawyers, and international relations scholars and practitioners.

In Preservation of Ecosystems of International Watercourses and the Integration of Relevant Rules: An Interpretative Mechanism to Address the Fragmentation of International Law, Lee Jing takes an innovative approach to developing an international legal framework for preserving ecosystems. Deploying Article 31(3)(c) of the 1969 Vienna Convention an analytical framework is devised that examines ‘the ecosystem approach’ under international law through the prism of Article 20 of the UN Watercourses Convention. The analysis provides an enhanced normative scope and content for the UN Watercourses Convention’s approach to the obligation to preserve, taking into account contemporary developments in international law. The work demonstrates the full potential of the Vienna Convention’s Article 31(3)(c) as an integration tool in addressing the fragmentation of international law.

The Research Handbook on International Water Law surveys the field of the law of shared freshwater resources. In some thirty chapters, it covers subjects ranging from the general principles operative in the field and international groundwater law to the human right to water and whether international water law is prepared to cope with climate disruption. The authors are internationally recognized experts in the field, most with years of experience. The Research Handbook is edited by three scholars and practitioners whose publications and work deal with the law of international watercourses.

In September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This historic document constituted a transformative 'plan for action for people, planet and prosperity' with regards to the sustainable development efforts of all countries. The Sustainable Development Goals serves as an expert compendium, the most authoritative ready-reference tool for anyone interested in the SDGs. Each chapter comprises a detailed target-by-target analysis of one of the SDGs, including a methodical analysis of the preparatory proceedings that shaped each goal in its present form, an exhaustive examination of their content, and a critical assessment from an international law perspective. This commentary provides readers with the most up-to-date information on normative and legal questions arising from the incorporation of the SDGs into the international economic, social, and environmental legal frameworks, and on their implementation status. Scholars, practitioners, and those interested in the fields of law, politics, development, economics, environmental studies, and global governance will find this book a must-read.

This volume of the Elgar Encyclopedia of Environmental Law provides thorough and detailed coverage of the changing meanings and roles of water law, from the local to the global. It examines the rules of ownership, rights of use, and dispute resolution that address access, allocation, and protection of water resources. Written by leading scholars and practitioners from across the globe, this authoritative volume will be a vital resource for all scholars and students of environmental law.

This volume of the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (NYIL) addresses the question how the assumption that states have a common obligation to achieve a collective public good can be reconciled with the fact that the 195 states of today’s world are highly diverse and increasingly unequal in terms of size, population, politics, economy, culture, climate and historical development. The idea of common but differentiated responsibilities is on paper the perfect bridge between the factual inequality and formal equality of states. The acknowledgement that states can have common but still different – more or less onerous – obligations is predicated on the moral and legal concept of global solidarity. This book encompasses general contributions on the function and the content of the related principles, chapters that describe and evaluate how the principles work in a specific area of international law and chapters that address their efficiency and broader ramifications, in terms of compliance, free-rider behaviour and shifting balances of power. The originality of the book resides in the integration of conceptual, comparative and practical dimensions of the principles of global solidarity and common but differentiated responsibilities. The book is therefore highly recommended reading for both academics with a theoretical interest and those working within international organisations. The Netherlands Yearbook of International Law was first published in 1970. It offers a forum for the publication of scholarly articles in a varying thematic area of public international law.

A Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Dispute Resolution in the Law of International Watercourses and the Law of the Sea takes stock of the progress made thus far in the resolution of disputes concerning international watercourses and the oceans, in addition to considering their future paths. Written by renowned academics and practitioners, the chapters of this edited collection enable the reader to reflect on the achievements and setbacks that characterize each field and their potential for cross-fertilization. Four major themes are explored: the shifting boundaries of “traditional” methods of dispute settlement; the contributions made by relevant organizations to dispute settlement; the interplay between substantive and procedural rules; and case studies on dispute resolution in the Nile and the Arctic.