Transboundary water cooperation on the Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra – a legal analysis of riparian state practice

Abstract

The Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra, shared by China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh, lacks a comprehensive legal framework. Following an overview of the basin, the paper analyses state and treaty practice through a legal lens, comparing the riparian state positions, based on their approaches to sovereignty. Finding fragmented transboundary water cooperation across the basin, two possible approaches that might help are explored. Taking inspiration from the hydropower projects on parts of the watercourse, and from existing multilateral environmental agreements, it is queried whether future cooperation might be fostered through legal arrangements for joint exploitation, or through joint protection under multilateral environmental agreements.

Keywords:

• transboundary water cooperation
• international law
• Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra
• South Asia
• China

Acknowledgements

The author like to thank Professor Patricia Wouters, supervisor, for her considerable support during the revision and finalizing of this paper. The author’s gratitude to David Devlaeminck for assistance with the English editing of the paper. Many thanks to the China International Water Law team (CIWL, School of Law, Xiamen University) who supported the author in many ways, especially with constructive critical feedback on earlier drafts of this work. Thanks are due also to the anonymous peer reviewers.

Notes

1. For a comprehensive picture of the Brahmaputra river, see the FAO-AQUASTAT 2011 – Map of Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna Basin. Retrieved December 2, 2014, from http://www.fao.org/nr/water/aquastat/basins/gbm/gbm-map_detailed.pdf

2. China, India, Bhutan and Bangladesh are still agricultural countries which depend heavily on irrigation. Clean energy such as hydropower generated by the Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra River provides momentum for their development.

3. The establishment of the Joint River Commission in 1972, the conclusion of the 1974 Agreement Concerning the Demarcation of the Land boundary, the 1977 Agreement on Sharing of Ganges Water at Farakka, and the 1982 MOU for Sharing the Flows of the Ganges During the Dry Seasons of 1983 and 1984.

4. Preamble of the 2008 Sino-Russian Agreement on Reasonable Utilisation and Protection of Transboundary Waters; article 1 of 2008 MoU on Provision of Hydrological Information of the Yarlung Zangbo/Brahmaputra River in Flood Season by China to Bangladesh; Preamble of 2001 Agreement Between Kazakhstan and China on Cooperation in the Field of Use and Protection of Transboundary Rivers.

5. 2008 Mekong Agreement on the Provision of Hydrological Information of Mekong River by China to Mekong River Commission.

6. The term ‘transboundary waters’ was used in the 2008 Sino-Russian Agreement on Reasonable Utilisation and Protection of Transboundary Waters and in the 1994 Agreement on the Protection and Utilization of Transboundary Waters.