Governing water augmentation under the Watercourse Convention

ABSTRACT

This article evaluates how the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses can be interpreted and implemented to facilitate responsible and equitable implementation of water augmentation technology. Innovation in technology that has the potential to augment water supplies, like desalination or cloud seeding, may aggravate or mitigate conflict over shared international rivers or lakes. On the one hand, international water disputes may arise due to water scarcity, and augmentation mitigates scarcity. On the other hand, wealthy nations may secure increased water supplies through technological innovations while externalizing the costs of those innovations to poorer nations.

KEYWORDS:

• Desalination
• cloud seeding
• transboundary water law
• watercourse convention