Transboundary Impact Assessment in the Sesan River Basin: The Case of the Yali Falls Dam

Abstract

This case study of the Yali Falls Hydropower Dam in the Vietnamese portion of the Sesan River Basin demonstrates a range of institutional and political challenges encountered in the assessment of large-scale infrastructure projects with transboundary impacts. These challenges include the failure to implement standard international planning processes and the failure to follow due process in dam planning, construction and operation, despite having received funding for international expertise that could have enabled Vietnam to implement such standards. Weak technical and financial capacity on the part of the downstream country, Cambodia, has allowed the politically dominant upstream country, Vietnam, to impose its national interests on downstream communities in Vietnam and Cambodia. A transboundary impact assessment has only been implemented many years after construction was completed.

Notes

 1. Message from the Resident Superior of Annam, 4 May 1931. Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer, in Aix-en-provence, France, Indochine 59412.

 2. Message from the Resident Superior of Annam, 4 May 1931. Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer, in Aix-en-provence, France, Indochine 59412

 3. The MRC is the regional river basin authority, an inter-governmental agency consisting of the four Lower Mekong Basin countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. In its present form, the MRC's mandate is derived from its April 1995 ‘Agreement on Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin’ (see http://www.mrcmekong.org/about_us/agreement_1995.htm).

 4. Interview, 5 November 2002, Deputy Secretary General, CNMC / Head of Delegation, Cambodian Sesan Committee.

 5. Interview, Chief Executive Officer, MRCS, 6 November 2002.

 6. Also known as flood zone agriculture.

 7. Personal communication, 11 November 2002, Director of International Relations Department, Vietnam Ministry of Industry.

 8. Joint Statement from ethnic minority groups living along the Sesan River in Ratanakiri, 2002.

 9. Personal communications, Director of Ratanakiri Province, Dept of Water Resources, MOWRAM, 2 September 2002.

10. Personal communications, Director of Ratanakiri Province, Dept of Water Resources, MOWRAM, 2 September 2002.

11. Interview, Chief Executive Officer, MRCS, 6 November 2002.

12. Interview, Chief Executive Officer, MRCS, 6 November 2002

13. Various Cambodian government sources have cited a lack of finances for the failure of the new Committee to convene.