The La Plata Basin System against the Background of Other Basin Organizations

Abstract

The institutional structure of the large South American La Plata River basin started with the 1969 La Plata Basin Treaty, and it is at present a collection of bodies and commissions which behave autonomously. The treaty is not driven towards the comprehensive water management of the basin, and its purposes remain ambitious while at the same time rather declamatory. A few other river basins share La Plata Basin features, among them the Amazon, Congo, Danube, Mekong, and Nile Basins, and are analyzed in order to draw a fruitful comparison and to extract lessons learned out of their experience. Institutional architecture, decision-making structure, and funding are identified as decisive elements relevant for the efficient development of the La Plata Basin and sibling river basins organizations.

Notes

1. Dictionary Online. Available at www.merriam-webster.com (accessed 6 July 2011).

2. Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations by its resolution 51/229 of 21 May 1997.

3. ‘A plenary session was held on December 3, 1866; Nabuco de Araujo made an eloquent plea for the immediate opening of the river by imperial decree to both merchant and war vessels. Brazil, he pointed out, by insisting upon the free navigation of the La Plata could not consistently withhold the same privilege for the Amazon; moreover, as a civilized nation, she could not do less than adhere to the principles regarding fluvial navigation embodied in the Treaty of Vienna’ (Martin, 1918). The Decree only opened the Amazon to merchant vessels. In 1925, Brazil agreed to recognize perpetual freedom of navigation on the Amazon and common tributaries to Colombia (Hughes et al., 1925; Johnson, 1964).

4. The Congo river flows, at its mouth, at 1.25 million cubic feet per second, digging a canyon of 640 feet deep http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Evolution-in-the-Deepest-River-in-the-World.html?c = y&page = 2# (accessed 6 July 2011).

5. Multipartite International Instruments of Legislative Effect, The American Journal of International Law, 22(Suppl. 2), pp. 90–108.

6. For information on the Commission, see www.cicos.info (in French) (accessed 6 July 2011).

7. 33U.N.T.S. 197–222 (1949)

8. The Danube Commission website is available at http://www.danubecommission.org/ (accessed 6 July 2011).

9. Parties to the Bucharest Convention are: Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russian Federation, Turkey, and Ukraine, the Black Sea coastal states.

10. Parties to the Danube River Protection Convention are: Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Servia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Switzerland, and Ukraine.

11. The International Commission site is available at http://www.icpdr.org (accessed 6 July 2011).

12. The Plan is achievable at http://www.icpdr.org/icpdr-pages/danube_rbm_plan_ready.htm

13. Defined in Article 1: “Catchment area” of the Danube River means the hydrological river basin as far as it is shared by the Contracting Parties.

14. Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin, International Legal Materials, 34, pp. 864–880.

15. Information on the Commission is available at www.mrcmekong.org (accessed 6 July 2011).

16. United Arab Republic (political union of Egypt and Syria 1958–1961) and Sudan, Agreement (with annexes) for the Full Utilization of the Nile Waters, 8 November 1959, United Arab Republic–Sudan, 453 U.N.T.S. 6519.

17. Exchange of Notes Regarding the Use of Waters of the Nile for Irrigation Purposes, 7 May 1929, Egypt U.K, 93 L.N.T.S. 43.

18. Framework for General Co-operation between the Arab Republic of Egypt and Ethiopia. Available at http://www.fao.org/docrep/w7414b/w7414b0p.htm (accessed 6 July 2011).

19. Information on the Nile Basin Initiative is available at www.nilebasin.org (accessed 6 July 2011).

20. The Rio de la Plata Basin Treaty, adopted April 23, 1969, in force August 14, 1970, U.N.T.S. 875 (1973) 11–13; 8 I.L.M. 905 (1969).

21. (1998) Asunción Declaration 1971: Act of Asunción on the Use of International Rivers, in Flood and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Sources of International Water Law (Rome), pp. 51–52.

22. Argentina–Brazil–Paraguay: Agreement on Parana River Projects, Exchange of Diplomatic Notes of 19 October 1979, President Stroessner City, Paraguay, in force the same date.