Legal mechanisms for the management and development of freshwater resources, as well as their protection from pollution, at the domestic and inter-state levels, have evolved over the years and have grown to unprecedented levels of complexity and sophistication. This phenomenon is largely in response to the global community’s sustainable development agenda, and to the challenges and limitations imposed by climate variability, as well as scientific and technological advances. As a complement to theory and to an inevitable level of generalization, contemporary legal mechanisms for freshwater resources management should, above all, be appreciated, and their understanding enriched, from a practical angle of analysis that is informed by experience on the ground.
The present special issue of Water International offers such analyses in the form of papers selected from the water law and governance track of the XVth World Water Congress of the International Water Resources Association, held in Edinburgh, UK, 25–29 May 2015 and titled Global Water, A Resource for Development: Opportunities, Challenges and Constraints. The analyses featured here cover a broad spectrum of legal mechanisms for freshwater resources management, from treaties and agreements among states regarding cooperation over transboundary aquifers and watercourses (the Niger, Senegal, and Tizsa Rivers) to the onset of novel issues (technological advances in water augmentation), and from domestic regulation of water abstraction (in South Africa and Nicaragua) and groundwater management (in the state of California, USA), to domestic regulation of the water industry (in Scotland, UK).
As a contributor to the development of the congress, the International Association for Water Law (known as AIDA from its Spanish acronym) took a lead role in the delivery of the water law and governance track in the programme, both by soliciting papers and presentations covering a variety of water law topics from within and outside its membership, and by stimulating discussions on a wide range of ‘hot’ water law issues. The association also volunteered to have the present guest editors review the numerous and diverse submissions, identify those legal papers that were of particularly high calibre, and shepherd this special issue of Water International through the editorial process. (This issue follows in the trail of another special issue in Water International, guest-edited by AIDA and published in 2012 as volume 37, no. 6, with the title ‘The Future of Adaptive Water Management: Law and Governance: Select Papers from the IWRA XIV World Water Congress’.)
The result is an in-depth, high-quality compilation of material on a selection of contemporary water law topics and beyond, across a broad spectrum of water-related disciplines. It is also hoped that the collection will be of value to the stimulation and pursuit of a policy dialogue regarding the problematique and direction of contemporary water law and associated review processes.
AIDA is a network of legal, policy and management specialists active in government, academia and civil society with a specific interest in freshwater resources law and related disciplines. AIDA was founded in 1967 by a group of like-minded visionary water law and management specialists who, with remarkable anticipation, foresaw the growing significance of freshwater to the well-being of humankind and to its economic and social development, in a world of rapidly changing circumstances and increasing competition for what has come to be regarded as ‘blue gold’. On the strength of the vision of its founders, AIDA is now a partner to a variety of inter-governmental, governmental and non-governmental institutions to ensure the role of water law as a foundational pillar of the good governance of freshwater and related resources throughout the world.
To all, the guest editors wish good reading.