The Helsinki Rules, the UN Watercourses Convention and the Berlin Rules: Perspectives on International Water Law

Abstract

Shared water resources remain the most important area without a universal treaty regulating the uses and protection of such resources. This is notwithstanding the extensive work of two scholarly non-governmental organizations, the Institute of International Law and the International Law Association, as well as the work of the International Law Commission of the United Nations. The work of those institutions resulted in some basic international water law rules, such as the Helsinki and Berlin Rules, and the United Nations Watercourses Convention. The paper analyzes those instruments, discusses the basic areas of similarities and differences among them, and examines the basic challenges facing international water law.

Notes

1. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Bank.

2. It should be clarified that Article 10 of the Campione Consolidated Rules on ‘Adequate Stream Flows’ was adopted at the London Conference itself in 2000, and was incorporated in the Campione Consolidated Rules at that meeting. Hence, Article 10 provides an exception to the statement that the Campione Consolidated Rules do not present new work.

3. Although the ILC restricted the definition of ‘watercourse’ only to groundwater connected to surface water, the ILC issued a separate resolution recommending that other types of groundwater be governed by the same rules laid down in the Convention. For the text of this Resolution see, Salman M. A. Salman (Ed.) Groundwater—Legal and Policy Perspectives (World Bank Technical Paper No. 456 (1999), p. 235.

4. Those countries are South Africa, Namibia, Finland, Norway, Hungary, Sweden, The Netherlands, Portugal, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Qatar, Libya, Germany and Uzbekistan.

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Notes on contributors

Salman M. A. Salman

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