International law: facilitating transboundary water cooperation

Transboundary water resources cross national and administrative borders across the globe, supporting in a myriad of ways a majority of the world’s population and ecosystems. The Global Water Partnership is committed to ‘facilitating transboundary cooperation’ in its current strategy and this paper contributes to that mission and focuses on the crucial role of international law in developing and managing the world’s shared water resources. The paper explores how international law facilitates transboundary cooperation in a manner that is accessible to the wider transboundary water community. It discusses the norms and principles contained in treaties and rules of customary law and examines how these work in selected case studies from across the GWP network. The study reveals how the rule of law, central to the law of nations, provides legal parameters and processes that govern the shared uses of transboundary water resources.

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