INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE “TRANSBOUNDARY WATERS MANAGEMENT”
Thessalonike, 13-18 October, 2008
UNESCO together with the Greece National Committee on European Water Framework Directive and the UN International Law Commission (UN ILC) organized the International Conference dedicated to problems connected with transboundary waters management especially in context of international transboundary groundwater basins in the light of the law and juridical rules.
The two days seminar preceded the Conference where discussion about ways to reach consensus on providing the water rights for all water users was organized between the international lawyers and water managers. Prof. Josef Westfall (USA), Prof. Ivan Vlahos (USA), Prof. Jan Freid (France), Prof. Jan Ganolis (Greece), Prof. Marchella Nanny and Stefan Burchy (Italy), Prof. Kukuris (Holland) and Prof. V.A. Dukhovny participated on seminar and conference as the key experts.
On the threshold of Conference the International Law Commission (ILC) had considered comments and notes to the draft "International Convention on Transboundary Groundwater Basins Exploitation" from 63 countries, and in August 2008 in Geneva the ILC finalized the convention which will be submitted to General Assembly for consideration. As compared with the UN Convention on non-navigation use of interstate sources, 1997, the abovementioned convention goes ahead to determine principles of equitable and reasonable groundwaters use, underlining necessity to identify the level of equitable and reasonable use subject to the whole range of factors even exceeding the number of factors given in the Helsinki rules 1966.
During the seminar and conference there were discussed both the typical cases and some practical ones presented by neighboring countries. As an example, the successful implementation of the Geneva Convention between France and Switzerland 2007, under which the International Commission on Transboundary Groundwater Management composed of 3 delegates from each of countries and managing all items of shared assessment, monitoring, control and use of groundwater was established.
Another example of multilateral cooperation was presented by the Nubian aquifer system, of which the United Committee on management was created in 1992 by Egypt and Lebanon at first and later the Sudan, Chad and Algeria joined them. That Commission has a mandate for the collaborative planning, for using of the created regional database, and development of the project agreements.
More than 65 basins were included into the INWEB - Balkan International Transboundary Groundwater Basins Network which is working mainly on the groundwater monitoring of which special attention is paid to 5 large karstic basins.
At the same time efforts on creation of similar organization on the groundwater by Mexico and USA were not successful, and Congress of USA approved the law on developing the action plan on assessment "Transboundary aquifer assessment Act" and its using as the basis for developing the action plan on the groundwater basins sharing at the boundaries with Mexico.
During discussions and in the reports many interesting issues for our activity on the shared surface waters were considered.
1. The regional database development - primary requirement for collaboration and informativity about all activities of riparian countries is advanced sufficiently far, and our system was cited as an example in many papers of the seminar participants and on the conference.
2. Involvement of interested stakeholders is extremely important for creation of partnership mechanism and for confidence at the basin level. Water resources development of the Okawanga River is exemplified. Unfortunately establishment of the Basins Councils consisting of water users drags on nearly 10 years both in the Syrdarya Basin and the Amudarya Basin. From our point of view the establishment of such councils with participation of representatives of upper watersheds would be desirable because it makes possible for the power engineering specialists and hydrometeorologists to involve the recent conflicting parties and to make them sit down at the common negotiating table.
3. Proof of "equitable and reasonable water use" must be based on the quantitative analysis "cost-benefit-damage" subject to precise assessment of amount of users or water use, influence on population and economy and availability of other ways to reach the expected result. Meanwhile the measure of satisfying the "crucial human needs" supposed not only need of potable water and water for sanitation but also "water required for food production" notably irrigation (document UN A/51/869, 11 April, 1997, § 8) is very important.
4. The common obligation to cooperate is based on combination of some principles that not exclude each other and require finding a consensus between them. Particularly "the territorial sovereignty" principle shouldn't contradict the principle of "equality of rights", "sustainable development" and "the common benefit". From this point of view, water cannot be considered as "the national goods". Especially it is emphasized in the item 11, "General comments to water rights ¹ 15, 2002" (UN E/C 12.2002. 11, 26 November, 2002): "Water is needed to be considered as social and cultural benefits but not as original economic goods. The way for realization of the water rights must be stable in order everyone could be sure that this right will be implemented for present and future generations.”
5. The recommendations of International Law Commission (ILC) are focused on 2 areas:
Focus of cooperation, including:
- managing risks and uncertainties;
- improving the knowledge base;
- determining rules for stable data exchange;
- determining “the hot places”;
- harmonization of basic legal grounds;
- capacity building.
Focus of institutional mechanism:
- bilateral and multilateral agreements;
- equal participation and rights;
- equal access to information and control;
- equal financial responsibilities.
Special emphasis in the cases of Argentinean and South African experiences is made on sharing profits and calculation of expenditures to reach a mutual beneficial effect. It would be reasonable to analyze these recommendations and use its in our attempts to reach consensus between countries but on the strong analytical basis.
6. Though Central Asia doesn't consider still the transboundary groundwaters allocation and management, we need keep in mind that we face this problem in some aspects. Firstly, we have more than 10 transboundary groundwater basins (Sokhsky, Narynsky, Golodnostepsky etc.) which are linked to surface waters whether feeding its or being supplied by its. Information about groundwater quantitative characteristics is not available for the public and their assessment is hardly probable because of groundwater dynamics. Secondly, the groundwater quality today depends on degree of anthropogenic effect. Thirdly, Central Asian groundwaters are main source for drinking and municipal water supply. Therefore the special attention must be paid to their sustainability in the transboundary context.
In general it should be remembered that both hydrological and legal justification of transboundary
groundwaters use is very difficult as compared with surface waters. It is determined by the followings:
- more complexities for measuring because of extension in space;
- difficulties to determine the formation boundaries;
- difficulties to determine direct influence of changes;
- less attention from governing bodies;
- lack of (or very poor) international law regulations and of bilateral and multilateral agreements.
At the work meeting of leaders of Conference the representatives of UNESCO agreed to hold in 2009-2010 a conference on the transboundary groundwater use in Central Asia aiming to development of the regional plans on exploitation of the transboundary groundwater basins.
Director of SIC ICWC Prof. V.A.Dukhovny
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