Abstract
Transboundary watercourses present a context which can have an impact upon the human right to water of over 40 % of the world’s population. Transboundary water resources are increasingly coming under stress in terms of both quantity and quality, due to increasing populations and unsustainable and inequitable uses. Climate change is expected to further add to the pressures on transboundary waters. Since the human right to water is based on the consumptive use of water, in a competitive transboundary water regime, fulfilment of the right can thus meet much challenge. This chapter attempts to explore the nuances underlying this increasingly important context, through a focus on transboundary watercourses in three different regions, namely, the Juba-Shabelle in the Horn of Africa, Jordan River basin in the Middle East and Ganges River basin in South Asia. It attempts to recommend solutions on how the human right to water can be facilitated in transboundary water regimes.
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Notes
- 1.
Palestine is a de jure sovereign state in the basin. Its independence was declared in 1988 by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in Algiers as a government in exile. The State of Palestine claims the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with Jerusalem as the designated capital, with partial control of those areas assumed in 1994 as the Palestinian Authority. Most of the areas claimed by the State of Palestine have been occupied by Israel since 1967. The existence of the state of Palestine has been legally recognised by 132 member states of the United Nations, and there exist bilateral agreements with a number of states in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe (UN 2012).
- 2.
Million cubic metres.
- 3.
The GBM river system is exceeded only by the Amazon and the Congo river systems.
- 4.
The 1966 Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International Rivers (‘Helsinki Rules ’) adhere to this principle as does the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses (‘UN Watercourses Convention’).
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Singh, N. (2016). Human Right to Water in Transboundary Water Regimes. In: Singh, N. (eds) The Human Right to Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40286-4_12
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