Codifying the minimum standards of the law of international watercourses: remarks on part one and a half

This article discusses the attempts by the Working Group of the UN General Assembly's 6th Committee, which held its first session from 7 to 25 October 1996, to elaborate a framework convention on the Law of the Non‐navigational Uses of International Watercourses. The Convention is based on the 1994 draft articles by the International Law Commission, and is intended to have a residual character. As such it will apply to States parties in the absence of specific watercourse agreements, and serve as a guideline. However, the persistence of a fragmented defence of short‐term national self‐interest on the part of many delegations prevented the finalization of a universal legal instrument in the first round of the negotiations. The major stumbling blocks relate to the natural adversarity between “upstream” and “downstream” riparians. Deep seated conflicts of interest were particularly prominent in discussions of concepts such as the “equitable utilization principle” vis‐à‐vis the “no‐harm rule” (art. 7), the concept of “optimal utilization” (art. 5); the determination of when a particular use is “equitable and reasonable” (art. 6); constraints on the freedom of exploitation of natural resources (art. 7); and the obligation to notify co‐riparians of planned measures which may have adverse effects upon other watercourse states (arts. 11–19). Despite many obstacles, the Working Group made considerable progress in identifying language that would balance respective interests in the Convention. It is hoped that agreement may be reached on the final text during the next session, scheduled for 24 March–4 April 1997 While the present article traces the deliberations at the UN in October 1996, and some of the main conflicts, a separate article by Maurizio Arcari in the forthcoming August 1997 issue of Natural Resources Forum will discuss the draft articles submitted by the International Law Commission.