Can there be confluence? A comparative consideration of Western and Islamic fresh water law

Abstract

The authors examine and analyze comparatively the bases, nature, and workings of international Western and Islamic fresh water law and attempt to answer such questions as whether the two legal systems, one secular the other religious, can be sufficiently harmonized or integrated to enable effective, basin-wide management of such waterways as the Indus and the Nile Rivers where the two systems of law co-exist? Does Islamic law (sharia) have a direct, practical role to play in the management of international water basins in today's world? If precedence is given to the hydro-political dimensions of transnational river basin issues, is there an effective role for law in the processes of international river management? What are the implications of the fact that Muslim nations where Islamic law prevails are members of the UN and have signed UN conventions and treaties? The authors attempt to provide answers to these and other questions and to offer at least one way in which the two systems of law could possibly be made to work compatibly over fresh water issues.