Current legal challenges to institutional governance of transboundary water resources in Central Asia and joint management arrangements

Abstract

Transboundary water governance, understood as ownership, development and management of water resources, has been developing in Central Asia since the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of national water legal systems. However, fairly developed water governance on transboundary basins in the region still requires strengthening through enhancing riparian states’ institutional cooperation at all levels of interstate cooperation—regional level, transboundary river basins and bilateral level. Joint management arrangements (JMA), which according to widespread international legal practice are used to facilitate interstate cooperation on transboundary water basins, still pose a sufficient challenge to all levels of transboundary water governance in Central Asia. The most developed JMA in Central Asia is the mechanism represented by International Fund for Saving Aral Sea (IFAS), representing all states on the regional level of water governance. Not a flawless legal nature of IFAS envisages current challenges to the development of JMA at all institutional levels of interstate cooperation in Central Asia. Further, it reflects the need for further development and strengthening of transboundary water governance in the region.