International Water Conflict Resolution: Lessons from Comparative Analysis

Abstract

This paper offers lessons learned for the process of resolving international freshwater conflicts from the combined experience of treaty negotiations, process case studies, and a series of forums on international waters. The first section describes the current state of international water institutions and law, and discusses weaknesses in each structure. The second section describes recent attempts at the resolution of international water disputes as exemplified in 140 transboundary water treaties and 14 process case studies collected on the University of Alabama Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database, and at the three Forums of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA) Committee on International Waters. Lessons learned are then described in the third section for the three stages of negotiation. During the prenegotiation stage, lessons are to be found for involvement in advance of conflict, and indicators suggested both for possible water conflict and for the type and intensity of a pending dispute. During the negotiation stage, common obstacles to successful negotiations are suggested and the lessons of introducing multi-resource linkages to encourage positive sum solutions are offered. For the implementation stage, often ignored parameters are described-physical, economic and political-as are aspects unique to water resources that can encourage cooperation.