Abstract
International water law has been witnessing profound changes in the latter twenty years. These changes denote certain cardinal options for new goals and values that the newer international water law is seeking to embrace. Amongst these new goals and values, the ones of environmentalization, humanisation, economicisation stand out as attempts at bringing efficient response to the challenges set by the current global water crisis and the more complex expectations of the international community. They amount to an innovative normative message and even true paradigmshifts in the understanding of international water law. These trends of development of international water law set this legal field in line with other chapters of contemporary international law and derive in part from the cross-fertilisation of normative ideas and principles between these chapters of international law.
Highlights
After a few decades of a rather lethargic state, corresponding to the attempt at codifying it—undertaken, by the International Law Commission1,2, and marked by a rather schizophrenic debate over the prevalence of two water sharing principles3, simplistically seen as competing: those of the equitable and reasonable use of international watercourses and the obligation not to cause damage, known as the no harm prin-How to cite this paper: Canelas de Castro, P. (2015)
In the several international disputes where water is invoked as the main subject-matter and the unprecedented swathe of decisions which take water and international water law as their casus decidendi and rationale6
Mirroring trends which had already been at the origin of the formidable development of International law at large, more broadly over the last seven decades, and which had led a leading scholar to adroitly proclaim the post-ontological hour of international law (Franck, 1995), it seems arguable that this progress has in general been happening by cross-fertilizing the traditionally rather impermeable body of international water law with other fields of international law7
Summary
After a few decades of a rather lethargic state, corresponding to the attempt at codifying it—undertaken, by the International Law Commission, and marked by a rather schizophrenic debate over the prevalence of two water sharing principles, simplistically seen as competing: those of the equitable and reasonable use of international watercourses and the obligation not to cause damage, known as the no harm prin-. Mirroring trends which had already been at the origin of the formidable development of International law at large, more broadly over the last seven decades, and which had led a leading scholar to adroitly proclaim the post-ontological hour of international law (Franck, 1995), it seems arguable that this progress has in general been happening by cross-fertilizing the traditionally rather impermeable body of international water law with other fields of international law. This global trend towards the corpus iuris of international water law building bridges with other fields of international law—and namely, international environmental law, international law of human rights and international economic law—may be summarily apprehended in three main substantive “friendships” or “leanings” of international water law, its newer value or teleological choices: A choice towards “naturalizing”, “environmentalising” or “greening” international water law; a trend towards “humanizing” international water law or, more broadly, rendering it more inclusive; and, more recently, a leaning towards looking more attentively at water, and the international law which is related to it, through a more consciously economic angle
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