Law Of Waters Research Articles

The role of proportionality in the law of transboundary waters

Equitable and reasonable utilization, the core substantive rule of the law of transboundary waters, requires the utilization of transboundary waters by States, considering the needs and interests of other States. This implies that the uses and benefits of transboundary waters should be shared in proportion to each basin State’s needs. Such needs are calculated through the consideration and balancing of factors associated with the rule of equitable and reasonable utilization. However, the formulation of the rule in the 1997 Convention on the Law of the Non‐navigational Uses of International Watercourses does not prescribe how the balancing between competing needs of the transboundary watercourse States may be achieved. This article argues that the principle of proportionality can play a role in facilitating the equitable balancing between the competing needs of States in transboundary river basins. Proportionality can also play a role in informing the balancing inherent in other substantive and procedural rules and dispute resolution in the law of transboundary waters. The article further examines the role of proportionality in benefit‐sharing practices in transboundary river basins, where States have adopted a proportionate cost–benefit‐sharing approach. The article uses China as an example to understand the role of proportionality in informing Chinese transboundary water treaties.

The Cd Content Provided By Sources Affected the Bottom Waters in Various Ways

According to the investigation data of Jiaozhou Bay in 1992, this paper studies the level of Cd content and its horizontal distribution in the bottom waters from the center of the bay to the south of the bay mouth. The result indicates that the Cd content in the bottom waters of the bay ranged from 0.09 to 0.72μg/L in May, 0.08 to 1.08μg/L in August and 0.30 to 1.19μg/L in October, which means that waters of the bay were not polluted at all by Cd in May but some waters were mildly contaminated in both August and October. In a word, the bottom bay waters from the center of the bay to the south of the bay mouth were slightly polluted or not polluted at all by Cd in May, August and October. In May, surface runoff and rivers together transported Cd content of 1.07-1.53μg/L to Jiaozhou Bay waters. In the bottom waters from the southeast to the center of the bay, the Cd content decreased from 0.72μg/L to 0.09μg/L. The Cd content in the bottom waters of the southeast of the bay is relatively high for the sources of Cd could reach its surface waters there. However, much little Cd content is found in the bottom waters of the center of the bay due to the lack of Cd access to its surface waters. In August, rivers and main sea currents together transported Cd content of 0.96-1.11μg/L to Jiaozhou Bay waters. According to transporting mechanism of substance content in Jiaozhou Bay introduced by the author, high Cd content area of 1.08μg/L exists in the bottom waters of the center of the bay, while low-content area of 0.08μg/L was in the southwest of the bay where currents are about to leave the bay. In October, rivers transported Cd content of 1.04-1.10μg/L to Jiaozhou Bay waters. The Cd content decreased from 1.19μg/L to 0.30μg/L along the content gradient from the high-content area of the southeast of the bay to the waters of the south of the bay mouth. In the waters of the southeast of the bay, relatively high Cd content transported to the surface waters by sources leads to high level of Cd in its bottom waters. It’s the exact opposite in the waters of the south of the bay mouth. The Cd content provided by sources affects the law of the bottom waters in various ways, and the horizontal variation of Cd content reveals its changing process in the bottom waters.

Water, Water, Everywhere: Surface Water Liability

By 2030 the U.S. will lose around $520 billion annually from the gross domestic product due to flooding. New risks resulting from climate change arise not only from swelling rivers and lakes, but also from stormwater runoff. According to the World Bank, coastal cities risk flooding more from their poor management of surface water than they do from rising sea levels.Surface water liability governs when a landowner is responsible for diverting the flow of water to a neighboring parcel of land. Steep increases in urban flooding will make surface water an enormous source of litigation in the coming decades. But surface water jurisprudence is ill equipped for this influx. The law of surface waters remains cumbersome, antiquated, and confusing. Furthermore, the doctrine itself has exacerbated the problem by privileging land development over maintaining natural landscapes, thereby eliminating what would have been carbon sequestration devices, as well as natural buffers against storm surges, sea level rise and flooding.This Article critiques surface water liability rules through original research into the agricultural science that supported these legal doctrines. By demonstrating how the current legal doctrines emerged from science now known to be highly flawed, this Article demonstrates the need to break with past doctrines and engage in a genuine rethinking of how to manage surface water liability in the twenty-first century. Finally, this Article proposes a new liability rule that would manage landowner expectations while avoiding the pro-development bias currently entrenched in the jurisprudence.

Water, Water, Everywhere: Surface Water Liability

By 2030 the U.S. will lose around $520 billion annually from its gross domestic product due to flooding. New risks resulting from climate change arise not only from swelling rivers and lakes, but also from stormwater runoff. According to the World Bank, coastal cities risk flooding more from their poor management of surface water than they do from rising sea levels. Surface water liability governs when a landowner is responsible for diverting the flow of water to a neighboring parcel of land. Steep increases in urban flooding will make surface water an enormous source of litigation in the coming decades. But surface water jurisprudence is ill equipped for this influx. The law of surface waters remains cumbersome, antiquated, and confusing. Furthermore, the doctrine itself has exacerbated the problem by privileging land development over maintaining natural landscapes, thereby eliminating what would have been carbon sequestration devices, as well as natural buffers against storm surges, sea level rise, and flooding. This Article critiques surface water liability rules through original research into the agricultural science that supported these legal doctrines. By establishing how the current legal doctrines emerged from science now known to be highly flawed, this Article demonstrates the need to break with past doctrines and engage in a genuine rethinking of how to manage surface water liability in the twentyfirst century. Finally, this Article proposes a new liability rule that would manage landowner expectations while avoiding the pro-development bias currently entrenched in the jurisprudence.

The customary international law of transboundary fresh waters

Drawing upon the experience of century, nations have constructed a customary international law for transboundary fresh water resources built around the principle of equitable utilisation. The earliest complete formulation of this body of law as the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of International Rivers of the International Law Association of 1966. Like all customary law, this body of international Law retains flexibility by being vague while allowing only for relatively primitive enforcement mechanisms. In an effort to improve things, the United Nations, working initially through the International Law Commission, drafted a convention to codify the customary law. Even before that treaty enters into force, it has become the most cogent summary of the relevant customary international law. Despite certain advances over the customary law in the terms of the treaty, it ultimately fails adequately to integrate the environmental or ecological concerns now emerging in international law into the older body of international water law. This need suggests that a revised Helsinki Rules could serve to complete the unfinished task of adapting international water law to the needs of the twenty-first century.

Legal Régime of the Sea-bed and the Developing Countries. By R. P. Anand [Leiden:A. W. Sijthoff, 1976. 287 pp. $23.25.] - The International Legal Régime of Artificial Islands. By Nikos Papadakis. [Leiden:A. W. Sijthoff. 1977. 298 pp. $23.25.] - The Law of Territorial Waters of Mid-ocean Archipelagos and Archipelagic States. By Barry Hart Dubner. [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1976. 122

Legal Régime of the Sea-bed and the Developing Countries. By R. P. Anand [Leiden:A. W. Sijthoff, 1976. 287 pp. $23.25.] - The International Legal Régime of Artificial Islands. By Nikos Papadakis. [Leiden:A. W. Sijthoff. 1977. 298 pp. $23.25.] - The Law of Territorial Waters of Mid-ocean Archipelagos and Archipelagic States. By Barry Hart Dubner. [The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. 1976. 122

Waters and Water Rights: A Treatise on the Law of Waters and Allied Problems

Waters and Water Rights: A Treatise on the Law of Waters and Allied Problems

Delimitation of Seaward Areas Under National Jurisdiction

“… Since it is essential that all frontiers, whether on land or at sea, should be certain and definite, all rights which depend for their exercise upon territorial sovereignty must be valid up to a given line and there stop.” Very rarely, however, in treaties or in national laws are descriptions of water “boundaries” sufficiently precise to enable an engineer to lay them down on hydrographic charts, or to “demarcate” them in the waters themselves. About all one can say is that, if the base line is agreed upon, the outer limit of the territorial sea is acceptedas the envelope of the arcs of circles having a radius of three nautical miles (or any other agreed-upon limit) drawn from all points on the coast. The remark of Professor Riesenfeld may therefore be recalled: “It can probably be said without exaggeration that the law of territorial waters has been one of the most unsatisfactory portions of international law.”

The Codification of the Law of Territorial Waters

Judged by its inability to agree upon a convention on territorial waters, as the substance of things hoped for, the Conference for the Codification of International Law was a failure. Good may come of the Conference. It may have been a necessary preliminary stage in a very long and difficult process. Nevertheless, the fact remains that its purpose was to agree upon a convention upon territorial waters and it failed of its purpose. Usually the cause of the ill-success of a conference is lack of preparation. This failure cannot be ascribed to lack of preparation. It is unnecessary to rehearse the antecedent steps. Several years had been devoted to preparation. Governments had agreed that the subject of territorial waters was suitable and ripe for codification. In addition to the work done by the Committee of Experts and by the Preparatory Committee, the governments had answered voluminous questionnaires and had made observations upon detailed schedules of points from which had been prepared the bases of discussion. All of this work had been completed and in print months before the Conference met. Apparently nothing was left undone by the agencies of the League of Nations in order that the various governments might have ample opportunity for examination and study of the questions involved. And, it may be added, the observations of the governments were for the most part responsive and illuminating.

Territorial Waters as a Test of Codification

On March 13,1930, a conference will meet at The Hague to make progress in the codification of international law about territorial waters. Implicit in the plans for this meeting are two assumptions. The first, that it is better to codify the law rather than to follow the road traveled by the American Law Institute and “ restate” it. The second, that codification may more wisely be expressed in spatial than in causal terms. As to the first assumption, is it right? As to the second, it is submitted that, irrespective of whether one is drafting a custom or a code, the particular subject of territorial waters should be examined and set forth in causal rather than in spatial terms. It is submitted that the law of territorial waters has been, is, and in its nature must remain a thing of custom, not statute or treaty, and that any attempt to treat it differently will have the effect which thirtyfour years ago the late F. W. Maitlan prophesied was to be expected from the excesses of restricting by putting enactments into constitutions in the United States. “ First,” he said, “ you will get the effect of a dam,—and then you will get the effect of a flood.” Both have been seen.

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction. By Philip C. Jessup. New York: G. A. Jennings Co., Inc., 1927. pp. xxxviii, 548. Index. $9.00.

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction. By Philip C. Jessup. New York: G. A. Jennings Co., Inc., 1927. pp. xxxviii, 548. Index. $9.00.

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction.

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction.

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters and Maritime Jurisdiction

The Law of Territorial Waters

The Law of Territorial Waters

Development of the Law of Waters in the West

Development of the Law of Waters in the West

The Development of the Law of Waters in the West

The Development of the Law of Waters in the West