Codifying the minimum standards of the law of international watercourses: remarks on part one and a half

This article discusses the attempts by the Working Group of the UN General Assembly's 6th Committee, which held its first session from 7 to 25 October 1996, to elaborate a framework convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses. The Convention is based on the 1994 draft articles by the International Law Commission, and is intended to have a residual character. As such it will apply to States parties in the absence of specific watercourse agreements, and serve as a guideline. However, the persistence of a fragmented defence of short-term national self-interest on the part of many delegations prevented the finalization of a universal legal instrument in the first round of the negotiations. The major stumbling blocks relate to the natural adversarity between "upstream" and "downstream" riparians. Deep seated conflicts of interest were particularly prominent in discussions of concepts such as the "equitable utilization principle" vis-à-vis the "no-harm rule" (art. 7), the concept of "optimal utilization" (art. 5); the determination of when a particular use is "equitable and reasonable" (art. 6); constraints on the freedom of exploitation of natural resources (art. 7); and the obligation to notify co-riparians of planned measures which may have adverse effects upon other watercourse states (arts. 11–19). Despite many obstacles, the Working Group made considerable progress in identifying language that would balance respective interests in the Convention. It is hoped that agreement may be reached on the final text during the next session, scheduled for 24 March–4 April 1997 While the present article traces the deliberations at the UN in October 1996, and some of the main conflicts, a separate article by Maurizio Arcari in the forthcoming August 1997 issue of Natural Resources Forum will discuss the draft articles submitted by the International Law Commission.     

The draft articles on the law of international watercourses adopted by the International Law Commission: an overview and some remarks on selected issues

In 1994, after more than twenty years of work, the International Law Commission of the United Nations adopted a set of thirty-three draft articles on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. In the same year, the draft articles were submitted to the General Assembly with a view to the adoption of an international convention. The present paper analyzes and comments upon some of the major issues dealt with in the draft articles, devoting special attention to the substantive legal principles governing the utilization of international rivers and the protection of related ecosystems. Various questions still remain open for consideration by the Working Group convened by the General Assembly in 1996–1997 for the elaboration of a definitive convention. In spite of this, the draft articles adopted by the International Law Commission stand as an important achievement in the effort at codification of the law of international water resources. The present article was written within the framework of the research project "Technical aspects of the international law of the sea" which is being carried out at the Faculty of Law, University of Milan, Italy.     

Women and energy resources management

Women need access to energy resources in order to meet their basic needs for food, shelter, clean water, health care and employment and to improve their family's living conditions. Due to population growth and economic development the demand for the main energy sources in low-income rural areas, biomass, is far greater than the supply, and women have no choice but to overexploit the increasingly scarce resources just to survive. Improvements in energy efficiency and an increased use of renewable energy sources could help women to balance their immediate livelihood needs and the long-term ecological needs. However, women generally lack access to these improved energy technologies. This article explores the causes of women's limited access to improved energy technologies and why energy polices and programmes often fail to address women's specific needs and concerns. Strategies of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) are outlined as examples of approaches aiming at improving women's access to information and sustainable technologies and promoting women's full participation in environmental decision and policy making.     

Soviet resources policy: Foreign investment,resources and the tenth five-year plan

The author examines the plans for natural resources embodied in the USSR's 10th five year plan, 1975–1980. Problems of capital and manpower have forced the USSR to curtail the very ambitious resources programmes which were mooted in the early 1960s. Foreign investment is seen as one possible means of raising production and agreements have been signed with Western companies for over 50 development projects. More important still, the countries of Comecon have invested heavily in Soviet natural resources.     

Natural resources dynamics: Exhaustible and renewable resources,and the rate of technical substitution

In this paper we study both exhaustible and renewable resources in an endogenous growth model. In particular, we consider the hypotheses in which the rate of technical substitution (RTS) between those two inputs is or is not equal to one. Moreover, we depart from a basic theoretical framework to account for the negative externality constituted by waste accumulation. Finally, a comparative analysis is made between Pigouvian tax and waste recycling, as an environmental policy to correct market failure represented by refuse accumulation.     

Gender analysis and international financial institutions

The following article is an attempt to reconcile the opinions of various activist-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on the use of gender analysis as a policy tool in the field of international development and macroeconomic policy. Of special concern to the author is the evolving relationship between international financial institutions (IFIs) and grassroots environmental NGOs seeking reform in macroeconomic policy initiation, implementation and evaluation. The ideas presented below are those of the author alone, and are solely intended to facilitate dialogue between the aforementioned parties as an alternative to the characteristic set of untenable demands and concomitant uncompromising resistance. Thus stated, the reader is challenged to remove his/her professional hat to accept or reject the validity of the propositions with an equal proportion of reason and intuition.     

Non-renewable mineral resources

The natural resources of the earth's crust upon which industry depends for metals, non-metallics and most of its energy, come from deposits in the crust carrying six to over 1000 times the normal content of the required elements. Such deposits have formed over such long periods of geological time that they must be regarded as non-renewable within the span of existence of the human species. These facts are briefly illustrated by reference to the cases of iron, copper, aluminium, titanium, magnesium, lead, zinc, flourine and the fossil fuels. The possibilities of exploiting much lower concentrations when considered in relation to the exponential rise in demand, lead to the conclusion that the scope is limited unless very cheap energy becomes available.     

Groundwater and pollution of water resources

The drafters of water legislation in the developing countries are faced with two major challenges: first, to make the law a suitable instrument for promoting social investment in the development of water resources; and second, to devise machinery which will protect those resources in all their different forms. This paper addresses those challenges. It also discusses the ways in which the law deals with the problems of water and the pollution of water resources. The concept of economic externalities is of basic importance in any consideration of both of these questions. The goal is to handle them with legal instruments designed to prevent individuals from taking action which affects the welfare of other users or which impedes the conservation of water resources for the purposes of their development and long-term utilization.     

The law and economics of reclamation bonds

It is becoming a standard practice for governments to require mining operations to post reclamation bonds. Yet, there have been few theoretical treatments examining the rationale for bonding mechanisms, and even fewer empirical treatments of the effectiveness of bonding. This paper addresses some of these holes in the literature. It begins by examining the rationale underlying reclamation bonds, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of bonding as a tool for enforcing reclamation requirements. The role of bonding mechanisms is to help enforce standards, not necessarily yield efficient outcomes, and these mechanisms are best viewed as a complement to — not a substitute for — liability rules. The paper also examines the effectiveness of bonding by drawing on evidence from hardrock mining on public lands in the western United States.