Cooperation for the Sustainable Governance of International Watercourses: The Role of River Basin Organisations

Andrea K. Gerlak is the Director of Academic Development for the International Studies Association, and Environmental Policy Faculty Associate with the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona. Susanne Schmeier, of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), works as a Technical Advisor to the Mekong River Commission (MRC). This is the first of two articles jointly authored by them for this issue of Global Dialogue.

The year 2013 holds the official designation as the International Year of Water Cooperation, according to the United Nations General Assembly. The objective of the International Year has been to raise awareness regarding the challenges facing water management given increased demand for water access, allocation and services, and the potential for increased cooperation. The 2013 World Water Day (22 March) and a series of UNESCO-led events throughout the year have highlighted the history of successful water cooperation initiatives.

The need for cooperation around shared waters is significant. Today, 40 per cent of the world’s population lives in 276 international watercourses around the globe. Some 145 countries share a significant part of their territory with other riparian states in a river basin.¹ Some countries, like Bangladesh, Laos, Paraguay, Uganda and Zambia, are entirely located within international river basins.

FIGURE 1
Shared Watercourses

Source: Aaron T. Wolf, “Shared Waters: Conflict and Cooperation”, Annual Review of Environment and Resources 32 (November 2007).

The use of shared waters by several actors poses a variety of collective action problems. First, the use of water by one actor for irrigation or household purposes necessarily reduces the water available to other actors interested in its use. Likewise, the insertion of pollutants, perhaps in the form of pesticides or fertilisers from agricultural production, into the water by one actor reduces its value for others who want to use it for drinking and household purposes. Also, the generation of hydropower through dams or the construction of other large infrastructure schemes is often accompanied by various negative environmental consequences that are felt downstream. Downstream populations may suffer from reduced water flow, changes in the river’s sediment load that affect agricultural productivity, or a reduction in fish stocks and thus in the availability of food resources. Such collective action problems can lead to disagreement and conflict between water users. Many policymakers and water practitioners have therefore warned of water conflicts or even wars.

More recently, the expected consequences of global climate change for the world’s water resources have revived the fear of water wars and pose additional challenges in international river basins. According to estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, altered weather patterns due to climate change will increase the incidence and severity of droughts in many regions of the world, particularly regions that are already arid. The increasing scarcity of water resources is expected to shake existing institutional arrangements. Beyond availability, water quality and the management of infrastructure are likely to be altered by climate change.

In this essay, we argue that despite the significant collective action challenges that international river basins face, riparian states have overwhelmingly chosen cooperation over conflict in the form of international water treaties and river basin organisations (RBOs). Specifically, we highlight the role of RBOs in addressing collective action problems in international rivers and lakes. We outline the rise of RBOs in international river basin management and report on some recent research aimed at better understanding why RBOs form for some basins but not others. Lastly, we provide some examples of RBOs and the benefits they bring to transboundary water governance.

Cooperation Prevails in International River and Lake Basins

In spite of the manifold challenges to the governance of transboundary watercourses, riparian states to internationally shared waters have generally elected to cooperate rather than to fight over these resources. The Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database (TFDD), under the auspices of Aaron Wolf at Oregon State University, analysed more than 1,800 events of either conflict or cooperation over shared watercourses since 1948 to reveal that most were cooperative. Only 507 out of 1,831 events were conflictive at all, and most of these at a rather low level of conflict intensity such as the verbal expression of hostility or diplomatic actions.²

In order to give cooperation greater long-term prospects and define clearly the responsibilities of all involved actors, states in more than one hundred international river and lake basins have decided to establish international water treaties. By helping to resolve the underlying problems due to the competing use of rivers, international water treaties and agreements can alleviate political tensions and reduce international conflict.

The first international water treaties emerged in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, starting with navigation but soon extending to the non-navigational use of water resources as well. In 1887, for instance, an agreement was signed between Switzerland, France, Germany, Luxemburg and the Netherlands that prohibited the discharge of waste dangerous to fish into the Rhine. In the second half of the twentieth century, a myriad of new treaties was signed across all continents, manifesting the interest of riparian states in cooperatively managing shared water resources.

International water treaties govern a variety of issues concerning the use of water resources. For example, they govern water allocation, as illustrated by the Indus Waters Treaty or the Agreement concerning the Utilisation of the Zambezi River. They also govern water quality and pollution control; examples are the Convention concerning the Collection, Storage and Discharge of Waste from Ships Navigating along the Rhine and other Inland Waters, and the Agreement on the Dephosphatisation of Lake Leman Waters. The Convention regarding the Regime of Navigation on the Danube is an example of navigation as another water resource issue governed by international water treaties. Lastly, flood management is addressed by the Agreement on Flood Warning for the Catchment Basin of the Moselle, and by the Agreement for Water Supply and Flood Control in the Souris River Basin.

Managing Cooperation over Time: The Role of RBOs

In order to