Giacomo Garzotti

WATER GOVERNANCE IN INTERNATIONAL FRAMEWORKS

Why do I think the topic is important?

The management of transboundary rivers is one important issue in current International Relations.
As Professor Brethaut pointed out, more or less the 60% of all freshwaters flow across political
borders: all around the world there are many rivers that need to be co-managed by different
countries. Managing transboundary rivers means to ensure fair use of water for all the parties
involved in the flow, facing the need to conciliate different intentions, legal and institutional
frameworks and also the respect of the natural environment. Because of all these crucial aspects
embroiled in water co-management, it’s easy to understand the importance of the whole issue and
how it is delicate nowadays.

According to the Water Governance Facility data, nowadays about 40% of people in the world live
in river and lake basins that cross political borders. The impact of water governance is thus
extremely huge on the lives of many people all over the world. Water, indeed, is doubtless essential
for a great number of activities in everyday life: from the basic needs of any individual, to the
sustaining of agriculture, the functioning of many industries or the production of hydroelectric
energy, and many others. Therefore, we can assert that most of the subsistence of 40% of the
world’s population has to do also with water co-management.

However, the issue of transboundary freshwaters’ governance seems to be not present among the
current problems perceived as most urging by the international society and the media. Indeed,
conflicts around the world on the governance of rivers and lakes have been quite rare in the last
decades: the United Nations report 37 acute disputes over this issue since 1948, while in the same
period approximately 295 international agreements on water governance have been negotiated and
finally signed. Thus, data are proving that good diplomacy has been able to manage this delicate
issue in many of the cases and that harsh conflicts are definitely not the commonness in this
framework.

Nevertheless, many other signals allow us to be more concerned about the ongoing situation. First,
again the United Nations also report that, even if the efforts of the UNECE Water Convention have
been remarkable since 2003, nowadays the governance of about two-thirds of the world’s
transboundary rivers is not regulated by any solid legal and institutional framework. Furthermore, it
is impossible to deny the impact of environmental conditions on waters’ co-management: because
of climate change, this issue is likely to become, above all in geographical areas characterized by
scarce waters, more and more urging, consequently rising the risk of lack of cooperation and crisis
among countries.