Interviews with Dr. Susanne Schmeier and Ms. Zaki Shubber- March 2024 – International Water Law

Interviews with Dr. Susanne Schmeier and Ms. Zaki Shubber- March 2024 –

Dr. Susanne Schmeier is the Head of the Water Governance Department and an Associate Professor of Water Law and Diplomacy at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (IHE Delft). Her research, teaching and advisory activities focus on water resources governance and the role of agreements and basin organizations, negotiation and conflict resolution, as well as sustainable management of ecosystems linked to water resources including the management of mountain eco-regions and source-to-sea approaches and biodiversity.

Managing water conflicts and fostering water for peace:
The role of international water law

The conflict resolution role of international water law is indeed important. Specific international water law principles can guide the development of peaceful resolutions to conflicts over shared water resources. Conflicting parties as well as external actors then often invoke international water law principles that should guide states towards a peaceful settlement of the existing conflict, as required under general international law, including the UN Charter, but also under various water law frameworks specifically. The various disputes that were addressed by international courts and tribunals, most recently e.g. the Dispute over the Status and Use of the Waters of the Silala (Chile v. Bolivia) at the International Joint Commission, or the Indus Waters Kishenganga Arbitration (Pakistan v. India) at the Permanent Court of Arbitration , illustrate this; as do solutions that have been found through political means and negotiation forums.

Another, potentially even more important role of international water law is, however, often overlooked: international water law’s role in guiding states’ behaviour over their shared water resources in a manner that prevents the emergence of disagreements (or at least the escalation into full-fledged conflicts). Aspiring to ensure equitable and reasonable utilization of shared water resources and to prevent significant harm on co-riparian states in the use and the management of shared water resources and committing to do so on the basis of jointly agreed upon principles, norms and rules – whether at the global or at the basin level – builds an environment that supports cooperation and prevents (the escalation of) conflict.

An example where international water law and some of its specific substantive and procedural principles help to prevent conflicts can be found in the Mekong River Basin, where the prior notification and consultation process, in spite of the various challenges it faced, ensured that a complex disagreement did not escalate into a full-fledged conflict in the way it did in other basins facing more or less the same setting and challenge, such as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam conflict in the Nile River Basin, or the Rogun Dam conflict in the Aral Sea Basin.

This forecasting and preventative function of international water law is even more important when it comes to using water resources as a means for promoting peace – not only within but also beyond the water sector. Harvesting water’s potential as a source of peace requires that states engage in long-term cooperative behaviour that is based on a rules-based order – exactly what international water law attempts to do. In the Sava River Basin, for instance, it was states’ commitment to establishing a rules-based order over shared water resources – with the Framework Agreement on the Sava River Basin and the International Sava River Basin Commission – which built trust between countries that had just come out of a war among each other and thus paved the way for regional cooperation in other issue areas as well.

The upcoming World Water Day with its focus on water and peace is therefore an opportunity to recall the importance international water law has not only for addressing disagreements and conflicts over shared water resources once they have occurred, but especially for ensuring long-term cooperative state practice that benefits both shared watercourses and the ecosystems and people depending on them as well as regional stability and peace more broadly. It should also serve as a reminder to us water law scholars to play our role in ensuring that rules-based cooperation over shared water resources prevails over increasingly common unilateral approaches that we are currently observing in a changing world.

Dr. Schmeier co-authored an article in 2023 summer/fall issue of The SAIS Review of International Affairs, Can Water Help Quench the Flames of Hostility? How Shared Waters Can Promote Dialogue During Conflict.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/918646

She is also the author of an article related to the theme of water diplomacy:
International Water Law Principles in Negotiations and Water Diplomacy
Part of: Interstate Disputes Over Water Rights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 May 2021
American Journal of International Law, Susanne Schmeier https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/international-water-law-principles-in-negotiations-and-water-diplomacy/B4B6E3AC4B49A90E974D233DAA9DDFA8

Ms. Zaki Shubber is a lawyer specialising in national and international water law, in conflict resolution and in strategic foresight. She is about to complete her doctoral research at Queen Mary University of London on international law and the concept of uncertainty around shared freshwater resources. Ms. Shubber worked as a lecturer in law and water diplomacy at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands until 2021. She is currently a member of the Emerging Scholars Initiative (ESI) of the International Water Law Academy.

What contribution can international water law make to peace building?

Water is a precious resource, which has caused disputes over millennia and risks continuing to do so given the increasing pressure on demand and unpredictable water availability due to climate change. Because it crosses physically international borders in its fluid state above and below ground, it falls within scope of international law, which holds the keys to its peaceful management and sharing. It does so in three ways: as a preventive tool, as a dispute management instrument and as a framework of reference for judicial dispute settlement.

By setting out a body of substantial and procedural rules, international water law offers substantive and procedural normative guidance to riparian States on how to jointly share and manage their shared freshwater resources. Whether or not they have entered into specific agreements, fundamental principles of international water law, including the principle of equitable and reasonable utilisation, apply to all States because they form the core of customary international water law, a point stressed by the International Court of Justice in its 2022 decision on the Chilean-Bolivian Silala dispute.

Procedural elements such as notification, consultations and institutions facilitate interactions between countries as they make plans for the management of shared rivers, lakes and groundwater bodies and provide them with platforms to engage with each other in an effort to avoid a resulting dispute. Parties to the 1997 Convention on the Non-navigational uses of International Watercourses and to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes will find detailed rules on this in these universal legal instruments provide. Finally, if negotiations between disputing countries, with or without the assistance of third parties, are unsuccessful and proceed to adjudication, arbitrators and judges will be referring to relevant tenets of international water law to decide the case as attested by the judgments of the PCIJ, ICJ and arbitration tribunals.

Today, many basins around the world have agreements in place that enable countries to interact, avoid disputes and build peace. Some notable examples include the 2002 Framework Agreement on the Sava River Basin between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia, which brought together countries that had previously been at war with each other. However, even if customary international water law applies worldwide, its principles and those of the two conventions need to be operationalised at basin level, which is still lacking in many regions of the world. Efforts are therefore required to enable international water law to strengthen and increase its impact on the peaceful management of international hydrological resources and more broadly to peace building.

Source : https://iwla.whu.edu.cn/index.php?id=3645

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Interviews with Dr. Susanne Schmeier and Ms. Zaki Shubber- March 2024 –

Dr. Susanne Schmeier is the Head of the Water Governance Department and an Associate Professor of Water Law and Diplomacy at IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (IHE Delft). Her research, teaching and advisory activities focus on water resources governance and the role of agreements and basin organizations, negotiation and conflict resolution, as well as sustainable management of ecosystems linked to water resources including the management of mountain eco-regions and source-to-sea approaches and biodiversity.

Managing water conflicts and fostering water for peace:
The role of international water law

The conflict resolution role of international water law is indeed important. Specific international water law principles can guide the development of peaceful resolutions to conflicts over shared water resources. Conflicting parties as well as external actors then often invoke international water law principles that should guide states towards a peaceful settlement of the existing conflict, as required under general international law, including the UN Charter, but also under various water law frameworks specifically. The various disputes that were addressed by international courts and tribunals, most recently e.g. the Dispute over the Status and Use of the Waters of the Silala (Chile v. Bolivia) at the International Joint Commission, or the Indus Waters Kishenganga Arbitration (Pakistan v. India) at the Permanent Court of Arbitration , illustrate this; as do solutions that have been found through political means and negotiation forums.

Another, potentially even more important role of international water law is, however, often overlooked: international water law’s role in guiding states’ behaviour over their shared water resources in a manner that prevents the emergence of disagreements (or at least the escalation into full-fledged conflicts). Aspiring to ensure equitable and reasonable utilization of shared water resources and to prevent significant harm on co-riparian states in the use and the management of shared water resources and committing to do so on the basis of jointly agreed upon principles, norms and rules – whether at the global or at the basin level – builds an environment that supports cooperation and prevents (the escalation of) conflict.

An example where international water law and some of its specific substantive and procedural principles help to prevent conflicts can be found in the Mekong River Basin, where the prior notification and consultation process, in spite of the various challenges it faced, ensured that a complex disagreement did not escalate into a full-fledged conflict in the way it did in other basins facing more or less the same setting and challenge, such as the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam conflict in the Nile River Basin, or the Rogun Dam conflict in the Aral Sea Basin.

This forecasting and preventative function of international water law is even more important when it comes to using water resources as a means for promoting peace – not only within but also beyond the water sector. Harvesting water’s potential as a source of peace requires that states engage in long-term cooperative behaviour that is based on a rules-based order – exactly what international water law attempts to do. In the Sava River Basin, for instance, it was states’ commitment to establishing a rules-based order over shared water resources – with the Framework Agreement on the Sava River Basin and the International Sava River Basin Commission – which built trust between countries that had just come out of a war among each other and thus paved the way for regional cooperation in other issue areas as well.

The upcoming World Water Day with its focus on water and peace is therefore an opportunity to recall the importance international water law has not only for addressing disagreements and conflicts over shared water resources once they have occurred, but especially for ensuring long-term cooperative state practice that benefits both shared watercourses and the ecosystems and people depending on them as well as regional stability and peace more broadly. It should also serve as a reminder to us water law scholars to play our role in ensuring that rules-based cooperation over shared water resources prevails over increasingly common unilateral approaches that we are currently observing in a changing world.

Dr. Schmeier co-authored an article in 2023 summer/fall issue of The SAIS Review of International Affairs, Can Water Help Quench the Flames of Hostility? How Shared Waters Can Promote Dialogue During Conflict.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/918646

She is also the author of an article related to the theme of water diplomacy:
International Water Law Principles in Negotiations and Water Diplomacy
Part of: Interstate Disputes Over Water Rights
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 May 2021
American Journal of International Law, Susanne Schmeier https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-journal-of-international-law/article/international-water-law-principles-in-negotiations-and-water-diplomacy/B4B6E3AC4B49A90E974D233DAA9DDFA8

Ms. Zaki Shubber is a lawyer specialising in national and international water law, in conflict resolution and in strategic foresight. She is about to complete her doctoral research at Queen Mary University of London on international law and the concept of uncertainty around shared freshwater resources. Ms. Shubber worked as a lecturer in law and water diplomacy at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands until 2021. She is currently a member of the Emerging Scholars Initiative (ESI) of the International Water Law Academy.

What contribution can international water law make to peace building?

Water is a precious resource, which has caused disputes over millennia and risks continuing to do so given the increasing pressure on demand and unpredictable water availability due to climate change. Because it crosses physically international borders in its fluid state above and below ground, it falls within scope of international law, which holds the keys to its peaceful management and sharing. It does so in three ways: as a preventive tool, as a dispute management instrument and as a framework of reference for judicial dispute settlement.

By setting out a body of substantial and procedural rules, international water law offers substantive and procedural normative guidance to riparian States on how to jointly share and manage their shared freshwater resources. Whether or not they have entered into specific agreements, fundamental principles of international water law, including the principle of equitable and reasonable utilisation, apply to all States because they form the core of customary international water law, a point stressed by the International Court of Justice in its 2022 decision on the Chilean-Bolivian Silala dispute.

Procedural elements such as notification, consultations and institutions facilitate interactions between countries as they make plans for the management of shared rivers, lakes and groundwater bodies and provide them with platforms to engage with each other in an effort to avoid a resulting dispute. Parties to the 1997 Convention on the Non-navigational uses of International Watercourses and to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes will find detailed rules on this in these universal legal instruments provide. Finally, if negotiations between disputing countries, with or without the assistance of third parties, are unsuccessful and proceed to adjudication, arbitrators and judges will be referring to relevant tenets of international water law to decide the case as attested by the judgments of the PCIJ, ICJ and arbitration tribunals.

Today, many basins around the world have agreements in place that enable countries to interact, avoid disputes and build peace. Some notable examples include the 2002 Framework Agreement on the Sava River Basin between Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia, which brought together countries that had previously been at war with each other. However, even if customary international water law applies worldwide, its principles and those of the two conventions need to be operationalised at basin level, which is still lacking in many regions of the world. Efforts are therefore required to enable international water law to strengthen and increase its impact on the peaceful management of international hydrological resources and more broadly to peace building.

Source : https://iwla.whu.edu.cn/index.php?id=3645

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