Design and change in transboundary freshwater agreements
- PDF / 843,582 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 40 Downloads / 201 Views
Design and change in transboundary freshwater agreements Charlotte De Bruyne 1 & Itay Fischhendler 1 & Yoram Z. Haftel 2 Received: 17 July 2019 / Accepted: 14 June 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
This paper presents a systematic assessment of transboundary water treaties and their institutional evolution over time. While the majority of treaties tend to remain unchanged, others are renegotiated over time, either gradually by treaty amendment or abruptly by treaty replacement. This study examines the sources of treaty amendment, treaty replacement, and renegotiation. Treaty design features, such as conflict resolution mechanisms and duration mechanisms, make up the set of independent variables. Effects are also measured for a set of control variables including the geographical configuration of a basin, the number of signatories, a history of interstate militarized disputes, water variability, the basin’s climate zone, and past renegotiations. Conflict resolution appears as a significant design feature for determining treaty stability, aided by asymmetrical basin configurations and bilateralism. The absence of conflict resolution is the main trigger for gradual change. The presence of a duration clause and a history of interstate militarized disputes are found to trigger abrupt change. Renegotiations become more likely after the first round of renegotiation, suggesting a temporal effect of path dependence on treaty evolution. This study adds to the work of scholars mapping transboundary basins at risk and provides further arguments to negotiate better and more specific treaties from the start, which include conflict resolution features that enable dialogue and rule modification while avoiding the need for formal treaty renegotiation. Keywords International agreements . Transboundary water treaties . Institutional evolution . Gradualism . Flexibility mechanisms . Conflict resolution . Institutional resilience
1 Introduction Most of the world’s freshwater systems are transboundary in nature and cross various jurisdictions and ecosystems (Wolf et al. 2003). They include major and minor watercourses, rivers and streams, their tributaries, and connected lakes, and groundwater. Both * Charlotte De Bruyne [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Climatic Change
transboundary basins and aquifers are often governed by water agreements. Between 1820 and 2007, approximately 688 international freshwater-related agreements have been signed with respect to non-navigational uses1 of water (Giordano et al. 2014). Bilateral and multilateral agreements are important legal instruments through which states make reciprocal commitments in the international arena, and transboundary water is no exception (Abbott and Snidal 2000). Environmental uncertainty about the distribution, timing and intensity of precipitation, increased water variability, and the broader consequences of climate change are some of the challenges that complicate the negotiations of transboundary water
Data Loading...
