Equitable utilization is the fundamental rule of international water law. It is the doctrine
responsible for the fair allocation of international waters as between different water uses and
users. Equitable utilization is a process whereby the interests of each watercourse state are
taken into consideration on a case-by-case basis over time and as circumstances change.
The process occurs through political negotiations, with an equitable outcome as the goal.
However, the debilitated state of many transbouhdary watercourses today indicates that
equitable utilization - despite its admirable goals - is failing to resolve the tragedy of the
global freshwater commons. With growing demands on water resources due to increasing
world population, economic industrialization and increasing awareness of the need for
environmental conservation, water management is an issue that will only become more
pressing. Watercourses that flow between two or more states face additional challenges in
that the water resources must be shared between them.
The central question of this thesis is whether greater use of economics would help the
equitable utilization paradigm lead to higher standards of water management between
upstream and downstream states. The benefits of the economic approach include optimal
efficiency of water use, political feasibility in water negotiations, and flexibility across time
and regions. Although there are technical, distributive, and moral limitations to the use of
economic principles, they can be sufficiently addressed such that the economic approach
ought to be a central part of the solution to the problem of global water scarcity. Greater
use of economic incentives needs to be made within equitable utilization regimes. Sensible '
pricing of water is imperative. Markets for water, however, are not yet a feasible option
because they require well-defined, secure, and enforceable property rights in water, all of
which are difficult to achieve at the international level. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/15775 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Stoeckel, Katherine Jane |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 7847869 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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