The law of international water resources
The purpose of this Legislative Study is to provide interested FAO Member Countries with a compendium of basic documentation, often not easily available, on the law of international water resources. It contains the most general international conventions, declarations, and resolutions adopted by Governments, international legal bodies and international organizations, aS well as some of the judicial decisions and the teaching of the most qualified publicists of various nations concerning the management (utilization, conservation and administration) of international water resources, i.e. inland (non-maritime) water resources of rivers, hydrographic systems and drainage basins of international concern.
It was also considered appropriate to preface the collection of enactments with an introduction illustrating the multiplicity of the procedures conspiring to create that law and its evolution, and
describing, as far as possible in simpie terms, its essential elements and distinct values as determined
by the hierarchy of the sources.
It is also intended to constitute part of the contribution of the Pood and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to the work of the International Law Commission of the United Nations (ILC) in its effort to codify the law of the non-navigational uses of international watercourses for which the Commission has requested the cooperation of the family of the United Nations organizations. Finally, this Study is intended to serve as a working and reference tool for easy consultation for all those directly or indirectly concerned with the conservation, development and administration of the almost 260 international drainage basins existing in the world. The ratifdciation of the UN Watercourses convention in 2014 comes 24 years after this document was produced, but some of its content will remain relevant today.