Water law is the field of law concerned with the ownership, control, and use of water resources, both surface and subsurface. Although most closely related to property law, recent developments in other legal fields, especially in environmental law, have heavily influenced the interpretation,...

Groundwater resources that traverse political boundaries are becoming increasingly important sources of freshwater in international and intranational arenas worldwide. This is a direct extension of the growing need for new sources of freshwater, as well as the impact that excessive extraction,...

In recent decades, concern has grown over the presence of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in water. This concern stems from the possibility that the presence of PPCPs in water supplies may pose a threat to both human and environmental health. Such threats may be both direct...

The transboundary nature of water dividing Mexico and the United States (U.S.) transforms the entire border region into an instrument of cooperation, a source of conflict, a national security issue, and an environmental concern. Reasonable data collection and research analysis have been...

More than one-half of the world's population is dependent on ground water for everyday uses such as drinking, cooking, and hygiene. In fact, it is the most extracted natural resource in the world. As a result of growing populations and expanding economies, many aquifers today are being depleted...

When the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses in 1997, it took a decisive step in recognizing the important role that transboundary ground water resources play in human progress and development. In so doing, it also acknowledged...

International water law is generally applied to disputes between states concerning surface bodies of water crossing international borders. Disputes and policy-making over transboundary ground water resources, however, have traditionally been determined on an ad hoc basis or based on regional...

The dispute over the Silala (or Siloli) Basin, shared by Bolivia and Chile, illustrates the importance of history, the role of indigenous communities, and the effects of differences in national socio-economic philosophies informing water resource management in international negotiations...

The Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 21 May 1997 (UN 1997a). It was drafted to articulate and codify the prevailing state practice and opinio juris – an action taken out of a sense of legal...

The following compilation is substantially reproduced and adapted from a series of essays that appeared in the blog of the International Water Law Project (internationalwaterlaw.org). The series was solicited in response to the unique recent phenomenon in which a number of courts and...