Solutions for international water law

The IWLRI's Director, Dr Patricia Wouters, chose the recent World Water Day to announce her belief that using legal models to negotiate water disputes is the way to get clean water to the people who most need it - thus solving a crisis that is at the heart of poverty in many countries.

Pat explains, "The River Nile runs through ten different countries in Africa yet Egypt uses 100% of its resources causing major problems of water supply, clean water, hygiene, sanitation and transportation upstream in Ethiopia and Eritrea. By using a legal assessment model, governments can put their needs into the legal model and decide how the river’s resources should be divided up between countries."

This August, the IWLRI is convening an international water law conference aimed at providing 'tools for implementation by water resource experts around the world' to address the 'crisis of governance'.

They are currently in negotiations with UNESCO to have IWLRI’s Centre for Research on Water designated as a centre of excellence and have also had many requests from governments looking to use their Legal Assessment Model (LAM) as a tool to assist the provision of water to people in countries such as Mozambique, Jordan, Palestine, Nepal and China amongst others.

The Institute is also participating in a unique partnership - the Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters - an international academic consortium of water experts representing ten universities on five continents, which is seeking to promote a global water governance culture.