Comparing China and India’s transboundary water governance: insights from international law

ABSTRACT

Home to the majority of Asia’s shared transboundary freshwater resources, China and India have adopted different approaches to transboundary water governance, influenced in part by their approach to international law. International law provides a framework for transboundary water cooperation through a body of conventional (treaty) and customary rules as well as non-binding instruments. This study examines China’s and India’s State practice through a legal analytical framework that serves to identify, compare, and contrast their approaches, with a view to offering some insight into how transboundary water cooperation by these two riparian nations might be reframed and possibly advanced.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• India
• transboundary waters
• international water law
• transboundary water cooperation

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments on this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).