Scalar politics in international water law

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the shift in international water law from traditional nation-state governance to embracing hydrological units such as watersheds through the lens of scalar politics. It scrutinizes how the United Nations Water Conventions, by advocating various legal principles such as equity and no harm, have triggered rescaling in transboundary water governance globally. Through an extensive survey of legal documents, this paper further uncovers diverse scalar reconfigurations that permeate bilateral, multilateral and regional water treaties and interface with existing social, political and legal structures across different regions, highlighting the multiplicity of rescaling processes.

KEYWORDS:

• International law
• transboundary waters
• scalar politics
• global governance
• extraterritorial responsibility

Disclosure statement

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

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. United Nations Treaty Collection (https://treaties.un.org/).

2. Article 2 (1) (c), the 1992 UNECE Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.

3. Report of the 52nd Conference of the International Law Association, 1966.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen [UDF01000151].