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"Foreword" [2017] ELECD 318; in Chaisse, Julien (ed), "Charting the Water Regulatory Future" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) xvii

Book Title: Charting the Water Regulatory Future

Editor(s): Chaisse, Julien

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785366710

Section Title: Foreword

Number of pages: 3

Extract:

Foreword
As one of the fundamental resources for the maintenance of life and its
diversity, the physical management of water has been a preoccupation of
men and women around the world for centuries. With the development of
agriculture, towns and cities, together with industrial societies, the legal
and economic aspects of water in terms of conservation, allocation and
sustainable use have become essential characteristics of water manage-
ment. Because of its fundamental importance, and in many places, limited
availability, water resources have also been a cause of international,
national and local community conflicts.
For these reasons, comprehensive regulatory regimes are found in
almost all national and sub-national jurisdictions. With respect to the
non-navigational use of internationally shared watercourses and lakes,
these regimes comprise water agreements between national govern-
ments. Within nations, agreements exist between sub-national provin-
cial/state governments as well as public-private partnership agreements,
especially in relation to large-scale developments such as hydropower
dams.
In addition, with increasing growth in foreign investment in general,
multinational corporations increasingly invest and function in the field of
water, and water resources are the subject of international trade disputes
and arbitration processes. These developments underline the globalization
of water allocation and water services.
One of the particular issues that has arisen in the past few decades as a
result of major interventions by governments and the private sector is the
rights of people and communities to water in general and safe drinking
water in particular. The latter was ...