An interesting article on the UN Watercourses Convention!

I read the article "Renewed hope for the UN Watercourses Convention" by Jamie Pittock, published in the Water21 -magazine in August 2009. It gave me new information on the ratification process of the Convention. I found especially interesting the different perspectives that the countries who have/haven't ratified the Convention have. I thought I'd share with you the best bites of the article, freely written:

The 5th World Water Forum was held in 2009 in Istanbul. Surprisingly, in Forum's thematic and regional panels, the support for the ratification of the UN Watercourses Convention was stronger than ever. In September 2009 the eighteenth member country (Spain) ratified the Convention, which means, that 17 more countries need to ratify it in order to the Convention to come into force. In the Forum, however, more than ten countries committed to join the Convention. Among them were Spain and France, which are likely to influence the Francophone and Hispanic countries.

Despite the strong support for the ratification, the UN Convention was missing from the key international processes announced at the Forum. Also, the 3rd UN Water Development Report launched at the Forum didn't mention the ratification and implementation of the UN Convention, although it predicted increasing water conflicts between countries. The Ministerial Statement of the Forum didn't have a specific mention of the Convention either, although "existing agreements" in general were mentioned. The Article didn't explain WHY the Convention was avoided from mentioning - it would be very interesting to know.

Some examples of different countries' perspectives on the ratification of the Convention:

Turkey (hasn't ratified): "Opponents to the UN Framework Convention have argued that each transboundary basin and dispute has its own peculiarities and characteristics and should therefore be treated spearately. The States which abstained (27) or voted against (3 versus 103) the Convention drew attention to the lack of consensus on several of its key provisions, mainly on those governing dispute settlement and further to imbalance created between the lower and upper riparian States." (President Suleyman Demirel in a 2004 speech to the Turkish Foreign Policy Institute)

Iraq (has "accessed"): "With the increasing demand and competition on water resources (...) and the intensive pace of construction of dams and water diversion schemes in neighbouring countries, it became obvious that an internationally accepted framework was the only viable solution for potential differences between the riparian countries. Only in this way can we ensure a real partnership between all relevant countries on water sharing rather than upstream verses downstream approach that leaves the downstream partners vulnerable." (Ambassador Hassan Janabi, Iraq's permanent Representative)

France (ratification procedure initiated): Regarding the 1992 UNECE Water Convention, The 1997 UN Watercourses Convention and the EU's Water Framework Directive: "The three instruments are essentially complementary. There wouldn't be any contradiction for France to join the 1997 Instrument. (...) The essential for us is more related to the wider scope of the 1997 UN Convention, which would become the first international instrument related to international watercourses, whereas the existing frameworks have only regional force. That would be a step forward." (Laurent Stefanini, French Ambassador for the Environment)

I will end this post by giving you a link to WWF Water Conventions page. WWF has a role in promoting the UN Watercourses Convention and the UNECE Water Convention and in 2006 it launched a global initiative to accelerate its ratification process.