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Inside this Issue: The MINISTERS Arrive: Will They Act? Count the Youth Delegates, Youth Delegates Count! Will the Green Revolution Make Africa More Food Secure? Civil Society and Government Learning Event Explores the Way Forward Why haven’t CSD members ratified the UN Watercourse Convention? Nano-Scale Technologies and the Implications for the Global South |
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008Why haven’t CSD members ratified the UN Watercourse Convention?By: Flavia Loures, Freshwater Programme Officer, World Wildlife FundThe GPPN has identified transboundary waters as an emerging issue and highlighted poor governance and interstate disputes as interrelated threats to the management of international watercourses. The GPPN has also underlined the importance of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses to address those threats and has called on CSD to urge states to accede to and implement that convention. In 1997, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention by an overwhelming majority. The convention establishes a framework for cooperation among watercourse states on the use, development, conservation, management, and protection of international watercourses for present and future generations. Under the Convention, states must utilize international watercourses in an equitable and reasonable manner, consistent with their protection, with the goal of optimal and sustainable use, while giving special regard to vital human needs and taking into account the interest of all watercourse states. Counting today 16 contracting states, the Convention requires 35 parties to come into force. |