Feasibility study of regional function of legal documents on exploitation of shared waters

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Ph.D. in International Law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2 Prof., Department of Public Law, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The way of using shared waters has been of great importance for a long time due to the scarcity of these resources and the multitude of beneficiary countries. In such a way that each of the important regions of the world, including Europe, America, Asia, and Africa, have concluded important legal documents and, accordingly, they have prepared specific rules in this regard. Europe due to having a systematic and integrated approach, Africa due to the establishment of multiple water institutions with a consensus decision-making method, Asia due to giving importance to the ecological needs of nature when allocating water resources, and America due to the attention and putting the framework agreement on the agenda. Each of them involved innovations in the management of common water resources; But despite that, important regional documents have not included different legal requirements from each other; Rather, the requirements explained by these documents were common and therefore, the said documents did not have a regional function and each one did not establish unique and separate legal requirements; Rather, all of them have been based on the two important principles of the no-harm and equitable and reasonable utilization.
Keywords

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