Upreti, Trilochan, International Watercourses Law and Its Application ...

Equitable Utilisation / 161 162 / International Watercourses Law and Its Application in South Asia1923, 176 the Seventh Montevideo Conference of Pan-Americanstates in 1933, 177 and the resolution of the Inter-American BarAssociation at Buenos-Aires in 1957 all supported thisnotion. 178 The idea of the drainage basin as a single unit,together with the idea that the interventions of basin statesshould not be contrary to the basin-wide spirit, have invokedthe interest of the international community. They have nowbeen recognised as part of international law. These conceptshave been codified in the1966 Helsinki rules and the UNCIW,at its Dubrovnik Meeting in 1956, adopted a statement ofprinciple:"so far as possible, riparian states should join eachother to make full utilization of waters of a river bothfrom the view point of the river basin as an integratedwhole, and from the viewpoint of the widest varietyof uses of the waters, so as to assure the greatestbenefit to all". 179This resolution, along with the 1958 New York Convention ofthe ILA formed the basis of the Helsinki Conference of 1966,which adopted the Helsinki Rules on the Uses of Waters ofInternational Rivers. 180 The development of the drainage basinand the equitable utilisation rules, emerged from a fertileconcept, that of ‘community of interest’. According to thejudgement of PCIJ in the Oder River case, the community ofinterest in a river is the basis of common legal rights of cobasinstates and the foundation of IWL. 181176 Ibid. p. 45.177 Ibid. p. 204.178 Ibid. p .317.179 Ibid. p. 287, Report of the Forty Seven Conference of the ILA held atDubrovnik, (1958), pp. 241-243.180 Report of the Fifty Second Conference of the ILA held at Helsinki,(1966), pp. 484-532.181 River Oder judgement, PCIJ series (1937), pp. 221-222.There are several arguments and facts that do not alwayssupport the norm of drainage basins as indivisible geographicalunits. Exceptions occur in two ways: one by naturalphenomenon like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides,soil erosion or where the river itself changes course. 182 Theother includes human-induced processes like intra-basindiversion of water that has been allowed in severalcircumstances. In the US, there are several examples of hugewater transfers between basins, which have been permitted bythe Supreme Court in several circumstances. 183 In Israel,Turkey, Russia, India and China, huge diversion structures arestill are being constructed.An example of inter-basin diversion in international rivers hasbeen provided for by agreement, as in Article 3 of the 1945agreement between Austria and Yugoslavia dealing with theDrava River. 184 Article 1 of the 1957 Treaty betweenSwitzerland and Italy concerning the Spol River 185 alsoprovides for such diversion management. Article VI of theBoundary Water Treaty of 1909 between USA and Canadaconcerning the St. Mary and Milk rivers has also allowed fordiversion. 186 Diversion into the Maine River had been carriedout in 1860. Other examples of international diversions are theIsraeli undertaking to take water from Lake Tibris through acanal and pipeline to the Negev Desert, and Chile's diverting ofsome of the waters of the Luca River, which flows from Chileinto Bolivia, into a national drainage basin. 187 There were also182 Supra note 172: The Great Lakes drainage followed southward first viathe Mississippi river during the Pleistocene period and later via theRome outlet into the Hudson river and then again changed to the St.Lawrence river. The Kosi river in Nepal has moved 112 km eastwardduring the past 130 years.183 283 U. S. 336 (1931), p. 336.184 227 UNTS, 1954, p. 128.185 36 LNTS, 1925, p. 77.186 Supra note 172, p. 72-73.187 Ibid. p. 71-72.