United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals and water overnance

With the problem of warming up there is an increased attention on the scarcity of water.

There is need for it drinking water, and for watering crops.

Also with the income of AI, we need to cool the engines wich also uses a lot of water.
(saying yes please and thank you needs to be mentioned)

The UN has a plan for solving all these problems, the 17 Goals (SDG). Launched in 2015, the aim is to
create a global roadmap for a better and more sustainable future by 2030. The 2030 Agenda
addresses the world’s most urgent challenges by aiming to eliminate poverty and hunger, ensure
good health and well-being, and guarantee access to quality education and gender equality.

The goals also promote clean water and sanitation, affordable and clean energy, decent work, and
strong, inclusive economic growth.

They encourage building resilient infrastructure, fostering innovation, and reducing inequalities
within and between countries.

Environmental sustainability is a major focus: the SDG aims to have sustainable cities, responsible
consumption and production, urgent action against climate change, and protection of oceans,
forests, and ecosystems.

The document stresses the importance of peace, justice, and strong institutions and highlights that
none of these goals can be achieved without global partnerships and cooperation.

Altogether, the SDGs are a universal call to action to protect the planet and improve lives all over the
world.

In this document I will delve deep in the topic of the 6th goal: Clear Water and Sanitation, and the
road of turning the agenda into reality.

Clean water is essential for all forms of life, and everyone should have access to it. Many people still
live without clean drinking water or sanitary, safe, and hygienic toilets. This goal is about providing
safe water for all, building systems to treat and reuse water, and teaching people how to use it
responsibly. Good sanitation helps prevent diseases and keeps people healthy, especially children.

“Transboundary water governance is just as important as any other forms of international relations.
International water law governs the use of shared water resources between countries. While “water
governance” on its own is a somewhat fluid construct, it is nonetheless widely used as an umbrella
concept encompassing the institutional, legal, political and policy framework of water
management1.”

Evolution/beginning of international water law?

“International law started to address the problem of transboundary watercourses in a significant way
following the Napoleonic wars when the expansion of commercial navigation on international rivers
necessitated, for the first time, some kind of systematic collaboration among riparian states.”

“The first milestone in the evolution of international water law was the recognition of the principle of
freedom of navigation on shared rivers by the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna in 1815.”

“In 1966 the ILA adopted the so-called Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of International
Rivers whose foundational concept was the principle of equitable utilisation.”

This 1966 Rule by the International Law Association (ILA) was later updated and renamed under the
title of the Berlin Rules on Water Resources.

Water law today

“Today, the use and protection of shared watercourses is governed by a number of fundamental
principles rooted in general international law, two global legal instruments that lay down general
cooperation frameworks for transboundary river basins – the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention and
the 1992 UNECE Water Convention – as well as the considerable jurisprudence of the International
Court of Justice and other international courts and tribunals.”

On of the most important document in our current international water law is the Convention on the
Law of NON-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. This Convention focused on the
freshwater protection, such as rivers, lakes and groundwater that cross borders. The document
discusses the importance of sharing and using our limited amount of freshwater fairly and
responsively. Try and avoid causing harm to others and cooperating on managing shared water
resources. It also stresses the importance of environmental sustainability.
(thus these are the Principles that promote a balance between the rights of states and the
sustainable management of shared water resources  three core principles: equitable and
reasonable utilisation, the prevention of significant (transboundary) harm and the prior notification
of planned measures)

“(…) the “limited territorial sovereignty/integrity” doctrine, curtails the excesses of the previous
principles by asserting that every riparian has an equal right to use an international watercourse. At
the same time, all states in the basin remain under the duty not to cause significant harm to fellow
basin states.” An important doctrine because it works around the importance of cooperation,
equitable and reasonable utilisation and no harm principles.

“Some recent developments, however, give hope to a significant improvement of the present
situation. These include the entry into force of the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention in 2014 and
the opening of the UNECE Water Convention in 2013 to parties outside the UN Economic
Commission for Europe. It is a legitimate expectation that these two instruments will solidify the legal
and institutional bases of water cooperation globally”

Problems in International Water Law

International water law, while important in theory, has significant weaknesses when it comes to
practical application. The principle of equitable and reasonable utilization—often referred to as the
"jurists' jolly joker"—is widely celebrated but rarely enforced in real water allocation treaties. As
Aaron Wolf points out, this is largely because there are no clear guidelines for calculating how much
water each country should fairly receive. Without a way to decide water shares, countries find it
difficult to apply this principle in actual agreements.

Furthermore, international water law is often criticized for being unclear, inconsistent, and lacking
strong enforcement mechanisms. A key example of this is the slow progress of the 1997 UN
Watercourses Convention, which took almost two decades to enter into force and deliberately left
out the creation of an institution to monitor its application. These shortcomings are not accidental;
even the architects of modern water law, such as Steven McCaffrey, acknowledge them. McCaffrey
notes that early water law was shaped by the climatic realities of humid regions, the focus on
navigational rights, and a limited understanding of hydrology. As a result, today's international water
law has inherited major gaps that make effective governance of transboundary waters challenging.

River basin organisations first appeared in the European continent following the Napoleonic wars.