Sharing Transboundary Resources: International Law and Optimal Resource Use

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, 2002 M04 4 - 276 pages
Why do states often fail to cooperate, using transboundary natural resources inefficiently and unsustainably? This book, first published in 2002, examines the contemporary international norms and policy recommendations that could provide incentives for states to cooperate. Its approach is multi-disciplinary, proposing transnational institutions for the management of transboundary resources. Benvenisti takes a fresh approach to the problem, considering mismanagement as the link between domestic and international processes. As well, he explores reasons why some collective efforts to develop the international law on transnational ecosystems have failed, while others succeeded. This inquiry suggests that adjudicators need to be assertive in progressively developing the law, while relying on scientific knowledge more than on past practice. Global water policy issues seem set to remain a cause for concern for the foreseeable future; this study provides a new approach to the problem of freshwater, and will interest international environmentalists and lawyers, and international relations scholars and practitioners.

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Contents

The need for collective action in the management
22
States as collective actors
43
structural failures
64
Transnational institutions for transboundary ecosystem
101
The structure and procedure of institutions
131
The development of positive international law
156
Efficiency custom and the evolution
201
Conclusion
232
Index
264
Copyright

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About the author (2002)

Eyal Benvenisti is Hersch Lauterpacht Professor of International Law and Director of the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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