International water law concerns the rights and obligations that exist, primarily between States, for the management of transboundary water resources. Such legal rules and principles are dedicated to preventing conflict and promoting cooperation of shared water resources
International water law has evolved and crystallized through state practice and the codification and progressive development efforts undertaken by the United Nations and private institutions. The treaty practice in this area encompasses a broad range of instruments, from general agreements (which provide basic principles for water resource development) to specific ‘contractual’ type legal and technical arrangements (which set forth detailed operational schemes).
While water users compete for the same resource and struggle for increasing control, they also need to cooperate if they want to make effective use of water and sustain the water’s quantity and quality in the long run. This often occurs in ‘pluralistic’ legal contexts, where formal and informal normative systems sometimes clash.
The Knowledge base contains the generalized information about the international water law and national water laws of the Central Asian states.