Examples of the Political Character of International Water Law

It is widely known that over a billion people lack access to potable water, and well over twice that number are without adequate sanitation\u27-the latter situation often being related to the former. It has been calculated that every eight seconds a child dies of water-related causes-a stunning statistic and an absolutely unacceptable state of affairs. While much has been made of the prospect of global water shortages, what is perhaps not so well known is that most of the world\u27s fresh water is shared by two or more states. There are more than 260 international drainage basins, which account for about 60 percent of global river flows. This figure does not include an increasingly important form of this resource, groundwater, much of which also straddles international boundaries. Perhaps this is in part what motivated UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to say, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January of this year: As the global economy grows, so will its thirst... many more conflicts lie over the horizon, and too often, where we need water, we find guns. The question for this panel is: To what extent do political considerations affect the legal relations among states sharing freshwater resources ? In many ways this is a field that almost invites the intervention of politics: partly because individuals-the Egyptian, Ethiopian or Mexican farmer, for example-may be directly affected by their government\u27s practice regarding shared water resources; and partly because water may be so vital to the very life of a nation that it can be regarded as a matter of national security and thus influence strongly the way that country relates to its neighbors

Introduction- Twenty-Five Years of the Fordham International Law Journal

A review of the history of the Fordham ILJ. It is a partial reprint of an essay published in 20 FORDHAM INT\u27L L.J. 1 (1996). The essay attempts to briefly summarize the purpose of the ILJ and past volumes

Constitutional Law (kempo)

In 1976 Carl Heymanns Verlag published the first volume of a series on Japanese law. A recent addition to this collection covering areas as diverse as civil and criminal procedure, labor law, nuclear energy law, and international law, is Miyazawa Toshiyoshi\u27s (1899-1976) book on constitutional law. With this German translation, Robert Heuser and Yamasaki Kazuaki provide their readers with the first systematical overview on Japanese constitutional law in a western language

International Law and the Developing Countries

Professor Anand over the past two-and-a-half decades has established himself as one of the leading Third World publicists of international law. Less rhetorical than some, but just as vigorous, he has championed the development of a new international law based on cooperation in rejection of the old traditional and Eurocentric international law. In International Law and the Developing Countries Professor Anand brings together a collection of his previously published essays and wields them into a book for the purpose of evaluating the traditional law and the process of change that it is undergoing to become a communal law of mankind

International Humanitarian Assistance The Right to Life in International Law The Right to Food

When the international community first became interested in the problem of human rights during the second world war and then enunciated those rights in a series of international instruments, there was a tendency among writers to deal with the issue as a comprehensive whole. Now, however, it has become increasingly popular for authors to deal with a specific right to the exclusion of all others

Modern Constitutional Democracy and Imperialism

To what extent is the development of modern constitutional democracy as a state form in the West and its spread around the world implicated in western imperialism? This has been a leading question of legal scholarship over the last thirty years. James Tully draws on this scholarship to present a preliminary answer. Part I sets out seven central features of modern constitutional democracy and its corresponding international institutions of law and government. Part II sets out three major imperial roles that these legal and political institutions have played, and continue to play. And finally, Part III surveys ways in which the persisting imperial dimensions can be de-imperialized by being brought under the shared democratic authority of the people and peoples who are subject to them

Litigating Canada-U.S. Transboundary Harm: International Environmental Lawmaking and the Threat of Extraterritorial Reciprocity

This Article joins a spirited debate ongoing among international law scholars. Numerous articles have debated the changing nature of international law and relations: the impact of globalization, the decline of territorial-sovereignty, the ever important role that non-state actors play, and the growing use of domestic laws to solve transboundary problems. That scholarship, however, often speaks only in general theoretical terms, and has largely ignored how these changes are playing out in countries outside the United States in ways that impact American interests. This Article picks up where that scholarship leaves off. It examines one of the perennial challenges for international environmental law - how to address transboundary pollution. It does this in the context of an unlikely flashpoint, the Canada-U.S. relationship. The Article explores the possibility that Canadians will use their own domestic environmental laws in Canadian courts to remedy transboundary harm. The Article argues that in light of the recent chill in Canada-U.S. relations, the growing extraterritorial reach of U.S. environmental laws, and the recent changes in law and science that Canadians (and, in particular, those living in the province of Ontario) are likely to turn to extraterritorial environmental statutes, and then file suit under those statutes, as a means of addressing U.S. pollution that causes cross-border harm

Litigating Canada-U.S. Transboundary Harm: International Environmental Lawmaking and the Threat of Extraterritorial Reciprocity

This Article joins a spirited debate ongoing among international law scholars. Numerous articles have debated the changing nature of international law and relations: the impact of globalization, the decline of territorial-sovereignty, the ever important role that non-state actors play, and the growing use of domestic laws to solve transboundary problems. That scholarship, however, often speaks only in general theoretical terms, and has largely ignored how these changes are playing out in countries outside the United States in ways that impact American interests. This Article picks up where that scholarship leaves off. It examines one of the perennial challenges for international environmental law - how to address transboundary pollution. It does this in the context of an unlikely flashpoint, the Canada-U.S. relationship. The Article explores the possibility that Canadians will use their own domestic environmental laws in Canadian courts to remedy transboundary harm. The Article argues that in light of the recent chill in Canada-U.S. relations, the growing extraterritorial reach of U.S. environmental laws, and the recent changes in law and science that Canadians (and, in particular, those living in the province of Ontario) are likely to turn to extraterritorial environmental statutes, and then file suit under those statutes, as a means of addressing U.S. pollution that causes cross-border harm