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Environmental Law

Texas A&M University School of Law

Transboundary aquifer

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Law

Rethinking Transboundary Ground Water Resources Management: A Local Approach Along The Mexico-U.S. Border, Gabriel E. Eckstein Oct 2012

Rethinking Transboundary Ground Water Resources Management: A Local Approach Along The Mexico-U.S. Border, Gabriel E. Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Despite more than forty years of promises to the contrary, neither Mexico nor the United States have shown any inclination to pursue a border-wide pact to coordinate management of the border region’s transboundary ground water resources. As a result, these critical resources – which serve as the sole or primary source of fresh water for most border communities on both sides – are being overexploited and polluted, leaving the local population with little recourse. Imminently unsustainable, the situation portends a grim future for the region.

In the absence of national governmental interests and involvement on either side of the frontier, …


A Hydrogeological Perspective Of The Status Of Ground Water Resources Under The Un Watercourse Convention, Gabriel Eckstein Aug 2005

A Hydrogeological Perspective Of The Status Of Ground Water Resources Under The Un Watercourse Convention, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

When the U.N. General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses in 1997, it took a decisive step in recognizing the important role that transboundary ground water resources play in human progress and development. In so doing, it also acknowledged the need to establish principles of law governing this "invisible" but valuable natural resource. Transboundary ground water historically has been neglected in treaties, ignored in projects with international implications, and cursorily misunderstood in much of legal discourse.

While the Convention provides substantial clarification on the status of ground water under international law, it also leaves considerable …


Protecting A Hidden Treasure: The U.N. International Law Commission And The International Law Of Transboundary Ground Water Resources, Gabriel E. Eckstein Jan 2005

Protecting A Hidden Treasure: The U.N. International Law Commission And The International Law Of Transboundary Ground Water Resources, Gabriel E. Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Ground water is the most extracted natural resource in the world. It provides more than half of humanity's freshwater for everyday uses such as drinking, cooking, and hygiene, as well as twenty percent of irrigated agriculture. Given the world's considerable reliance on this precious resource, it is reasonable to assume that international attention to, and especially legal consideration of, ground water would be substantial. Nothing is further from the truth. Despite the growing dependence, legal and regulatory attention to ground water resources have long been secondary to surface water, especially among legislatures and policymakers and above all in the international …