A Window of Opportunity for the Mekong Basin: The UN Watercourses Convention as a Basis for Cooperation

The report provides a legal analysis of how the UN Watercourses Convention (UNWC) complements the Mekong Agreement, and provides a comparative analysis of the key substantive and procedural principles and obligations provided for in the two treaties. It examines general legal compatibility between the UNWC and the Mekong Agreement. Moreover, where gaps and inconsistencies between these instruments exist, the UNWC addresses them. The results of the analysis point clearly to the benefits of ratification of the UNWC by all the Lower Mekong Basin states and members of the MRC. It further recommends that the UNWC would reinforce rather than replace the Mekong Agreement and the MRC, as well as strengthening its broader normative impact as the most important legal instrument for the governance of trans-boundary watercourses globally.

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