About

GWP’s VISION is a water secure world. Our MISSION is to advance governance and management of water resources for sustainable and equitable development.

OUR UNIQUE VALUE: GWP mobilises action on the global water crisis through a unique combination of social capital, shared values, credibility within the global water community, bottom-up orientation, and expertise. A network of networks, we ensure the ‘voices of water’ can inﬂuence local, national, regional, and global development priorities. We are committed to our role as a neutral convener and respected for our focus on inclusiveness and sustainability.

Learn

GWP creates and communicates information about integrated water resources management which contributes to improved water governance and, ultimately, water security.

Together with our Partners, we provide knowledge resources and capacity building activities for solving water problems.

Partner

Institutional Partners are the basis of GWP's multi-stakeholder partnership. A strong, diverse partnership can bring about the changes needed to achieve a water secure world. In this section, learn about the benefits of being a Partner and meet a few who already are. We invite like-minded organisations to join us!

GWP Regions

This is where you can find links to the websites of our Regional Water Partnerships (RWPs). RWPs are closest to the countries where we work. They share knowledge and learning across national boundaries and are expected to have an open, inclusive, and gender-sensitive policies for bringing together as wide a group of stakeholders as possible to solve water problems.

Legal Framework (A2)

Legal frameworks play an important role in the management of water resources at a range of scales – from local and national legislation covering domestic use, to international treaties that govern waters shared by sovereign nations.

Water law (national and international) serves three key functions:

It defines and identifies the legal rights and obligations of public and private water users tied to water use (broadly defined) and provides the prescriptive parameters for resource development and management to promote the public interest;
It provides tools for ensuring the continuous integrity of the regime – that is, through governance structures, mechanisms for monitoring, evaluating and facilitating compliance, and dispute prevention, and settlement; and
It allows for modifications of the existing regime, in order to be able to adapt to changing needs and circumstances.

This topic can be examined more fully under the following four headings:

Key Elements of a Legal Framework (A2.01);
Implementation and Enforcement Mechanisms (A2.02);
The Role of Customary Law in IWRM (A2.03);
Integration of Legal Frameworks with other Natural Resources Areas (A2.04);

When approaching the Tools within this section, it is important to simultaneously consider Regulation and Compliance (B1) and Coordination and Facilitation (B3) that will correspond to the legal framework within the water governance system that will be developed. Additionally, given the broad range of sectors that deal with water resources management, it is important to have a cross-sectoral overview of all laws that apply in order to avoid conflicting rules. This is sometimes a difficult exercise. The following are few key considerations and reminders on approaching legal frameworks:

Legal frameworks (national and international) are an important and integral part of effective integrated water resources management (IWRM).
Legal frameworks, ideally, should deal with the entire water body all a country’s or basin’s water resources, whether it is surface or ground water. Thus, legal regimes should be devised at a range of scales – from international (where the water body is shared by more than one State), regional (where regional legal regimes apply, such as, for example, within the European Union); and national (i.e. within nation States, where domestic legislation applies).
Legal frameworks should be transparent, flexible and capable of evolving to meet changing circumstances. Water laws should recognise the access to water as a human right (UN General Assembly GA/10967, 28 July 2010) and water to be a finite and vulnerable resource, an economic good, and a natural resource having cultural, social, and environmental values.
Law making is a political and socio-economic activity and should be concerned with both efficiency and equity. Legal frameworks thus need to take into account customary law and find ways to reconcile customary practices and statutory rights and obligations if they want to be effective and equitable.
Implementation and enforcement mechanisms should be selected to accommodate differences in national circumstance, recognising the complexity of water management, and be aimed at facilitating compliance. Dispute avoidance and settlement mechanisms are part of the implementation/enforcement spectrum.

Page last edited: 2/22/2017