The concept of international watercourse has been used in many international conventions referring to a river and its tributaries and related canals crossing two or more countries. The notable ones include the Mekong River which crosses five states in the East Asia region and the Danube and Rhine rivers which cross 12 states in Europe. This article addresses relevant international principle which will justify the claims and counter-claims on non-navigational use of international watercourses. It justifies the conflicting parties' demands on shared watercourses. Accordingly, this paper adopts the qualitative doctrinal analysis of the principle of reasonable and equitable utilization under the United Nations Convention on the International Watercourses (UNWC) 1997. Relevant provision will be analysed and harnessed in addressing the respective conflict and weighing each argument of the conflicting parties. It is hoped that the utilisation of the available legal recourses will help strengthen the exisitng legal framework in solving conflict over non-navigational use of international watercourses.

The right to water has passed through many steps until it has received a full legal adoption in the international human rights law and international water law. However, there are many parties which feel that the right to water should not stand on its own as it complicates the present legal framework for international human rights. This paper examined, based on qualitative research approach, several impediments in legislating water as a human right within the purview of relevant international human rights conventions, taking into account the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals No. 3: Good Health and Well-being and Goal No. 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. The study indicates that human rights notions have been gaining influential rule in international water law, notably human right to water, which has been recognized by the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council (HRC). This study however concludes that despite efforts to deny the legal basis of the right to water as one of the soft law, this right remains as a basic human right and should be respected by all countries.