The legal regime of the Mekong River: a look back and some proposals for the way ahead

Abstract

In 1957, the four lower Mekong River states jointly organized the development of the basin and established a legal regime that has spanned five decades of cooperatioti. In 1995, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Vietnam concluded the Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin and fomied the Mekong River Commission, which has been lauded as the most progressive of river institutions and a model lor the world. At the core of the 1995 Mekong Agreetnent is the concept of sustainable developtnent. Guided by this sustainable development paradigm, the Lower Mekong River Basin states attempt to balance the maintenance of water quantity with protection of water quality, and agree to cooperate and use the Mekong's water resources in a manner in which the river system's environmental conditions and ecological balance ate conserved and maintained. However, development of the Mekong and its tributaries has rendered the efficacy of the Mekong legal regime to suppôt t holistic water resources management questionable. More than ten years of experience has shown that there are aspects of the 1995 Mekong Agreement that should be strengthened in order to secure the environmental, economic and social benefits that it promises.

Water-Energy-Food Nexus within the Framework of International Water Law

“…While there are six riparian countries, Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, only four of them have signed the 1995 Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin (1995 Mekong Agreement) [19]. This means that China and Myanmar are not among the members of the Mekong River Commission [20][21][22].…”

“…These include the construction of hydropower dams and irrigations projects, which on the one hand are important for the countries' economic development, but on the other hand may have remarkable negative impacts on ecosystems and thus on the livelihoods of people [20][21][22]. For instance, the hydropower dams in China have been suspected to cause a series of detrimental environmental impacts such as changes to the river's natural flood-drought cycle and to the transport of sediment on the Lower Basin of the Mekong.…”

“…Thus, the perspective of the Mekong Agreement for the cooperation is rather wide and includes also water related resources such as energy and food. The development of the cooperation is at the heart of the Mekong Agreement since it is actually an agreement to agree on the further development of the regime [21].…”

“…20,27,34). While the structure of the Commission and the reliance of its decision-making on the governments have been reasonably criticised [21,24], the Commission nevertheless enables the Parties of the Mekong Agreement to develop their cooperation step-by-step to cover also intersectoral water-energy-food issues. The agreement does not specifically mention intersectoral cooperation but does not place any obstacles for that either.…”

“…In addition, the Agreement does not include for regulating development on tributaries even though the tributaries provide almost a half of the flow to the Mekong River. China, especially, has a prominent role and massive plans for the development of the part of the Mekong River situated on its territory [20,21,31]. The construction projects of hydropower dams in China, for instance, have not included proper transboundary consultation and environmental impact assessment procedures [23].…”