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CHAPTER 8

Water as an Asset for Peace:

Conclusions and Recommendations

Promoting water cooperation in its various forms has become UN system and endorsed by UN Member States. We hope that the
an urgent task. Water should be used as an instrument of UN General Assembly will consider this proposal at an early date.
peace; violent conflicts related to water should be prevented.
This is a moral imperative and a recognized political need of Moreover, we believe that a coherent vision and policy approach
our era. to water needs to be established at the global level. We therefore
recommend to the UN General Assembly to convene a Global
As demonstrated in the previous chapters, international water Conference on International Water Cooperation with the aim of
cooperation takes numerous forms and there are many ideas of formulating a strategic framework for global water cooperation
how to develop this cooperation further. Existing International and a program of action defining specific priorities for the five-
Water Law – its structure, basic principles and norms, and year period following the Global Conference.
implementation mechanisms – already provides a good legal
basis for expanded international water cooperation. Mechanisms This report summarizes our analysis and offers a number of
for monitoring the situation of water quality and quantity are recommendations for the future. the two key objectives of our
evolving. Progress, albeit modest, exists with regard to inter- recommendations are: preventing water-related conflicts and
sectoral cooperation and management of water resources. In leveraging water as an instrument of peace.
addition to the existing financial mechanisms that are available
to projects of international water cooperation, new mechanisms four groups of instruments are necessary at the international
are being proposed. The same tendency is observed in the area level to achieve these two objectives.
of water diplomacy. The UN Security Council is starting to take a
broader view of the problems of water as an object of attack and first, the legal foundations: The two UN Conventions of
as a weapon in armed conflicts. 1992 and 1997, respectively, provide the necessary legal
basis for expanded international cooperation. Their global
The Panel has observed all of these developments. At the same acceptance through accession by States should be encouraged.
time, it is becoming increasingly clear that it is necessary to Transboundary water cooperation agreements should be
bring the highest possible level of coherence to international concluded among countries sharing rivers, lakes and aquifers.
efforts to address water problems, as well as to make water an Regional conventions and agreements for collaborative
instrument of peace. In the first chapter, we emphasized that the management of water resources should be encouraged,
drama of water calls for a fundamental rethinking of the global especially among countries that have decided not to accede to
water framework and that the UN should serve as a vehicle for the global conventions. Additional “soft law instruments” need
this policy and institutional change. We also stressed that the to be developed where necessary, including in the area of inter-
UN General Assembly has the most important responsibilities sectoral water management. The instruments of International
in this context, while the UN Security Council is expected to Humanitarian Law and their provisions on protecting water in
develop a policy framework for protecting water resources and situations of armed conflict must be respected and politically
installations in armed conflicts and in other situations on the supported by the UN Security Council.
agenda of the Council.
Second, institutions: Existing transboundary water agreements
It is important to proceed from a sound and realistic assessment have proven to be important as the institutional framework for
of the current state of the general international institutional leveraging water as an instrument of peace. They have to be
setting. This has been studied in the past by various UN bodies and supported, strengthened and updated as necessary. In addition,
experts, and there is consensus that the institutional landscape new institutions are needed to develop further cooperation
in the area of water remains painfully fragmented. This situation around the world’s 286 shared river basins, as well as around
is clearly inadequate and has to be transformed. Proposals for the internationally shared lakes and aquifers. More regional
change have already been made by the Budapest Water Summit institutions need to be built. International water cooperation
in 2013 and by the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on should be supported by a variety of other existing institutions.
Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) in 2015. To overcome the current There is a broadly recognized need to strengthen the capacity of
institutional landscape, UNSGAB recommended the creation of international actors to act effectively in leveraging water for peace.
a UN Intergovernmental Committee on Water and Sanitation. This is not primarily about creating new organizations, but about
This committee would involve the strengthened UN-Water as establishing an institutional setting that connects pivotal actors
its secretariat and create a comprehensive global water and and complements existing frameworks, initiatives and expertise
sanitation monitoring framework. We agree that the evolution for an effective leveraging of water for peace and preventing
of global water cooperation should include the creation of an water-related armed conflicts. In this spirit, we propose the
intergovernmental structure on water and sanitation, part of the creation of a Global Observatory for Water and Peace.

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