International Water Security Studies

International water resources are an important component of the global freshwater resources. International water resources, for their occupying a greater proportion in the total global freshwater, safeguard themselves great significance. With the aggravation of global water crisis, the future is very certainly to witness countries fiercely contending for international water resources, and as a result, the conflict of international water resources will become an increasingly important issue having a holding on the world security. On the Seventh Assemble of World Water Resources hold in 1991, the Association of International Water Resources pointed out:"In the arid and semi-arid regions, contesting for the right to use the international rivers or other kinds of water resources is likely to usher in wars between two countries. In addition to the severe, persistent global water crisis, the progressively worsening, complicating situation of international water resources have resulted in the prominent issue of the security of international water resources, which in turn will have a increasing affect both on the world security and humans'development. As a result, it becomes of extreme urgency and significance to carry out a analysis as well as study of world water resources, to summarize both the inner contradictions and the inherent laws, to analyze the future developing trend of world water resources, and finally to present a feasible solution on such an issue. For China's increasingly austere situation in water supply and demand, and also for China's abundant international water resources, it is very likely become a trend for china to explore and utilize international water resources. Therefore, to discuss the ways for China to guarantee its own security of water resources will rank an important part of this dissertation. In addition to the countermeasures finally put forward for China to maintain its own security of international water resources, the dissertation will elucidate the following four aspects: the definition of the security of international water resources, the main threats facing the security of international water resources, the ways to realize the security of international water resources and the laws to protect the security of international water resources. Except the introduction and postscript, the dissertation consists of five chapters, each of which will give a respective discussion of the five issues mentioned above. Chapters one will give a comprehensive definition on the concept, the security of international water resources. Because there doesn't exist up to now a universally-accepted definition in the academic circle on the security of international water resources, it is of great significance to make a clear-cut definition on such a concept before any further study is to be conducted, which also explains why the definition on such a concept should become an independent chapter. Firstly, after two terms, that is, resources security and water resources security, have been respectively explained in their etymology perspective, the concept of the security of international water resources, as a part of a country's non-tradition security, will be clearly expounded with an eye to clarify its connotation. After an overall introduction of the distributing situation of the security of international water resources, the dissertation will discuss the unbalanced distribution of the international water resources at the inter-regional and inter-state levels, which in turn form an important background to study the security of international water resources.The second chapter will fully discuss the conflict of international water resources, which poses a main threat to the security of international water resources. Firstly, after explaining both the concept and the cause of the conflict of international water resources, the dissertation holds that the clashes brought about by the unbalanced distribution of international water resources are the main reasons for the conflict of international water resources to emerge. Secondly, according to the reasons causing the appearance of the conflict of international water resources, such conflict will be classified into five different types. Then, in order to display the panorama of the international water resources conflict, the present distributing situation will be surveyed of international water resources in each continents of the world. At the end of this chapter, some solutions will be put forward to deal with the real pressure in solving the conflict issues of world water resources. The dissertation holds that the main real pressure in solving the conflict issues of world water resources mainly results from the imbalanced water supply and demand within a country as a whole, regional politics and the complicated situation of international security , which results that the ways to solve such an issue should be in accordance with the thought above mentioned. The third chapter will analyze the cooperation of international water resources, a way to realize the security of international water resources. At the beginning, reasons are explained for the international cooperation taken as a feasible way to realize the security of international water resources, whose theoretical basis comes from the new security, the security of cooperation. And then, the main contents of the present cooperation in international water resources will be clarified and discussed. At the end of this chapter, the following problems will be put forward existing in the cooperation of international water resources, namely, the existence of unilateral exploitation of international water resources, the disturbance of international politics, and the institutional defects now existing the organization of international water resources cooperation, and with retard to such problems, some concrete solving thoughts will be given out.Chapter four not only elucidates but also demonstrates the international water law, a legal safeguard for the security of international water resources. Firstly, the evolutional history and origin of internal water law will be examined, which may be helpful to understand the reasons for the appearance of the contents of international water law. The basic principles of international water law, the key part of chapter four, will be emphatically discussed. Modern international water law, after many years of development and practice, has formed four widely-accepted principles, namely, the principle of national sovereignty, the principle of fair and reasonable usage, the principle of harmless usage and finally the principle of international cooperation. Such principles are of guiding significance in settling the conflict of international water resources, promoting and regulating the cooperation of international water resources. In addition, this chapter will discuss the developing trend of international water law. At last, with regarding to the problems existing in the theory and practice of international water laws, some feasible solutions will be presented accordingly. The fifth chapter will analyze the current security issue of China's water resources.This chapter, divided further into three parts, will rank a very important part of the whole dissertation. The first part and the second part will describe the overall situation of the security of China's water resources, which includes a thorough introduction and analysis of the following four aspects, the entire supply and demand situation of China's water resources, the distributing states of China's inner water resources, the cooperation as well as clash of China's international water resources. The third part will not only discuss a selected example in the security of China's international water resources, but also put forth accordingly some tactics and principles extracted from such a case. The example chosen here is the Basin of Lancang River- Mekong River. Such a basin, for its abundant water resources and involvement in many countries, can be set as a good representative to be discussed. Analysis and solution on such a case can also be served as a good guidance to realize the overall security of China's international water resources.