Dundee provides water law expertise to United  Nations

Dr Wouters, director of the International Water Law Research Institute,

Faculty of Law & Accountancy, has just returned from an experts meeting
 at UNESCO
(Paris), where a small interdisciplinary group of international
experts on
shared aquifers was convened to provide advice to the United  Nations.
The
results of this meeting, requested by Ambassador Yamada  (Japan),
Special
Rapporteur to the United Nations International Law Commission  (the UN
body with the
mandate to codify rules of international law in line  with the UN
Charter),
will be used in the drafting of new global instrument  (treaty) on the
rules of
international law that govern Shared Natural Resources.  The
Ambassador,
supported by the members of the UN, agreed to focus first  on the rules
that govern
the world's shared aquifers -- 97% of the world's  freshwater comes
from
groundwater.  The UNESCO experts meeting was  conducted in Paris 18-20
October, to
provide support for the Special  Rapporteur's 3rd report, which will
propose a
complete set of draft articles on  the topic. This report will be
discussed
by the UN ILC in Geneva in May 2005.

During the Paris meeting, Dr Wouters met with the UK Ambassador to
UNESCO,
Mr. Tim Craddock, and moved forward discussions on the Dundee UNESCO
IHP-HELP
Centre of Excellence on Water Law, Policy and Science. This iniative
has
received initial endorsement by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Council,
when it
adopted a Resolution at this year's session (20-22 September). Dr
Wouters made a
presentation about the Dundee Interdisciplinary Research Centre on
Water, and
 Dundee's strategic focus on this area to the General Meeting (300
delegates)
and  put forward the draft Resolution, which was supported by the UK
IHP
delegation,  including the Ambassador. 15 States made interventions of
support and
the  Resolution was put forward by 6 States, and endorsed by the
InterGovernmental  Council. The entire process will take some 18 months
and it is expected
will  conclude successfully with Dundee the first international UNESCO
Centre
on Water  Law, Policy and Science.

Dr Alistair RieuClarke and Andrew Allan, from the IWLRI, are just back
from
Geneva, where they presented their preliminary legal experts report on
the
rules  relating to flooding and droughts. The IWLRI was requested by
the UN WMO
to  provide expertise in the field of water law on this very important
topic --
 every week a new locality suffers the adverse impact of flooding or
droughts.  The UN has convened an interdisciplinary experts group to
address the
related  issues and Dundee IWLRI has been contracted to provide the
water law
expertise  at both the international and national levels.

Dr Wouters will represent IWLRI and the Universities Partnership on
Transboundary Waters at an international meetings to be held in
November in  Delft
(the Netherlands) jointly convened by UNESCO and the World Water
Council  to move
forward with the "Water for Peace" UN initiative launched at the Kyoto
World
Water Forum. These talks will take forward the practical mandate and
location of the HeadQuarters of the Water Facility. Dundee IWLRI was a
founding
member of this initiative through its activities with the Universities

Partnership for Transboundary Waters.

As part of the Water for Peace initiative by IWLRI, Dr Wouters was
invited
as keynote speaker at the 2nd "Israeli/Palestinian Water for Life
Conference",
convened in Antayla, Turkey (10-14 October). More than 200 delegates
from
Palestine and Israel attended at a meeting hosted by the Minstry of
Water
Resources from Turkey. In her talk Dr Wouters presented the Legal
Assessment  Model
(LAM) developed in Dundee as a tool for regional peace. The LAM
provides  an
operational interdisciplinary methodology for States to determine their

"equitable and reasonable" use of international waters, in a format
that  features
technical expertise and promotes cooperative dialogue and cooperation.
Dr
Wouters keynote was well received, with requests for a regional
application  of
the LAM. This meeting was the largest gathering of Israelis and
Palestinians
in the region, a situation that led to increased security and
heightened
security alerts. However, the meeting conveyed a real sense of
solidarity among
the leading water resource experts in the region and demonstrated how
water can
be a catalyst for peace.

The IWLRI has an international reputation for its expertise in water
law
(international, national and transnational) and has provided expert
reports to
many UN bodies, including, inter alia,  the World Bank, UNEP, UNECE
(see  the
Experts Report on Compliance in International Water Law on UNECE
website,
report prepared by Dundee IWLRI and adopted by the Conference of the
Parties to
the Helsinki Transboundary Waters Convention).