Regional cooperation and benefit sharing for sustainable water resources management in the Lower Mekong Basin (original) (raw)
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Mekong River Committee’s Role in Mekong Water Governance
Mekong River Committee (MRC) was formed in 1995 following the signing of the Agreement on the Co-operation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin (MRC agreement) by the countries sharing the lower Mekong River basin: Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Viet Nam. The 1995 Mekong Agreement, which established the MRC as an international incarnation body through which international cooperation is to be achieved, structured MRC with three permanent bodies—the Council, the Joint Committee, and the Secretariat. Factors that could affect the decision of MRC include (1) Member states and its National Mekong Committee; (2) Donors and development partners; (3) Civil society groups; (4) Upstream countries. Possible measures to improve the functioning of MRC would be, not limit to, the followers: (1) To clarify the power of MRC; (2) To revise MRC agreement; (3) To engage all countries in the Mekong River Basin, Sustainable development in Mekong region needs to be defined based on developmental stage of the basin states independently. Only allocate the right and obligation under the principle of reciprocity might make the MRC involving all basin states and becoming a real Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRN) organization in the future.
International Mekong River Basin: Events, Conflicts or Cooperation, and Policy Implications
2014
International river basin is defined as an area extending over two or more states determined by the watershed limits of the system of waters, including surface and underground waters, flowing into a common terminus" (Shapiro-Libai, 1969, p. 22). There are 276 international river basins providing almost 60% of global freshwater and supporting at least 40% of the world population. Over recent decades, the riparian governments of the Lancang-Mekong River, like other international river basin leaders, may have had different and sometimes conflicting interests in promoting their economies through exploiting shared water, preserving their aquatic resources, or both, in the basin. Accordingly, their interactions have created water events, which can be neutral, conflictive, or cooperative. In this secondary-data paper, there are seven levels of conflicts and seven levels of cooperation, ranging from-7 to-1 and from +1 to +7, respectively. The main discussions of this paper focus on frequencies in each level, outstanding factors found in either conflicts or cooperation of the events, and policy implications. The 190 events from 1952 to 2010 in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin are found to be overwhelmingly cooperative. The result means that six riparian governments-China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnamwould like to work together. However, these nations will need to do more, especially relating to three outstanding factors found in the conflictive events: dam development, navigation projects, and droughts. In addition, memberships of both China and Burma are strongly needed in the Mekong River Committee (MRC).
Evolution of an International Water Resources Management Regime in the Mekong River Basin, The
Nat. Resources J., 2000
The Mekong Basin water management regime has existed since 1957, with three distinct periods. The Mekong Committee (1957-1975) pursued integrated basin development, which was not achieved due to geopolitical changes after the Vietnam War. During the Interim Mekong Committee era (1978-1992), the Mekong countries pursued independent water resources development, creating conflicts over water allocation. The Mekong River Commission (1995-present) aims to help member states share water in the post-Cold War era. The institutional framework of the Mekong River Commission reflects the historical legacy of the Mekong regime and must be understood in this context. Regional geopolitics, international development assistance, and water management norms are used to explain the evolution of the Mekong regime over four decades.
Sharing a River : A Bilateral Mekong River Basin Management 1
2011
The Mekong River (MR) is shared by six countries: China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Over the years there have been both conict and cooperation on managing the water resources to meet population growth, climate change and the desire for economic development. Currently, the MR Committee (MRC) has weak policy instruments. This paper exploits an axiomatic bargaining approach to examine how China and the MRC might negotiate e¤ective joint management. We investigate what welfare improvements arise from strengthening the MRC and propose an alternative o¤ering for the MRs joint management that is preferable to the status quo from the perspective of all nations. We show that there are little gains from cooperation unless international institutions provide a budget to promote cooperation with China. Alternatively, strengthening the MR Committee has the potential to achieve large welfare improvements.
2011
The Mekong River (MR) is shared by six countries: China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Over the years there have been both conflict and cooperation on managing the water resources to meet population growth, climate change and the desire for economic development. Currently, the MR Committee (MRC) has weak policy instruments. This paper exploits an axiomatic bargaining approach to examine how China and the MRC might negotiate effective joint management. We investigate what welfare improvements arise from strengthening the MRC and propose an alternative offering for the MR's joint management that is preferable to the status quo from the perspective of all nations. We show that there are little gains from cooperation unless international institutions provide a budget to promote cooperation with China. Alternatively, strengthening the MR Committee has the potential to achieve large welfare improvements.
International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2019
The possible negative consequences of changes that are occurring in the Mekong River because of development activities are raising concerns. Scholars have been wondering whether multilateral or bilateral water treaties can be used by the states sharing the river to protect their interests. Moreover, the UN Watercourses Convention's entry into force has made researchers question its potential impact on the management of shared freshwaters. This article will highlight the scenarios in which multilateral or bilateral treaties can be used to manage the Mekong River, taking into account the entry into force of the Watercourses Convention.
Chinese Geographical Science, 2019
The Lancang-Mekong River has attracted much attention from researchers, but the cooperation on water issues in this river basin has been limited, even after the establishment of the Mekong River Commission (MRC). Cooperation on water resources has been determined as one of the key priority areas in the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, but there are no details of targets. In order to establish the priorities of water cooperation under the mechanism, we adopted nine categories to classify the objectives of 87 water cooperation events based on the 'Lancang-Mekong Water Cooperative Events Database' from 1995 to 2015. Based on the occurrence of cooperative events, cooperative objectives, cooperative scales, and approaches to cooperation, we conducted statistical, correlation, and text analyses. Our analyses indicated the following results: under the impact of economic conditions inside and outside the river basin, full cooperation appeared more difficult than bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Each of the partners adopted different preferences for cooperation targets. Cooperation with more definite objectives was easier to establish than cooperation with broader and more complex objectives. The potential objectives for water cooperation were navigation, hydropower, joint management, data sharing, flood control and water use. Because hydropower development is controversial, and because water cooperation is avoided by most existing regional cooperation mechanisms due to its complexity, we suggest the following priority areas for water cooperation in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin. 1) Navigation and flood control/drought relief are attractive objectives for all the riparian countries across the whole watershed. 2) Data sharing should be a priority for cooperation in the watershed due to its laying the foundation for the equitable and reasonable utilization of transboundary waters. 3) Hydropower is an objective best implemented mainly through bilateral cooperation, and on tributaries.