Trans-Regionl Water Drainage: Licensing Rights & Legal Assessments

Presently, the licensing of water rights in many drainage areas of this nation' s cross-regional water conduits is still operated under some loosely defined rules. The lack of well established legal codes in governing these transactions prompt the author to stress the prospect and necessity in enacting such a law or laws to guide the licensing of water rights, specifically when licensing across administrative borders. Modeled around the assumption that water usage rights constitute the foremost of the transactions in licensing or trading of the trans-regional water drainage rights, this paper thoroughly analyzes the domestic practices of water rights licensing as well as those of the abroad to support the main argument. A study of the background which lead to the birth and development of China' s gargantuan cross-regional water channeling systems is also included here to further strengthen the claim. In addition, this paper further explores the issues (or potential disputes) engaging the rights of inter- and intra- provincial and/or municipal localities along the path of a water conduit project: the entitlement and allocation of the rights of water drainage, the rights of water licensing, the rights of water re-distribution, as well as the rights entitled to a region of beneficiary and its associated responsibilities. The author' s assessment regarding the conditions, rules and procedures needed to govern the action of cross-border licensing of water drainage rights is given at the end of this paper.