Analyses Of SADC Protocols On Shared Watercourse Systems

The management of water resource is receiving more and more attention in worldwide, because most of the world regions are facing the growing challenges mainly about the water quality and quantity problems. These challenges result from a lot of different factors, the main factors among which are population, urbanization and environmental degradation. These problems are even more serious in The Southern African Development Community (namely, SADC) than in other parts of the world. Because this area is an arid and semi-arid area, many places within the region are facing the situation of water shortage; high population growth rate and urbanization are making this situation worse. The use of water resource in this area is mainly depended on the transit rivers, and the transit rivers are mostly shared by two or more countries. In such a situation, the potential contradictions about water sharing affairs are existing and expanding. In the process of SADC regional integration, legal unification is also underway and it plays a key role in the development of regional integration. In recent years the formulation of SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses and Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses is significant for solving the above problems and the development of close cooperation on sustainable, coordinated, equitable use of SADC shared watercourses. This article is mainly about the content of SADC Protocols on Shared Watercourses and the improvement of it. After the formulation of SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourses in 1995, UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses is formed in 1997, and 1995 protocol is revised according to the above Convention. The main revisions are objective and principle terms, planned measures and environmental terms, watercourse management institutions and so on. Although the revised protocol integrates with the new developments of international water resource laws, the defects of SADC tribunal and neglect of public participation principle in the protocol make it deficient, the protocol needs improving, the author gives some opinions on it. In addition the author also tells the enlightenment of the SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Watercourses to the relevant affairs of China.