ABSTRACT
The UN asked the International Law Commission in 1970 to codify the rules for the non-navigational uses of transboundary watercourses. Using a lens of water governance and institutions is worthwhile in enlightening the reasons for conflicts over freshwater and their intensities as well as poor freshwater governance. Water governance scholars call for covering all kinds of water i.e., surface, underground and reclaimed or recycled sources, all uses of water and all users of water. Water governance and institutions scholarship tend to focus on what needs to happen as well as what is already happening. Water governance scholars claim that institutions are formal and informal cooperative processes on water that aim at genuine cooperation, reducing transaction costs and leading to positive-sum interactions. The relationship between political decision-making and environmental stress have been well acknowledged in various academic articles examining the different scales at which water is managed during the 1950s.
