ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the scope of the United Nations (UN) Watercourses Convention and its relevance to transboundary groundwater resources. The Watercourses Convention is a general framework Convention designed to provide guidance in the use, management, and preservation of transboundary watercourses. The chapter intends to influence nations in the development of more specific bilateral and regional agreements relating to particular watercourses. The UN International Law Commission (UNILC) began its effort leading to the Watercourses Convention in 1970 and did not conclude it until the mid-1990s. During the twenty-five years that the UNILC took to develop the Watercourses Convention, one of the more significant sticking points involved the scope of the treaty. Fossil and connate aquifers are excluded from the scope of the Watercourses Convention because they fall into the UNILC's misnomer of "confined" aquifers. The inclusion of the "system" criterion in the definition of "watercourse" was designed to indicate a unitary or comprehensive administrative approach for interconnected water resources.
