ABSTRACT
The significant role that international funding and expert knowledge have played in shaping development and governance in the Mekong River Basin has been much discussed (Bakker, 1999; Hirsch et al., 2006; Molle et al., 2009; Sneddon and Fox, 2011; Sneddon, 2012; Öjendal et al., 2011). Less well explored is the role of law and legal actors in creating and circulating norms that shape how development and governance are understood, practised and contested. In particular, the impacts of transnational laws and institutions and their normative effects on states, domestic and international organizations, regional bodies, and diverse public and private actors have not featured in stories about changing conceptions of the river basin (cf. Bakker, 1999; Sneddon and Fox, 2012). As noted in Chapter 2, this lack of attention to transnational legal influences has sometimes led to the perception that development in the Mekong River Basin is lightly or inadequately regulated by international law and more heavily dependent on ‘informal negotiation’ and ‘ad hoc’ interventions (Interview 2, 2011).
