PUBLICATIONS: "Riparian Community with a Shared Future: Improving Legal Mechanism for Transboundary Water Governance and Conflicts Resolution in the Lancang-Mekong Basin".

Publication Date: 4 June 2023

Author: Haosheng Duan, Yunkang Liu, Zihang Feng , Yumin Hu, and Taixing Li

For further details on the article, visit the journal at

https://gmsarnjournal.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/vol18no3-14.pdf

Abstract

Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) was officially launched at the First LancangMekong Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting held in Hainan Province, China. Water resources cooperation is one of the five priority areas of the LMC framework. It is a critical issue that all riparian countries are commonly encountering. Theoretically, international river governance and cooperation are primarily based on the riparian-states community theory. In practice, it is generally grounded in international conventions, agreements, charters, or customary law. However, the lack of a comprehensive legal mechanism for water resources governance has led to conflicts over water resource allocation and utilization in the transboundary river basin. For the LMC, this is an urgent difficulty to be solved. With the regional powers increasing their involvement in regional development, water issues have gone beyond science to become increasingly politicized. Therefore, this article is mainly based on qualitative analysis methodology to identify the space of improvement of Lancang-Mekong’s water resources cooperation from the legal dimension, proposing legislative recommendations for improving the existing mechanisms and enhancing sustainable development in the region.