UNWC Global Initiative Symposium, ‘The 1997 UN Watercourses Convention – What Relevance in the 21st Century’, Dundee, Scotland, 5-8 June, 2012 CALL FOR PAPERS

A number of institutions have come together under the umbrella of the UNWC Global Initiative in recent years, to examine the reasons why the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention (UNWC) has not come into force yet. The UNWC Global Initiative has sought to further knowledge and understanding of the relevance of the UNWC in addressing the contemporary pressures on the world’s freshwater resources.  As part of  the activities of the UNWC Global Initiative, the IHP-HELP Centre for Water Law, Policy & Science (under the auspices of UNESCO), jointly with the WWF, will organize a symposium on the UNWC at Dundee, Scotland, on 5-8 June, 2012. The aim of  the symposium is to gather together experts from academia, government, international organizations, civil society, etc., to debate the existing and potential relevance of this global framework instrument.

Towards this endeavour the convenors of the symposium are inviting papers on a range of topics related to the UNWC. The organizers would be particularly keen to receive abstracts that explore,

·      the value of a global framework/ regime for the governance of international watercourses,

·      the lessons that could be learnt from the experiences of entry into force and implementation of other global or regional treaty regimes (e.g. Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Wetlands), and

·      the mechanisms that should be in place to ensure that watercourse conventions are implemented and complied with at the national level.

Paper abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to Dr Alistair Rieu-Clarke (a.rieuclarke@dundee.ac.uk) or Ms Flavia Loures (Flavia.Loures@WWFUS.ORG) by 29 February, 2012. Abstracts will then be reviewed by a scientific steering committee and participants will be notified no later than Friday 30 March, 2012, whether their abstract has been accepted. A set of selected papers will be published in a special issue of a journal after the symposium.

For more information: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/water/unwc/.

The UNWC Global Initiative Symposium will precede the Annual International Law and Transboundary Freshwaters Workshop, which will run from 11^th – 14^th June 2012 – see http://www.dundee.ac.uk/water/workshop/.