The Ixtapa Draft Agreement Relating to the Use of Transboundary Groundwaters

The law and institutions for the management and equitable distribution of groundwaters have been slow to develop. At the international level, "references to groundwaters are scant and too limited in scope to propose them in terms of customary law." Society has responded slowly to the need to manage and equitably distribute groundwater. In the case of transboundary groundwaters, no party sharing the aquifer can have the assurance of a fair share of the waters of the aquifer or that the waters will be of a useable quality. The allocation and regulation of the use of transboundary groundwaters should be by the mutual agreement of the parties. Conversely, no one party may unilaterally determine its share of the uses of the groundwaters of a transboundary aquifer. Separate agencies for groundwater only would complicate resource management where the agencies exist, in view of the need for conjunctive management of surface and groundwaters.