Latin America; in English (pdf) - Transboundary Freshwater Dispute ...

Uruguay River seen from Argentina coast. Photo credit: Rolando León.
threats to cut off the water on Bolivia’s part and
both countries have discussed going to the
International Court of Arbitration. With the
Chilean-Bolivian relations already tense, this
topic has the possibility of exacerbating it further.
To a lesser extent are the basins of Orinoco
and Essequibo in northern South America. These
are the second and fourth largest rivers on the
continent with regards to discharge and amongst
the largest in the world. But, with increasing
pollution and their lack of treaties and basin
organizations, these have the potential to become
problematic in the future without proper
mechanisms to deal with conflict. The Essequibo,
in particular, in that there are border problems
between Guyana and Venezuela. One of the
principal issues about these basins is the lack of
information that is available. More research
needs to be done in order to fully analyze these
basins’ dynamics.
The Amazon, La Plata, and Titicaca Basins
all have treaties and institutions in place to
confront disputes when they arise, and for this
reason they are given a risk factor of medium
low. Each basin has specific issues that have the
potential to arise, but given the history of the
management of these rivers, there is enough of
an institutional framework in place to mitigate
these factors. But, considering these factors do
exist, and the little experience the RBOs have,
these basins still cannot be classified as low risk.
The majority of the other basins either are
not in geographic locations whereas to cause
major disputes between nations, there are not
other reasons to believe their risk factor is high,
or there is not enough information available to
determine their situation. But, with a severe lack
of RBOs on the continent, just over one-fifth of
basins being managed by international organizations,
it can be said that there is a need for more
institutional management of the continent’s
shared freshwaters.
What is encouraging is the fact that even
though the initiatives that do exist have been in
effect only a few years, they have already shown
how quickly they can adapt to the current state of
the international river basins. This leads to hope
that, given time, the efforts being made will result
in the addition of more international river basin
organizations which will aid in the sustainable
use of South America’s international water
resources to the point where people, fauna, flora,
and the rivers themselves will benefit from the
management practices of humans.
Chapter 3. Hydropolitical Vulnerability, South America — 77