Global workshop on transboundary agreements

The main objective of the workshop is to support countries and basin organizations in advancing step-by-step their cooperation on transboundary rivers, lakes and aquifers, especially with regard to the development and evolution of agreements or other arrangements. The workshop will therefore also support countries’ efforts to meet target SDG 6.5. It will review the different steps of the process of developing, adopting and revising legal arrangements and, to this end, it will be structured around the following topics:

• Developing and negotiating legal frameworks, including the prerequisites and techniques to initiate and conduct the negotiation of an agreement; the different designs of agreements; the minimum legal and technical aspects that an agreement might cover to make it functional; tools and methods that can be put in place to ensure that agreements take into account changing needs and circumstances;practices and tools of the dispute settlement and compliance monitoring that might be incorporated to prevent and resolve disputes.

• Evolution of existing legal frameworks, including practices, tools and methods foramending existing agreements to facilitate their implementation; practice to ensure consistency with customary international law, the global water conventions or regional directives; the role of River Basin Organisations and other third parties in the evolution of existing agreements.

Expected participation to the workshop from different regions of the world will allow to exchange experience from basins where cooperation is at different levels of advancement, identifying common challenges, strategies to address them and lessons learned.

The workshop will consist of plenary sessions, interactive discussions and negotiation simulations.Working languages will be English, French, Russian and Spanish.

The concept note of the workshop and a detailed programme and relevant documentation will be made available on the meeting webpage in due course.