WSP08751

• File Number: 8271.300
• Description: Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Program - General Information and Publications-Reports
• Basin: Colorado Mainstem
• Water Division: 5
• Date: 1/1/1959
• Title: The Role of Adjudication in International River Disputes - The Lake Lanoux Case
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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THE ROLE OF ADJUDICATION IN INTERNATIONAL
RIVER DISPUTES

THE LAKE LANOUX CASE
By JOHN G. LAYLIN
Of the New York and District of Columbia Bars

AND

RINALDO L. BrANCH!
Of the Michigan and District of Oolumbia Bars

There are some who say that adjudication has no role to play in the
settlement of disputes over the uses of waters of international rivers. One
author writes:

Should independent natioIIB ever be so poorly advised as to submit
one of their rivers to litigation in a world court, they will have
started down the tortuous road, from which there may be. no
return.

"Once a State is certain about its rights, or part of them," he reasons,
". . . these rights will stand in the way of easy agreement." 1 Another
author states:

. . . there is absolute unanimity amongst various writers who have
made a special study of the problem in reaching the conclusion that
water disputes present a classic example of disputes which' cannot
be solved in any objective manner by juridical decisions.2

Neither author mentions the unanimously adopted resolutions of various
Bar Associations recommending that co-riparian states resort to adjudica-

1 Scott, "Kansas v. Colorado Revisted," 52 A.J.I.L. 432, 454 (1958). References in
the text to adjudication or arbitration will include every kind of impartial thirdMpaity
determination.
2" The Problem of the Indus and its Tributaries.......;..An Alternative View," 14 The
World Today 266,275 (1958). A large number of states have entered i_uto agreements to
arbitrate or adjudicate river disputes that defy solution by agreement. The authors
of these treaties do not share the view quoted in the text.
In fairness to the authors of the articles eited in this note and in note 1, above" it
must be acknowledged that their artieles may have been written before they had an
opportunity to evaluate the results of the Geneva Conference on the Law of the sea
(convened on Feb. 24, 1958,.and adjonrned on April 28, 1958), Wbile tbis Oonference
did not deal with the law governing international rivers, the notable' support given by
it to the settlement by adjudication of disputes concerning the uses of other waters of
coinmon interest might have fundamentally affected the views of these authors. S~e
Optional Protocol of Signature Concerning the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes, 52
A.J.I.L. 862 (1958), and provisions for adjudication of disputes in the Convention on
Fishing and Conservation of the Living Resources of the High Seas, ibid. at 851, 854.

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