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34 [Vol. 53 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW N (.0 ...""" ~ mission to the specific issues blocking an aceord, were able to work out the technical details involved and to arrive at the desired agreement." Pro- cedures other than direct negotiation, including adjudication, can thus playa constructive role in removing the obstacles to agreement." This role appears to have been overlooked by the authors who have opposed reference of river disputes to impartial third-party determina- tion. Focusing as they do on the positive advantages of agreement, they are carried beyond the tenable position that this is the most satisfactory means, to an argument that negotiation is the only desirable means." They ignore the constructive part which third-party resolution of stubborn issues can play in promoting agreement. In looking only at the positive results flowing from accomplished compacts or treaties, they overlook the negative results of refusal to arbitrate away the stumbling blocks to agreement. The contention that agreement by negotiation is the only means of resolving river disputes has, in an interesting way, been itself a subject of arbitration. That arbitration was possible, of course, only because of agreement to arbitrate. When the advocates of resolution by negotiated agreement refine their position to include acceptance of an obligation to arbitrate issues that resist solution by negotiation, their position will be purged of its negative character. The arbitration referred to is the recent one between France and Spain. It is known as L'affaire du Lae Lanoux."' The issue submitted' was whether a change proposed by France in its part of a river system shared 0(5) For purposes of priority the date of a project is not the date when survey is first commenced; but the date when the projeet reaches finality and there is a fixed and definite purpose to take it up and carry it through. (Wyoming v. Colorado, 259 U. S. 419, 494, 495; Connecticut v, MaeeachueettB, 282 U, S. 660, 667, 673.) "(6) As betw-een projects of different kinds for the use of water, a suitable order of precedence might be (i) use for domestic and sft,nitary purposes; (ii) use for navigation, and (iii) use for power and irrigation. (Journal of the Society of Comparative Legisla. tion, New Series, Volume XVI, No. 35, pages 6, 7.)" As to the question of priorities the Commission continued: "We may observe in passing that the ranking of different uses in a particular order of precedence depends on the circumstances of the river concerned. And even as regards the same river, different authorities may take different views." (Ibid. at 11.) 12 The parties agreed on the distribution of the waters and, in accordance with the report of the Commission, that one party was bound to reimburse the other for works 'to be built by the latter for the benefit of the former. The amount to be paid was not agreed upon' and the question would have been referred to His Majesty in Council for a final decision but for the interposition of Partition and the establishment of India and Pakistan as independent countries. 18 The Indus Commission played a role somewhat between conciliation and adjudica- tion or arbitration. It won agreement to the principles, then applied them in the form of recommendations to the central authority, which had the power to, and in all like- lihood would, implement them in its orders. 14 Scott, note 1 above; "The Problem of the Indus and its Tributaries--,An Alterna- tive View/' note 2 above. 1G Affaire du Lac Lanoux, Sentence du Tribunal- Arbitral, Paris, 196-7 (hereinafter cited as 86f1,tenoB). The Award appears also in 29 Hevne Gen. de Droit Int. Pub. 79--119 (1958); and is digested below, p. 156. ',,",<, .1., J.,J '~ -. .