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<br />n;\" './'" <br />uiJl"t'l'~ <br />. <br />076-1820 <br />I <br />{: <br /> <br />8(J'-(l.! <br /> <br />DEPi,RTMENT OF STATE <br /> <br />INTERNATION~L BOUlIDARY COhn~ISSION <br /> <br />UNITED STATES AND MEXICO <br /> <br />UNITED STATES SECTION <br /> <br />El Paso, Texas <br />May 21, 1942 <br /> <br />MEMORANDUM ON PRECEDENTS AS TO EQUITABLE <br />DISTRIBUTION OF INTERNATIONAL WATERS. <br /> <br />This memorandum has been, prepared for the use of the Committee of Seven <br />of the Colorado River Basin Committee of Fourteen. Copies of, and extraots <br />from, some one hundred water boundary agreements are oontained in the files <br />of the United States Seotion, International Boundary Commission, United States <br />and Mexioo. More than three fourths of that number have referenoe in some <br />degree to aotual use of international waters. What was oonsidered the eleven <br />most important and relevant agreements (some inVOlvinG several related treaties <br />or diplomatio exohanges) were seleoted for analysis in this memorandum. The <br />analysis for the most part was taken from a memonmdum prepared in 1936 by <br />G. F. Reinhardt, at that time Junior Statistioian with the United States Seo_ <br />tion, who had made an exhaustive study of the treaties and related papers. <br />Excerpts from treaties were taken from a oompilation prepared by the Legal <br />Section of the Commission in 1941. A list of additional treaties bearing on <br />the subject in some degree, is attached. Because of their number and length, <br />no individual analysis of the listed treaties ,is here attempted, but the data, <br />of course, are 'available to the Committee, as are the sources from which the <br />present memorandum was prepared, <br /> <br />1. The Nile Agreement - Great Britain and Egypt <br />May 4, 1929 <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />This agreement sets up certain principles to govern the use of the waters <br />of the Nile by Egypt and the Sudan. The problem is one of a suocessive river. <br />Egypt, the lower riparian, has for oenturies utilized the waters of the Nile, <br />while the development of the Sudan is of reoent origin. The Sudan was re- <br />oonquered by Great Britain and Egypt jointly in the oampaigns of 1896-8, and <br />is today ruled by a oon-dominium. The question of the use of the waters of <br />the Nile is of the utmost importanoe to the two oountries oonoerned, without <br />whioh they are nothing but deserts. <br /> <br />The agreement provides that the use of Nile water by the Sudan may enjoy <br />suoh an inorease "as does not infringe Egypt's natural and historioal ri ghts <br />in the waters of the Nile and its requirements of agrioultural extension." The <br />agreement makes further provision for oooperative measures with regard to the <br />aooumulation of hydrometrio data and limits the Sudan's freedom of aotion with <br />regard to the oonstruotion of works whioh might affeot the flow of the river, <br /> <br />. <br />