Abstract
Disputes regarding trans-boundary waters are almost always fraught with difficulty, so it is no surprise that disagreements over rights to the Mekong are proving problematic. Not only are the six nation-states comprising the GMS quite different from one another, but one—the PRC—is a great power. The fact that the source of the Mekong is located on the Tibetan Plateau—that is, within the territorial bounds of the PRC obviously complicates matters further regarding water rights. This paper will address issues regarding governance over the Mekong, issues becoming increasingly pressing every year because of climate change, on the one hand, and upstream dam-building/river diversion schemes, on the other. In so doing, the author will examine several approaches to/rationales for river governance—first-recourse governmental regulation, Chinese IR theories, natural law/environmental ethics, etc.—but will make the case for the efficacy of a transactions-cost approach to addressing issues of trans-boundary water rights on the Mekong. This more voluntaristic approach—which emphasizes efficiency and the accurate ascertainment and allocation, and effective enforcement of property rights regarding concerned parties, public and private—is based loosely on the work of Ronald Coase.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The “Helsinki Rules” were formally superseded by the “Berlin Rules” of 2004, which cover a broad range of water issues (domestic waterways, aquifers, etc.), while holding to the same principles regarding usage as the Helsinki Rules (IWLP 2004).
- 3.
For an interesting collection of essays making cases for the efficacy of policies based on the establishment of secure and transferable property rights in water, see Gardner and Simmons (2012).
- 4.
In this regard note that John A.C. Conybeare, employing historical examples, demonstrated long ago that even in international environmental disputes wherein “the specification of property rights is insufficient to ensure socially optimal outcomes,” good remedies have arisen at times via recourse to liability rules and tort remedies rather than via regulation by IO (International Organizations). In so arguing, he drew from the insights of Guido Calabresi and A. Douglas Melamed in their classic extension of Coase’s original formulation of the externality problem. See Conybeare (1980) and Calabresi and Melamed (1972). In his piece, Conybeare argues—as I do here—for more openness to Coasean approaches.
- 5.
For an attempt to measure the negative health outcomes in Indonesia caused by Indonesian forest fires and the ensuing “haze” in one particularly bad year (1997), see Kim et al. (2017).
- 6.
The PRC’s National Bureau of Statistics’ figures in the source above are for GDP by province. Population data for Yunnan, Tibet and other Chinese provinces are for 2015, and the PPP conversions use IMF data.
References
Albert, E. (2016). Water clouds on the Tibetan Plateau. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.
Black, G., Dalton, D. A., Islam, S., & Batteen, A. (2014). The Coasean framework of the New York City watershed agreement. Cato Journal, 34, 1–32.
Boer, B, et al. (2016). The Mekong: A socio-legal approach to river basin development. London: Earthscan/Routledge.
Calabresi, G., & Melamed, A. D. (1972). Property rules, liability rules, and inalienability: One view of the cathedral. Harvard Law Review, 85, 1089–1128.
Callahan, W. A. (2008). Chinese visions of world order: Post-hegemonic or a new hegemony? International Studies Review, 10, 749–761. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2486.2008.00830.x/epdf.
Chellaney, B. (2011). Water: Asia’s new battleground. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Chellaney, B. (2013, February 7). China’s hydro-hegemony. New York Times.
Coase, R. H. (1959). The federal communications commission. Journal of Law and Economics, 2, 1–40.
Coase, R. H. (1960). The problem of social cost. Journal of Law and Economics, 3, 1–44.
Coclanis, P.A., & Doshi, T. (2016, June 14). A fresh solution to the haze. Straits Times [Singapore].
Conybeare, J. A. C. (1980). International organization and the theory of property rights. International Organization, 34, 307–334.
Cronin, R. P. (2013). Hydropower dams on the Mekong: Old dreams, new dangers. Asia Policy, 16 (July), 32–38.
Cronin, R. P., & Weatherby, C. (2015). Letters from the Mekong: Time for a new narrative on Mekong hydropower. Washington, DC: Stimson Center.
Cunningham-Cross, L., & Kristensen, P.M. (2014). Chinese international relations theory (Oxford bibliographies). http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0046.xml;jsessionid=47A25988513C571C0CC9201B254385CD
Dodds, F., & Bartram, J. (2016). The water, food, energy, and climate nexus: Challenges and an agenda for action. Oxford: Earthscan/Routledge.
Economist. (2016, February 11). The Mekong: Requium for a river. http://www.economist.com/news/essays/21689225-can-one-world-s-great-waterways-survive-its-development
Fitzmaurice, J. (1996). Damming the Danube: Gabčikovo and post-communist politics in Europe. Boulder: Westview Press.
Friedman, D. D. (1990). Price theory: An intermediate text (2nd ed.). Cincinnati: South-Western Publishing.
Friedman, D. D. (2014). The machine of freedom: Guide to a radical capitalism (3rd ed.). New York: David D. Friedman.
Furner, M. O. (2010). From ‘state interference’ to the ‘return to the market’: The rhetoric of economic regulation from the old gilded age to the new. In E. J. Balleisen & D. A. Moss (Eds.), Government and markets: Toward a new theory of regulation (pp. 92–192). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gardner, B. D., & Simmons, R. T. (Eds.). (2012). Aquanomics: Water markets and the environment. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Gerlak, A. K. (2004). Strengthening river basin institutions: The global environment facility and the Danube River basin. Water Resources Research, 40, W08S08. https://doi.org/10.1029/2003WR002936.
Harrison, J. L., & Theeuwes, J. (2008). Law and economics. New York: W.W. Norton.
International Monetary Fund. (2017). World economic outlook database. April 2016.
IWLP [International Water Law Project]. (1967). The Helsinki rules on the uses of waters of international rivers. https://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/documents/intldocs/ILA/Helsinki_Rules-original_with_comments.pdf
IWLP [International Water Law Project]. (2004). Berlin conference, water resources law. https://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/documents/intldocs/ILA/ILA_Berlin_Rules- 2004.pdf
Jansky, L., Murakami, M., & Pachova, N. I. (2004). The Danube: Environmental monitoring of an international river. Tokyo/New York/Paris: United Nations University Press.
Khagram, S. (2004). Dams and development: Transnational struggles for water and power. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kim, Y., Knowles, S., Manley, J., & Radoias, V. (2017). Long-run health consequences of air pollution: Evidence from Indonesia’s forest fires of 1997. Economics and Human Biology, 26, 186–198.
Lee, T. B. (2013, September 4). The Coase theorem is widely cited in economics. Washington Post [Wonkblog].
Lee, M. K. (2015, October 2). Haze in Singapore a problem dating back 40 years. Straits Times [Singapore].
McCully, P. (2001). Silenced rivers: The ecology and politics of large dams. London: Zed Books.
Mekong River Commission. (2005). Overview of the hydrology of the Mekong basin. Vientiane: Mekong River Commission.
Molle, F., et al. (Eds.). (2009). Contested waterscapes in the Mekong region: Hydropower, livelihoods and governance. London: Earthscan/Routledge.
Noesselt, N. (2012). Is there a ‘Chinese school’ of IR? (GIGA Working Papers, Leibniz-Institut fűr Global und Regionale Studien No 188). https://www.giga-hamburg.de/en/system/files/publications/wp188_noesselt.pdf
Osborne, M. (2006). The Mekong: Turbulent past, uncertain future (Rev. ed.). Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ostrom, E. (2009). A general framework for analyzing sustainability of social-ecological systems. Science, 325(July 24), 419–422.
People’s Republic of China. (2017). National Bureau of Statistics. http://data.stats.gov.cn/english/easyquery.htm?cn=E0103
Pigou, A. C. (1932). The economics of welfare (4th ed.). London: Macmillan.
Pomeranz, K. (2009). The great Himalayan watershed: Agrarian crisis, mega-dams and the environment. New Left Review, 58, 5–39.
Posner, R. A. (1998). Economic analysis of law (5th ed.). New York: Aspen Law & Business.
Poteete, A. R., Janssen, M. A., & Ostrom, E. (2010). Working together: Collective action, the commons, and multiple methods in practice. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Qiu, J. (2008). China: The third pole. Nature, 454, 393–396.
Richardson, M. (2009, July 16). Dams in China turn the Mekong into a river of discord. YaleGlobal Online. https://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/dams-china-turn-mekong-river-discord
Samaranayake, N., Limaye, S., & Wuthnow, J. (2016). Water resource competition in the Brahmaputra River basin: China, India, and Bangladesh. Arlington: CNA.
Schiff, J. S. (2017). The evolution of Rhine River governance: Historical lessons for modern transboundary water management. Water History, 9, 279–294.
Scott, J. S. (2009). The art of not being governed: An anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Stewart, M., & Coclanis, P. A. (2011). Environmental change and agricultural sustainability in the Mekong Delta. New York: Springer.
Sum, E. S. K. (2015, September 18). Pay Indonesia farmers to stop burning? Today [Singapore].
Swain, A. (2004). Managing water conflict: Asia, Africa and the Middle East. London/New York: Routledge.
Tilt, B. (2015). Dams and development in China: The moral economy of water and power. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wirsing, R. G., et al. (2013). International conflict over water resources in Himalayan Asia. Basingsoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Zeitoun, M., & Warner, J. (2006). Hydro-hegemony – A framework for analysis of trans-boundary water conflicts. Water Policy, 8, 435–460.
Zhang, Y., & Buzan, B. (2012). The tributary system as international society in theory and practice. Chinese Journal of International Politics, 5, 3–36.
Zhao, M., & Schell, O. (2008). Tibet: Plateau in peril. World Policy Journal, 25, 171–180.
Zhao, T. (2009). A political world philosophy in terms of all-under-heaven (Tian-xia). Diogenes, 221, 5–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/0392192109102149.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Coclanis, P.A. (2019). Approaching the Mekong in a Time of Turbulence. In: Stewart, M., Coclanis, P. (eds) Water and Power. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 64. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90400-9_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90400-9_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-90399-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-90400-9
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)