| In 1976 the ILA adopted at its Madrid Conference a non-binding resolution entitled Water Resources and Installations in Times of Armed Conflict (Madrid Rules). This resolution contains many guidelines aimed to protect water as it affects the civilian population and the environment.427 A subsequent ILA instrument – the Berlin Rules on Water Resources (Berlin Rules), adopted by the ILA Conference in 2004, also contains important provisions on the protection of international watercourses during armed conflict. Chapter X reiterates and slightly modifies the Madrid Rules – Article 52 is especially important and calls on combatants to not, ‘for military purposes or as reprisals, destroy or divert waters, or destroy water installations, when such acts would cause widespread, long-term, and severe ecological damage prejudicial to the health or survival of the population or if such acts would fundamentally impair the ecological integrity of waters.’428
It is argued that the instruments of international humanitarian law (Figure 6.2) – coupled with the above instruments of water law including Article 29 of the UN Watercourses Convention – ‘point to the universal acceptance of certain legally binding rules prohibiting hostile activities against or using water resources and installations as a weapon.’429
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