At the Rio+20 meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and the UK government announced that the UK will accede to the UN Watercourses Convention to help ensure that the world’s 263 international boundary crossing rivers are protected and peacefully shared. The announcement, made by Clegg at Rio+20, means the UK will join the growing number of countries agreeing to accede to the convention. The UK’s accession will bring the number of Parties to the Convention closer to the 35 required for the Convention to enter into legal force. When ratified the UN Watercourses Convention will help to protect rivers such as the Mekong which, with its tributaries, flows through six countries including China, Burma, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand, and Vietnam, supplying a large proportion of the world’s freshwater fish catch.
UK ratifies UN WC at Rio!
UN Watercourses Convention 1997 Workshop in Vietnam
On 15-16 May, 2012 in Do son, Hai Phong city, a “National Workshop and In-depth Training on the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses 1997” was held by Vietnam National Mekong Committee in collaboration with Hatfield Consultants, World Wildlife Fund-WWF and Dundee University. At the workshop, national and international consultants including Dr Alistair Rieu-Clarke, delivered presentations on the International Law on Water and related topics, content of the UN Convention 1997 and its meaning in application to the International Watercourses.
In 2006, WWF generated an initiative to co-operate with those governments who wanted to become a member of the Convention to promote others in Mekong region to approve the Convention. Earlier, 1-3 May 2012, a regional workshop among 6 Mekong countries was held in a co-ordination of WWF, Hatfield Consultants and Dundee University.
The workshop participants were international consultants who were representatives for donors, leading experts on Water from Vietnam National Mekong Committee and related bodies, representatives from Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, NGOs, etc.,
