Associate Prof. Tamar Meshel authors article on international transboundary water disputes

Earlier this month, Associate Professor Tamar Meshel’s latest article, The Harmon Doctrine is Dead, Long Live the Harmon Doctrine!, was published in the Virginia Journal of International Law.

The article discusses the Harmon Doctrine in American and international water law. The Harmon Doctrine is an absolute territorial sovereignty theory that permits a state to use waters passing within its territory as it sees fit without regard to the interests of other states sharing those waters.

“This is not a good approach to transboundary water relations and there's consensus that the Harmon doctrine no longer forms part of American or international water law, if it ever did,” says Meshel. “However, I have noticed that some states, both in the US and internationally, actually continue to raise ‘Harmon-like’ arguments in transboundary water disputes, and this article is my attempt to try and explain why this is the case.”

The article argues that Harmonian rhetoric used by state parties in transboundary water disputes serves political rather than legal purposes. Specifically, the article uses a Prisoners’ Dilemma model – a model where decision-makers have an incentive to act individually in a manner that creates less-than-optimal outcomes than if they had acted collectively – to demonstrate how collective action challenges in the judicial resolution of transboundary water disputes create incentives to invoke Harmonian claims.

“With climate change, increasing droughts and uneven distribution around the world, water is becoming increasingly scarce and a source of tension and conflict,” says Meshel. “I hope that the article will provide readers with a new perspective on transboundary water disputes and what may motivate states to raise extreme claims, such as those based on the Harmon doctrine, in these disputes.”