Young and mid-career professionals and middle level decision makers dealing with water management.

Preferably a relevant water science or engineering related bachelor’s degree or equivalent; affinity with water management.

Upon the successful completion of the module the participant will be able:

• to describe and understand the fundamentals of national and international water and environmental law and legislation;
• to perceive and apply accepted and desired legal and institutional arrangements for applying principles of Integrated Water Resources and Environmental Management;
• to describe and apply legal instruments for the application of IWRM with the emphasis on functional decentralisation, river basin organisations, planning and decision making through water allocation criteria, systems of water rights, water (effluent) permit systems etc.;
• to perceive and appraise concepts of customary water rights;
• to get insight in to processes of international water allocation;
• to explain the concept of multi-level governance and the relationship between national and international legal and policy systems;
• to be able to persuasively argue a case for international water conflict resolution.

Introduction to national and international water law and institutions, comparative environmental and water law principles; innovative legal and policy instruments; changing patterns of global governance; introduction to the UN system; introduction to the Law of Treaties; key international environmental and water treaties;  principles of dispute resolution.

Processes of water policy development, water sector reform, functional decentralization and development and benchmarking of river basin organizations.

Systems of (trans-boundary) water allocation and (customary) water rights, shared vision and strategy development, water and benefit sharing from international rivers.

Regulations for international and trans-boundary water quality management, EU Framework Directive; Dutch water policy & organisations; application of environmental standards and others.

The contact hours in the module include a series of interactive lectures, question and answer games, workshops, role plays and meta plan sessions. The lectures are accompanied by Power-Point-presentations and interactive Internet based lecture notes with accompanying exercises and related literature. Further, a ½-day field trip of relevance to the topics, is embedded in the module.

• F.G.W. Jaspers – Legal Arrangements for Water Governance,  UNESCO-IHE lecture note
• F.G.W. Jaspers – Role play International Rivers, UNESCO-IHE lecture note
• F.G.W. Jaspers – Introduction in Contract Management, UNESCO-IHE lecture note
• J. Gupta – International Water Law and Institutions, UNESCO-IHE lecture note
• P. van der Zaag e.a.- Legislation of International Waters, UNESCO-IHE lecture note
• Various variable inputs form guest lecturers.

• Prof. J. Gupta, PhD
• F.G.W. Jaspers, MA, BSc
• Dr S. Hendry
• Prof. P. van der Zaag, PhD, MSc