केंद्र बिन्दु - जल-कानून

आईईएलआरसी.ओआरजी में आपका स्वागत है

अंतरराष्ट्रीय पर्यावरण कानून शोध केंद्र स्वतंत्र शोध संस्था है। यह अतंरराष्ट्रीय और तुलनात्मक पर्यावरण कानून सम्बन्धी मुद्दों के लिए काम करती है। यह भारत और पूर्वी अ‍फ्रीका में विशेष रूप से सक्रिय है।

आईईएलआरसी का उद्देश्य ऐसा कानूनी और शैक्षणिक ढांचा तैयार करने में सहयोग करना है, जो अंतरराष्ट्रीय संदर्भ में निष्पक्षता के साथ विकासशील देशों में निरंतर पर्यावरण प्रबंधन को बढ़ावा दे। (विस्तृत रूप से पढ़े)

आईईएलआरसी.ओआरजी पर ताजातरीन समाचार (अंग्रेजी में)

Publication of water policy papers Drinking Water Regulation: Rethinking the Right to Water [read more] and Groundwater Regulation in Uttar Pradesh: Beyond the 2010 Bill [read more]

IELRC featured in Environmental Policy and Law - The journal for decision-makers [read more]

Report of the Planning Commission of India's Sub-group on “Legal Issues related to Ground Water Management and Regulation including the Strengthening of the Ground Water Regulatory Authorities at the Centre and States” of the Working Group on “Water Governance” for the XII Five Year Plan [read more] convened by Professor Cullet and Draft Model Bill for the Conservation, Protection and Regulation of Groundwater, 2011 [read more]

Dr Ramanathan to speak at the SOAS Law, Environment and Development Centre seminars on State Responsibility, Corporate Complicity and Conflicts over Land, 8 March 2012 [read more]

Inaugural lecture of Professor Cullet at SOAS on 7 March, Reforming Water Law and Policy in India [read more]

SOAS Centre of South Asian Studies Lecture by Usha Ramanathan on 7 March, Many Ambitions and an Identity Project [read more]

Fifteenth Lok Sabha, Standing Committee on Finance (2011-12) Forty-Second Report, The National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010. Dr. Usha Ramanathan was one of the expert witnesses deposing in front of the Standing Committee [read more]

Right to Water in India � Plugging Conceptual and Practical Gaps

This article examines the content of the human right to water. It starts from the premise that the right is firmly anchored in international and national law. It thus moves beyond debates concerning either the existence or the legal status of the right in favour of a more in-depth discussion of its content. It focuses on India, a country where the right is well entrenched at a broad level but where the actual content of the right is not well defined in legal instruments. It considers some of the aspects of the right that are most critical at this juncture from a policy perspective, including the need to ensure that the universality of the right in theory is matched by universal realisation, the need for the core content of the right to be provided by the state and the need to recognise the right as including a free water component if it is to make a difference for the overwhelming majority of poor people.

Governing the Environment without CoPs - The Case of Water

CoPs have played a key role in governing the environment. Yet, CoPs have only provided the institutional framework for governing issues falling under existing treaty regimes. They have not been able to go beyond the regimes they govern. In the case of water, the absence of a well-developed treaty regime has open the door to new non-governmental institutions taking the lead. This happens to coincide in part with the framework proposed by global administrative law that sees governance as a set of largely non-hierarchical relationships where states are not necessarily dominant. This article critically analyse the contribution that global administrative law makes to our understanding of environmental stewardship and looks at ongoing institutional reforms in the water sector that are not based on CoPs being the main actor.

Is Water Policy the New Water Law? � Rethinking the Place of Law in Water Sector Reforms

Water law and policy are in principle clearly distinct at the national and international levels. The former is binding while the latter is not. Yet, over the past two decades, the respective space of water law and water policy has evolved to the point where the distinction between the two is sometimes sidelined. At the international level, the increasing pre-eminence of water policy is due in part to the absence of binding legal frameworks in various key areas of the water sector. This has led international water governance to be significantly different from other sectors. At the national level, reforms in the water sector over the past 20 years have often been heavily influenced by the non-binding international water policy instruments. This article explores the trajectory of water law and water policy at the international level and in India over the past two decades. It highlights the specificities of the water sector in this regard and some of the problems that arise when policy ends up either replacing law or as a framework superseding law, thereby throwing out of gear most of the basic principles around which democratic legal orders are based.

Delhi Water Supply Reforms: Public-Private Partnerships or Privatisation?

The manner of implementation of water supply reforms in three areas of Delhi based on the public-private partnership model has been a quiet and secret affair without proactive consultation with the people of the project areas. This account of the Delhi reforms examines the documents of one of the three PPPs and asks questions about the manner in which the projects are unfolding, the roles of the Delhi Jal Board and private entities as envisaged in the PPPs, as well as the overall implications for the right to water.

The Groundwater Model Bill - Rethinking Regulation for the Primary Source of Water

Groundwater is now the main source of water for all major water uses in India and needs to be given greater policy attention. The fact that it is a politically sensitive topic because any reform will affect some powerful constituencies cannot be an excuse anymore for lack of action. Inaction only increases existing inequalities in access to groundwater by progressively reinforcing the power of bigger landowners at the expense of other water users. This article examines the basic principles governing access to and use of groundwater inherited from the past to the Model Bill for the Conservation, Protection and Regulation of Groundwater, 2011, which provides a basis for rethinking groundwater regulation.