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AbstractThe no-harm principle is at the heart of the several international conventions focusing on the uses, allocation, management and protection of transboundary water resources. However, in the framework of these agreements, the meaning of "no-harm" remains rather vague. Through an analysis of six emblematic cases brought before the International Court of Justice and arbitration tribunals, we elucidate the various facets of this principle. In doing so, the paper identifies four facets. The first is characterized by concerns related to the protection of territorial integrity rather than those related to the protection of the environment. The second facet focuses on the principle of equitable and reasonable use of water, which testifies to the willingness to anticipate possible harms and to define conditions for cooperation between neighbouring countries. The third facet explores the use of three instruments and emphasizes their importance to clarify the very nature of harm: the conduct of environmental impact assessment, the consultation of local populations and the insurance of minimum environmental flows. The fourth facet develops a preventive perspective on harm by unravelling the duty to take appropriate measures to prevent and mitigate risks deriving from the obligations of notification and consultation.

"Over recent decades, there have been pivotal changes in the management and protection of water resources as human rights, environmental and water law have all turned towards the conservation of freshwater. This Research Handbook analyses the interactions and interplay between law and other fields, bringing together interdisciplinary contributors, from both academic and practitioner background, to establish the extent to which law is being informed by other fields. Providing expert advice from disciplines ranging from law and political science to geography and hydrogeology, this Research Handbook critically examines the impact on freshwater law on various disciplines. Offering concrete illustrations of the relationships between environmental sciences and law, and combining legal research with theories of international relations and political science, the Research Handbook on Freshwater Law and International Relations provides an original methodology to examine the challenge of freshwater management and protection. The insights provided by this Research Handbook will be invaluable to law and political science researchers with an interest in freshwater law and international relations, as well as advanced students of environmental sciences and practitioners and decision makers in freshwater management and protection"--

Participatory modeling is a potentially high-impact approach for catalyzing fundamental sustainability transformations. We test if participation in a group system dynamics modeling exercise increases participants' agency through a novel method to evaluate potential behavioral change using expectations measures. A water-energy-food nexus a functionally interdependent but under-conceptualised system with low consensus and high scientific uncertainty -- was mapped and its evolution simulated by 46 participants in three interventions in a region undergoing hydropower infrastructure development in North-eastern Cambodia. Participants' system-related expectations were measured before and after the interventions. Our results suggest that participants became significantly more optimistic about their individual agency to increase agricultural and fishing income, and interestingly, less likely to participate in local government development planning procedures. Findings also reveal how some uncertainties for multiple variables were reduced within and across the groups. Such converging expectations suggest that participatory modelling could contribute to making collective solutions and institutionalised agreements more likely. This research contributes to innovation in sustainability because it unpacks some underlying mechanics of how participatory processes can lead to new adaptive capacities, shared perspectives and collective actions.

Participatory modeling is a potentially high‐impact approach for catalyzing fundamental sustainability transformations. We test if participation in a group system dynamics modeling exercise increases participants' agency through a novel method to evaluate potential behavioral change using expectation measures. A water‐energy‐food nexus—a functionally interdependent but underconceptualized system with low consensus and high scientific uncertainty—was mapped, and its evolution simulated by 46 participants in three interventions in a region undergoing hydropower infrastructure development in Northeastern Cambodia. Participants' system‐related expectations were measured before and after the interventions. Our results suggest that participants became significantly more optimistic about their individual agency to increase agricultural and fishing income and, interestingly, less likely to participate in local government development planning procedures. Findings also reveal how some uncertainties for multiple variables were reduced within and across the groups. Such converging expectations suggest that participatory modeling could contribute to making collective solutions and institutionalized agreements more likely. This research contributes to innovation in sustainability because it unpacks some underlying mechanics of how participatory processes can lead to new adaptive capacities, shared perspectives, and collective actions. ; publishedVersion

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) challenge markets, regulators and practitioners to achieve multiple objectives on water, food and energy. This calls for responses that are coordinated and scaled appropriately. Learning from water–energy–food nexus could support much-needed building of links between the separate SDGs. The concept has highlighted how risks manifest when blinkered development and management of water, food and energy reduce resource security across sectors and far-reaching scales. However, three under-studied dimensions of these risks must be better considered in order to identify leverage points for sustainable development: first, externalities and shared risks across multiple scales; second, innovative government mechanisms for shared risks; and third, negotiating the balance between silos, politics and power in addressing shared risks.