I am pleased to include this work by Dr Pol Pallàs Secall as the twenty-ninth volume in the Brill/Nijhoff series on Legal Aspects of Sustainable Development published under my general editorship. The aim of this series is to publish works at the cutting edge of legal scholarship that address both the practical and the theoretical aspects of this important concept.
This work fits well into the general aims of the series as the concept of sustainable development has been categorized as resting on a âthree-legged stoolâ with economic, social and environmental âlegsâ. This volume, which started life as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Barcelona, examines the principle of the integration of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development, within the field of international watercourses law.
First, it addresses the content and limits of the international obligation to integrate these economic, social and environmental dimensions. Then, to examine this in a novel way, it addresses international watercourse law as an area where the practice of integration can be studied in detail. International watercourse regulation is particularly susceptible to international regulatory conflicts involving economic, social and environmental interests. It presents itself, therefore, as a fruitful area for discussing the legal recognition, and application, of the principle of integration.
A particularly innovative and interesting aspect of the study is its examination of the application of the principle of integration in several international watercourse cooperation regimes. The case studies include nine international basins from different regions of the world that have highly developed cooperation regimes: the Danube River, the Dniester River, the International Joint Commission between Canada and the United States of America, the Lake Chad, the Mekong River, the Niger Basin, the Sava River, the Senegal River and the Volta River.
The conclusions drawn by the book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners from any area of international environmental law. The principle of integration is a norm of general application, so scholars in other specializations, such as biodiversity, climate change or renewable energy, will, I am sure, find it of great interest.