Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Rio Lauca: Dispute over an International River

1970; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 60; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/213680

1931-0846

Martin Ira Glassner,

International Maritime Law Issues

have made newspaper headlines, particularly when they resulted in armed clashes between competing claimants. Others, though they have been acrimonious and have even led to the severing of diplomatic relations between states, have escaped general public notice. All of them illustrate that no welldeveloped body of international law exists pertaining to the agricultural, domestic, and industrial use of the water from such rivers and lakes. Disputes over the Nile, Indus, Colorado, and Columbia Rivers have all been settled, at least for the present, on an ad hoc basis, but no real legal precedents have been set for the resolution of similar problems elsewhere. Even smaller rivers, such as the Jordan, can provoke serious conflicts, and as the pressure of world population on the available supplies of fresh water intensifies, smaller and smaller streams are likely to be the focuses of international tension. It is for this reason that the dispute between Bolivia and Chile over the Rio Lauca, though magnified by the internal politics of both countries, is worthy of study.