Abstract
The international legal regime of the Niger River in West Africa is now governed by two treaties concluded at Niamey, Niger, by some nine newly emergent States on October 26, 1963 and November 25, 1965 respectively. The philosophy regarding the regulation and exploitation of international watercourses in post-independent West Africa places as much emphasis on the twin concepts of freedom of navigation and freedom of commerce as on the other uses such as irrigation, energy production, mining and manufacturing. An analysis of these treaties shows that while the legal concepts adopted by the West African States to a large extent simply reflect the modern trends in international fluvial law in general, there are also sufficiently unique features in these treaties as to be suggestive of an original West African contribution to the growth of this branch of international law. The post-independent international legal regime of the Niger must be viewed as a progressive development upon the legal regime initiated by the former European powers with the conclusion of the General Act of Berlin in 1885. -from Author
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 671-697 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Natural Resources Journal |
Volume | 28 |
Issue number | 4 |
State | Published - 1988 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
- Law