Rio Grande border disputes

The Rio Grande (Río Bravo del Norte) has changed course several times in recorded history, leading to a number of border disputes and uncertainties, both international (involving Mexico and the United States) and between individual U.S. states:

Numerous border treaties are jointly administered by the International Boundary and Water Commission, which was established in 1889 to maintain the border, allocate river waters between the two nations, and provide for flood control and water sanitation. Once viewed as a model of international cooperation, in recent decades the IBWC has been heavily criticized as an institutional anachronism, by-passed by modern social, environmental and political issues.[2] In particular, jurisdictional issues regarding water rights in the Rio Grande Valley have caused tension between farmers in the border region and sparked a "water war,"[3] according to Mexican political scientist Armand Peschard-Sverdrup.[4]

References

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  1. ^ Rohter, Larry (September 26, 1987). "South of Border Was Once North". New York Times. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
  2. ^ Robert J. McCarthy, Executive Authority, Adaptive Treaty Interpretation, and the International Boundary and Water Commission, U.S.-Mexico, 14-2 U. Denv. Water L. Rev. 197(Spring 2011) (also available for free download at https://ssrn.com/abstract=1839903).
  3. ^ Yardley, Jim (April 19, 2002). "Water Rights War Rages on Faltering Rio Grande". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 April 2020.
  4. ^ Peschard-Sverdrup, Armand (January 7, 2003). U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Water Management: The Case of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo (1 ed.). Center for Strategic & International Studies. ISBN 978-0892064243.