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University of Washington Undergraduate Journals
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Washington
Undergraduate
Law Review
 

Spring 2007-
Present



Directory of Current Undergraduate Journals in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences with content accessible online. Featured in intersections Online








Clio's
Purple and Gold:
Journal of
Undergraduate
Studies in History
 

2011


Directory of Current Undergraduate Journals in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences with content accessible online. Featured in intersections Online









Jackson School
Journal


Spring 2010 -
Present



Directory of Current Undergraduate Journals in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences with content accessible online. Featured in intersections Online








The Orator

2007-Present


Directory of Current Undergraduate Journals in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences with content accessible online. Featured in intersections Online








 


           

Who Owns the Water?

An Analysis of Water Conflicts in Latin American and Modern Water Law

By Thomas Coleman
University of Virginia


Water is the world’s most important natural resource. Some would say it is our most important commodity whose allocation should be governed by pricing mechanisms and market transactions. Yet water is unlike any other resource in its mobility, its form and its centrality to the maintenance of human life and human communities. Water’s physical, conceptual and social plasticity precludes easy categorizations, creates uncertainty regarding its handling and poses critical questions regarding use and management. During the past three decades, international economic institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have sought to confront such questions by forcing privatization policies on developing nations in accordance with their neoliberal economic philosophies. These policies privatize state water services — generally transferring the rights to large multinational corporations (MNC’s) — and ultimately transform water from a public good into a private, economic asset with corresponding private property rights. Lower and middle-class groups have often suffered as a result of these policies and have risen up in opposition to the MNC’s and their governments claiming an international right to water. I analyze three water conflicts in Latin America in order elucidate the convergence of coinciding systems of water law: an international legal framework of water as a human right and domestic systems of water as a property right. Specifically, I examine water conflicts in Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile within the context of diverse economic responses to the legal challenges posed by water’s uniqueness as a resource. I draw conclusions about analyses of social conflicts, current conceptions of law and global economic theory, as well as present implications regarding the state of water law. [Article]