Basin Clawbacks: Reducing Overallocation
And The Right To Water
Author(s)
F. Rochford
Abstract
Overallocation of irrigation entitlements has occurred in many developed river
basins. In the Murray Darling Basin in Australia the Water Act 2007 (Cth)
requires the establishment of a Basin Plan that will set the requirements for all
water resource plans across the Basin. It is anticipated that it will significantly
cut irrigation allocations across the Basin. This paper will consider the means by
which Australian jurisdictions have reduced and will further reduce allocations,
and assess whether these strategies can be translated to American jurisdictions.
Emerging issues relating to Constitutional takings in the Australian jurisdiction
reflect a much more fully developed jurisprudence in the United States. The
strategies for allocation clawback are restricted by the requirement to provide
‘just terms’. The means by which this Constitutional protection frames
mechanisms for reducing overallocation are considered, and emerging
conceptions of the right to water assessed.
Keywords: water, law, policy, human rights.
1 Introduction
Water is a perennial issue in the notoriously variable Australian climate.
Echoing the Federation debates of the 1890s [1], the first decade of this
millennium was marked by increasing concern about water security in the face of
a decade-long drought [2]. In this context, a political consensus arose as to the
need to correct the overallocation of water in the Murray Darling Basin.
Supplementing a suite of Constitutional powers patched together by the Federal
government, States handed over some of their Constitutional powers to the
Commonwealth to effect Basin-wide reforms under the Constitutional provision
s.51 (xxxvii). The Water Act 2007 (Cth) was the result. Under that Act, and
Keywords
water, law, policy, human rights
Related Book
Other papers in this volume
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