Obligation des États de coopérer en droit international des cours d’eau transfrontaliers :  état du droit et étude du cas Chinois

The principle of international cooperation has been one of the cornerstones of international law. However, the existence of an obligation to cooperate in international law is still controversial. Like air, water is fundamental to life. As a flowing resource, the use of water in any one place is affected by its use in other places. It always marks the interdependence between human beings. The New York Convention includes expressly a general obligation to cooperate which is one of the three fundamental principles. We should then look into the practices of the states in order to find out the answer to one question : what obligation to cooperate needs to be imposed ? To answer this question, we start with a positive study of the normative content of the obligation to cooperate.  We notice that the incorporation of the obligation to cooperate in the principle of sovereignty is a clear trend in international law which has already evolved from the law of coexistence to the law of cooperation. If the law of coexistence is composed of the obligations of non facere, then the law of cooperation is mainly about the positive obligations of facere, among which, the obligation to cooperate is probably the most important one. However, there is no panacea for the management of transboundary rivers in the world, every basin having its own cooperative regime. In order to evaluate the depth and breadth of the cooperative regimes, we study five parameters : the scope, the substantive rules, the procedural rules, the institutional arrangements and the dispute settlement mechanisms. Four models of cooperation are thus identified : the consultative mechanism (Indus River Basin), the communicative mechanism (Mekong River Basin), the coordinative mechanism (Rhine River Basin) and the joint action mechanism ( Senegal River Basin).   As the most important developing upstream country in the world, China has been criticized for its unilateral approach in the development of transboudary waters. However, we can not neither ignore its recent efforts in establishing the cooperation with its neighbors. An analysis of China’s practice serves not only to reveal its interpretation of the general obligation to cooperate, but also helps us to better understand different aspects of this obligation to cooperate in international law. In order to explain the reasons behind the Chinese choice of mode of cooperation, then we introduce a constructivist analysis which is more explanatory than descriptive. We argue that the identities of China determine its choice of cooperation in the field of transboudary waters.   Our study comes to the conclusion that despite the fact that most of the concerned rules are genarally accepted by the international community, the obligation to cooperate is still coming into being in customary international law. The modes of application of the obligation to cooperate are actually the result of the evolving process of social construction which varies according to cultural, historic or economic differences, in other words, according to the identities of states. Mainly due to its different view of sovereignty, China has adopted a consultative mechanisme of cooperation in its own style. However, we have reason to expect that China, with the evolution of his identities as a rising superpower in the world, rather than searching for a hegemonic control and adopting a unilateral strategy in the utilization of transboundary waters, would opt for a more cooperative and participative strategy in the near future.

Keyphrases: Obligation to cooperate, New York Convention