Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/558bv.pdf
Page Number: 441.0

280 

SOUTH  CAROLINA  v.  NORTH  CAROLINA 

Opinion of Roberts, C. J. 

terway.  If  the  State  has  no  claim  to  the  waters  of  an  in­
terstate  river,  then  its  citizens  have  none  either.  See 
Hinderlider  v.  La  Plata  River  &  Cherry  Creek  Ditch  Co., 
304 U. S. 92, 102 (1938).  We have long recognized, therefore, 
that  the  State  must  be  deemed  to  represent  its  citizens’  in­
terests  in  an  equitable  apportionment  action.  See  United 
States v.  Nevada, 412 U. S. 534, 539 (1973) (per curiam) (“For 
the  purposes  of  dividing  the  waters  of  an  interstate  stream 
with  another  State,  [a  State]  has  the  right,  parens  patriae, 
to represent all the nonfederal users in its own State insofar 
as  the  share  allocated  to  the  other  State  is  concerned”). 
Precisely  because  the  State  represents  all  its  citizens  in  an 
equitable apportionment action, these citizens have no claim 
themselves against the other State.  They are instead 
“bound  by  the  result  reached  through  representation  by 
their respective States,” regardless of whether those citizens 
are  parties  to  the  suit.  Nebraska  v.  Wyoming,  515  U. S.  1, 
22 (1995). 

This basic principle applies without regard to whether the 
State  agrees  with  and  will  advance  the  particular  interest 
asserted  by  a  speciﬁc  private  entity.  The  State  “ ‘must  be 
deemed  to  represent  all  its  citizens,’ ”  New  Jersey  v.  New 
York,  supra,  at  372–373  (quoting  Kentucky  v.  Indiana, 
supra, at 173–174; emphasis added), not just those who sub­
scribe  to  the  State’s  position  before  this  Court.  The  direc­
tive that a State cannot be “judicially impeached on matters 
of  policy  by  its  own  subjects,”  New  Jersey  v.  New  York, 
supra, at 373, obviously applies to the case in which a subject 
disagrees with the position of the State. 

A State’s citizens also need not be made parties to an equi­
table apportionment action because the Court’s judgment in 
such  an  action  does  not  determine  the  water  rights  of  any 
individual citizen.  We made that clear long ago in two deci­
sions  arising  from  the  same  dispute,  Wyoming  v.  Colorado, 
298 U. S. 573 (1936), and Wyoming v.  Colorado, 309 U. S. 572