The United States and International Water Policy

Abstract

This article examines the role of the United States in international institutions and practices for governing water. Water is a critical global challenge of environmental protection and human security. Water is also characteristic of a set of “translocal” environmental issues for which international institution building has emerged along several different fronts: development assistance initiatives, efforts to manage ongoing controversies over water privatization and large dams, the campaign to recognize water as a human right, and a framework convention on cooperation in internationally shared river basins. U.S. engagement across these initiatives reveals several patterns: the fragmented nature of U.S. policies on water, a systematic tilt toward framing water as a market commodity rather than as a human right, the late arrival of U.S. nongovernmental organizations to several important domains of global water politics, and some notable gaps between U.S. policies, at home and abroad, and evolving international concepts of best practice.