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This chapter identifies the contrasting theoretical perspectives that aspire to understand and explain economical, environmental, political and social tensions over freshwater. Drawing on International Relations, it provides a fourfold framework to study water conflicts. First, it considers the physical condition of the resource to understand (and predict) the potential tensions over freshwater. Secondly, it focuses on power relations that frame and condition water resources exploitation. Thirdly, it discusses how securitizing speech acts can label freshwater as a source of conflict and then influence the actual water interactions. Fourthly, it considers the evolution of cooperation and conflict over time focusing on actors’ configurations. The chapter then applies these four dimensions to study the India/China Brahmaputra River case. The framework provides an exhaustive and integrated analytical approach necessary to capture the complexity of actual conflict-cooperation situations over freshwater. The chapter concludes on conflict resolution and cooperation facilitating conditions.

La gestion des services d'eau urbains en Europe dépend d'une règle commune, la Directive Cadre sur l'Eau. Promulguée en 2000, cette directive européenne vise à moderniser et accroitre la soutenabilité de la gestion de l'eau en instituant des principes communs. Dans le cas des services d'eau, elle s'accompagne de directives sur les marchés publiques, la concurrence et la délégation. Malgré ce cadre commun, une diversité de modes de gestion perdure en Europe. En particulier, trois modèles embrassent la diversité des situations: anglais, français et allemand (du plus libéral au moins libéral). Quatre grandes tendances, absentes lors du développement des services et des réseaux, marquent l'aujourd'hui et le futur des services d'eau : la prise en compte de l'environnement, la baisse des consommations, l'étalement urbain et la privatisation. Il s'agit dès lors de comprendre comment les services d'eau actuels peuvent transformer leur organisation afin de faire face à ces changements structurels. L'objectif de cette présentation est de proposer un exercice prospectif sur la vulnérabilité relative de chaque modèle face à ces tendances. Comment le modèle allemand intègre le mouvement de privatisation alors que le modèle anglais repose dessus ? Quels sont les avantages et inconvénients d'une gestion reposant sur le marché et les incitations (Angleterre) en comparaison à une gestion publique et locale (Allemagne) pour organiser la pérennité des réseaux ? Pour répondre à ce type de questions, nous abordons trois thèmes centraux à la gestion des services d'approvisionnement en eau potable: les modalités de régulation des services, la gestion des réseaux et la participation du public à la décision.

Since the 2000s, facing the increasing globalization and commodification of common-pool resources, community-based organizations managing water and forests at the local scale started to create transnational networks. Their main goal is to get a direct representation in international decision-making arenas, as to promote their model of community-based governance and transform existing norms. Two main strategies to impact the norm-building process are the reframing of the resources essence (from market goods to human rights or commons…) and the claim on appropriate scales of governance for these resources (local, regional, global…). In this global context, to what extent the reframing of water and forests essence by transnational community-based networks impacts their respective scales of governance? The paper aims to answer this interrogation using transnational political sociology and discourse analysis. The analysis relies on two case studies: the Latin-American Confederation of Community Organizations for Water Services and Sanitation (CLOCSAS), and the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB). From one side, CLOCSAS is framing water as a global common and a universal human right, in order to become an alternative international expert on water issues. Distinctively, AMPB is framing forests as collective territorial rights, in order to differentiate from technical international experts, such as UN-REDD. Finally, the objective of this paper is to highlight the influence of framing strategies, used by transnational community-based networks, on the definition of what are the appropriate scales of governance for common-pool resources.

The Institutional Resource Regime framework appears successful in comparing natural resource governance systems but unable to provide a common and persuasive explanation of the evolution of these systems. To fill this gap, the concepts of institutional complexity trap and transversal transaction costs (TTC) have been recently put forward. IRRs tend to fall into an institutional complexity trap which progressively reduces efficiency in regulating natural resource uses. These dynamics are the macro consequences of micro frictions in IRR extension, i.e. the transversal transaction costs. To date, the TTC concept has been mainly theoretical; the present paper examines its empirical relevance. We investigate dynamic causes of malfunctioning in poly centric systems focusing on interlinkages between extent and coherence. Materials come from case studies of urban water systems in Europe and Australasia. It allows us to propose a typology of TTCs and to highlight their impacts on the governance system. Finally, we are able to trace the pattern of evolution of an IRR in relation to the most likely institutional frictions occurrences. This has substantial policy implications, as we shed light on indirect but significant limitations to natural resource policy developments and adaptations.

L’objet de cet article est de discuter de la territorialité et de la spatialité des biens communs planétaires : comment leur spatialité a-t-elle été définie au plan légal, politique et scientifique ? Quels acteurs prennent part à ce processus de définition de la spatialité ou en sont exclus ? Dans quelle mesure la délimitation des périmètres et des arènes de gouvernance des biens communs fait-elle toujours l’objet de controverses ?

A Genève, la votation du 18 mai 2014, désignée par certains de «9 février genevois», soulève des interrogations majeures sur les causes et les conséquences d'un tel rejet, qui dépasse la construction des parcs relais sur sol français, mais engage un questionnement sur la consolidation du Grand Genève, et la volonté de gouverner en commun un espace économique et urbain qui a, depuis plusieurs décennies, transgressé les frontières.

Since the 2000s, local communities responsible for the management of common-pool resources, such as water or forest, have started to organize themselves regionally in order to promote their mode of community-based governance. Such a change in the scale of governance and in the agency of local communities reflects the on-going globalization of common-pool resources. Furthermore, it illustrates the evolving nature of global environmental governance that now includes new actors from civil society. Relying on a comparison of two transnational community-based networks in Latin America, the paper will first study the strategies and interests of such communities in the transformation of global norms affecting the management of their resources. Secondly, it will analyze the extent to which the relationships between those communal groups and nation states still remain decisive. Finally, it will question how this involvement of grassroots movements modifies both the essence of natural resources and their scales of governance.