International Journal of Water Resources Development

Contextualized and Dynamic Sovereignty in Transboundary Water Governance

1. Rationale and Objectives

Transboundary water governance sits at the intersection of multiple disciplines, including international law, international relations, political geography, environmental sociology, and ecological anthropology. It encompasses complex cross-border interactions among states, non-state actors, and ecological systems, where authority, control, legitimacy, and responsibility are continuously negotiated and contested.

In these contexts, sovereignty occupies a central yet dynamic position. Traditionally associated with territorial control and exclusive authority, the meaning and practice of sovereignty have evolved significantly and are increasingly shaped and constrained by legal norms, political bargaining, geopolitical asymmetries, and ecological interdependence, particularly under conditions of hydrological uncertainty and accelerating environmental change (Dang & Wang, 2025; Holland, 2021; Schrijver, 1999). Although international water law promotes principles such as “limited sovereignty” and “equitable and reasonable use” to balance upstream and downstream interests, fewer than one-third of states sharing transboundary waters have ratified the two United Nations water conventions. Moreover, empirical research suggests that sovereignty is not a fixed or uniform doctrine in practice. States may invoke different sovereignty principles selectively, depending on political configurations, historical legacies, and shifting power relations (Dang, 2024).

These developments invite a closer examination of how sovereignty is interpreted, operationalized, and contested in specific governance settings, and how particular understandings of sovereignty shape collective responses to shared environmental challenges (Barral, 2016; Bauder & Mueller, 2023). Rather than treating sovereignty as a static legal principle, this Special Issue approaches it as a socially and politically constructed concept embedded in historical-material configurations, institutional arrangements, territorial imaginaries, and everyday governance practices.

This Special Issue aims to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on transboundary water governance by situating sovereignty within a broader structure of power, scale, social practices, and local knowledge. It seeks to advance empirically grounded and theoretically plural analyses of governance in shared river basins, contributing to a more dynamic and context-sensitive understanding of human–water relations across borders.

2. Scope and Focus

We welcome empirically rich, theoretically informed contributions that critically engage with sovereignty through the lens of transboundary waters. Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following themes:

• Multi-level political and legal processes shaping sovereignty in transboundary water governance, including interactions across domestic, regional, and international arenas, and the role of power asymmetries, colonial legacies, and geopolitical dynamics.
• The mediating and reconfiguring role of formal and informal institutions, including river basin organizations and joint management arrangements, in shaping the relationship between sovereignty and cooperation.
• The intersection of global environmental challenges (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss, ecosystem degradation, and energy transitions) with sovereign claims and practices in shared water systems.
• The role of non-state actors, such as indigenous communities, civil society organizations, transnational networks, and private actors, in reshaping, contesting, or complicating state-centered water sovereignty.
• The spatial production of water sovereignty through borders, infrastructures, mapping practices, and territorial imaginaries.
• The influence of dominant global discourses such as “sustainable development,” “resilience,” and “water security” in reinforcing, reconfiguring, or contesting sovereignty claims.
• The role of South–South cooperation, development assistance, and international initiatives in mediating sovereignty in transboundary contexts.
• The governance implications of data, monitoring systems, modeling practices, and information-sharing technologies for authority, accountability, and territorial claims.
• Methodological innovations for capturing the temporal, spatial, and scalar dimensions of sovereignty in transboundary water governance.

3. Types of Contributions

The special issue may include two types of contributions:

• Research articles, full-length papers (up to 8,000 words, including footnotes and references) that offer an original scholarly contribution.
• Literature review articles(up to 8,000 words, including footnotes and references), which are expected to systematically map key theoretical debates in the field, identify major strands of scholarship, and critically reflect on existing gaps and future research directions

4. Tentative Timeline:

• Abstract/Proposal submission deadline: May 15, 2026
• Invitation for full paper submission: May 30, 2026
• Full paper submission deadline: Sep 30, 2026
• Publication of the special issue: early 2027

References

Barral, V. (2016). Research Handbook on International Law and Natural Resources. Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781783478330

Bauder, H., & Mueller, R. (2023). Westphalian Vs. Indigenous Sovereignty: Challenging Colonial Territorial Governance. Geopolitics, 28(1), 156–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2021.1920577

Dang, H. (2024). Scalar politics in international water law. Water International, 49(3-4), 289–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/02508060.2024.2321690

Dang, H., & Wang, R. Y. (2025). States’ extraterritorial duty towards the right to water: balancing sovereignty and community at the transboundary water basin level. Journal of Energy & Natural Resources Law, 43(4), 695–716. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646811.2025.2503635

Holland, B. (2021). Sovereignty Contested: Vattel’s Use of Leibniz, Hobbes, and Pufendorf. In P. Schröder (Ed.), Concepts and Contexts of Vattel's Political and Legal Thought (pp. 45–63). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1017/9781108784009.004

Schrijver, N. (1999). The Changing Nature of State Sovereignty. British Yearbook of International Law, 70(1), 65–98. https://doi.org/10.1093/bybil/70.1.65