Application of International Water Law to Transboundary Groundwater Resources, and the Slivak-Hungarian Dispute Over Gabcikovo-Nagymaros

Part I of this article examines international water law and proposes the application of this legal regime to both surface and underground waters equally and without distinction. This application is founded on the basis that due to the indissociable nature of and interdependency between the two water resources, surface and underground waters cannot be utilized or protected adequately or efficiently unless they are considered simultaneously under the same rubric of management and law. In Part IT of this article, groundwater issues are considered in the context of the ongoing Gabcikovo-Nagymaros controversy between Hungary and Slovakia. Although the controversy does not focus solely on groundwater issues, the dispute provides fertile ground for the application of international water law, in its fullest sense, to questions of the use and ownership of transboundary groundwater resources.