## Facts

- Belgium and the Netherlands concluded a 1863 treaty to establish a “permanent and definitive” regime for diverting Meuse water to feed navigation canals and irrigation.
- The treaty identified a feeder intake below Maestricht and fixed obligations concerning the diversion at that feeder and the volume of water to be discharged from it.
- Over time, both States expanded their waterway systems with new canals, locks, and barrages to meet changing economic and technical needs.
- After a 1925 agreement failed to enter into force, the Netherlands built an additional canal and works including a lock and the Borgharen barrage; Belgium began constructing the Albert Canal and related works.
- In 1936, the Netherlands filed an application alleging Belgium’s works and methods of supplying certain canals using Meuse water taken other than at Maestricht violated the 1863 treaty.
- Belgium filed a counterclaim alleging the Netherlands’ Borgharen barrage breached the same treaty.

## Issues

1. Whether the 1863 treaty prohibited either State from constructing or modifying canals and related works so as to change how and where Meuse water was taken and distributed, beyond the Maestricht feeder arrangement.
2. Whether the treaty left each State free to enlarge, transform, or otherwise manage canals located wholly within its territory, including increasing water volumes, so long as treaty-protected rights were preserved.
3. Whether Belgium’s contested works (including the Albert Canal-related diversions) breached the treaty, and whether the Netherlands’ Borgharen barrage and related works breached the treaty.

## Decision

- The Permanent Court of International Justice rejected the Netherlands’ principal submissions.
- The Court rejected Belgium’s counterclaim.
- The Court held the treaty primarily governed the diversion regime at the Maestricht feeder and the required discharge volume from that feeder.
- The Court concluded the treaty did not bar internal canal modifications and related works within each State’s territory, provided the agreed feeder diversion and discharge were not affected.

## Legal Principles

- Treaty interpretation focuses on the text and object of the agreement; obligations are not extended to matters not covered by the treaty’s expressed regime.
- Absent an express prohibition, each State may, within its own territory, modify, enlarge, transform, fill in, or increase the volume of water in canals covered by a bilateral water treaty, if doing so does not impair the treaty-regulated diversion point and discharge conditions.
- A claim of breach requires showing that the challenged works prejudiced the treaty-protected diversion regime rather than merely altered internal distribution or infrastructure.

## Conclusion

The Court interpreted the 1863 Meuse Treaty as protecting a specific diversion and discharge arrangement at the Maestricht feeder, while leaving each State discretion over internal canal development; because neither party proved interference with the treaty’s core feeder regime, both the application and the counterclaim were dismissed.


Diversion of Water from the Meuse (Neth. v. Belg.), 1937 P.C.I.J. (ser. A/B) No. 70