[1] Notwithstanding the guideline's lack of formal status, its work on rules governing international rivers was pioneering.
[2] It led to the creation of the United Nations' Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses.
It also mandates protection of the resource by bordering nations with respect to water pollution in Chapter 3 (Articles IX to XI) and sets forth recommendations for resolving disputes over usage of such watercourses.
In determining what is reasonable and equitable share, all relevant factors are to be considered together and a conclusion reached on the basis of the whole.
The comparative costs of alternative means of satisfying the economic and social needs of each basin State 8.
[4] Accordingly, the United Nations decided in 1970 to create a more inclusive set of guidelines, which after more than twenty years of investigation by the International Law Commission resulted in the adopting of the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses in 1997.