FOREWORD This volume contains the Award rendered in 2004 in one of the few inter- tional watercourse arbitrations ever conducted, by the arbitral tribunal est- lished to decide the dispute between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Republic of France concerning the auditing of accounts in relation to the red- tion of chloride discharges into the Rhine River. In 1976, five countries bord- ing the Rhine (France, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg and Germany) signed the Convention on the Protection of the Rhine against Pollution by Ch- rides, with the aim of reducing the level of chloride ions in the Rhine. An Ad- tional Protocol, the objective of which was to improve the quality of the Rhine’s waters and, in particular, reach a definitive solution to the problems associated with reducing chloride concentration in the Rhine, was added in 1991. The P- tocol, inter alia, imposed obligations on France to undertake certain measures. The costs of these measures were to be shared between four of the five states parties according to a specific formula. This dispute between the Netherlands and France concerned the interpre- tion and implementation of the Protocol’s cost-sharing formula and the meth- ology of calculation to be used in the final auditing of financial contributions paid in advance by the Netherlands to France. An arbitral tribunal, established in 2000 in accordance with Annex B of the Convention, was comprised of Judge Pieter H.weiterlesen