Sérvulo launches book on Water Law

NEWS AND EVENTS 29 Apr 2013

Mark Kirkby and Ana Luísa Guimarães, respectively, partner and senior associate of SÉRVULO’s public law department, are two of the coordinators of the book “Direito da Água” (“Water Law”), which also includes a contribution from Rui Medeiros, senior partner at SÉRVULO and associate professor of the Law Faculty of the Portuguese Catholic University. The book’s other coordinators are João Miranda, assistant professor at the Institute for Political-Legal Studies (ICJP – Instituto de Ciências Jurídico-Políticas) and António Leitão Amaro, current Portuguese Secretary of State for Local Administration. The work is jointly published by the ICJP (part of Law Faculty of the University of Lisbon) and by the Portuguese regulator of water and waste services (ERSAR – Entidade Reguladora dos Serviços de Águas e Resíduos), with the support of Sérvulo, of the law firm FALM, and of the Portuguese Water Partnership (Parceria Portuguesa para a Água).

This book is a collection of the papers presented at the conference “O futuro dos serviços públicos de água” (“The future of public water utilities”), organised by the Law Faculty of the University of Lisbon on March 29, 2012, and of contributions from the participants of the post-graduation course in Water Law, which took place between April and June of the same year and was organised by the ICJP, and of which the conference was part. The book is divided into five parts, namely covering issues related to the governance models of public water utilities companies, to water resources and land planning, to the public waterways domain, to public procurement in the water sector, and, finally, to the economic and financial regime of water resources. The book comes at an opportune time for a sector that has recently undergone important changes, and in which a legislative framework is essential to the solid and sustainable development of a sector that, not only is fundamental to the well-being of people and of the environment, but which faces many future challenges.