- Editor's Note
Water is vital to human survival and flourishing, yet many millions of people around the world lack access to adequate supplies of safe drinking water and healthy sanitation. These deficiencies will only become more acute with time as population growth sees demand rise, while climate change, pollution, and development reduce the quantity of fresh water available per capita. In brief, the world faces a looming water crisis. The problems of human want and hardship are augmented by geopolitical rivalries between states. Competition between countries over this crucial resource will increase international tensions and could even lead to outright war. Oil has hitherto been the world’s key geostrategic commodity, for which nations were willing to embark on military hostilities, but water threatens to usurp that role. The challenges arising from the growing scarcity of water, and means of addressing them, are the subject of this issue of Global Dialogue.
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- Water in Cyprus: Current Conditions and Future Perspectives
Cyprus illustrates the difficulties many nations experience today in securing adequate supplies of safe water for drinking, irrigation, household needs, and other uses. The specific water problems the Republic faces and the various measures it has taken to overcome them—such as seawater desalination, dams, and water-pricing—are described. The use of concentrating-solar-power technologies to generate both electricity and desalinated seawater could be the solution to Cyprus’s water stresses.
Manfred A. Lange
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- Conflict, Cooperation, and Complexity: Understanding Transboundary Water Interactions
How real is the threat of water wars? Inter-state water interactions are in reality too complex to categorise into the false dichotomy of conflict and cooperation. The concepts of water conflict and water (in-)security have manifold manifestations, and cooperation almost always co-exists with conflict in hydropolitics. Moreover, the bulk of water interactions at any level are neutral in character rather than negative or positive. It is thus meaningless to speak of imminent, increasing, or overwhelmingly destructive water conflict of the sort that could be called a water war. These claims are supported by reference to water interactions in South Asia.
Paula Hanasz
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- Water-Sharing in the Indus Basin: A Peaceful, Sustainable Future Is Possible
The allocation of waters from the Indus Basin furnishes many potential causes of conflict. But the Indus Waters Treaty, designed to mitigate these tensions and adjudicate supply, has been hailed as a sterling example of peaceful water management. Will water serve as a mechanism for greater dialogue and cooperation between India and Pakistan, or instead prove to be a trigger for conflict?
Douglas Hill
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- Water Insecurity: A Change Agent for International Water Law Reform
A consideration of the ramifications of international water insecurity. How can freshwater resources be divided among the world’s growing population in the most equitable way? Can parity be achieved between powerful states and less fortunate riparians? A new approach is needed in transboundary freshwater management. The notion of state sovereignty, enshrined in international law, is the chief obstacle to the peaceful management of disputes between nations over water. If we are to move from hydro-egoism to hydro-solidarity, then water security must be regarded as a matter of “regional common concern”.
Bjørn-Oliver Magsig
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- The Human Security Dimensions of Dam Development: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
Many countries see dams as a panacea for their energy and water needs—and as a symbol of national pride. Yet they can cause environmental harm and provoke political disputes between upstream and downstream nations. One such controversial dam project is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam currently being built on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia. The impact of this dam on human security—how it will affect the safety and well-being of individuals and communities—is assessed.
Jennifer C. Veilleux
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- Cooperation for the Sustainable Governance of International Watercourses: The Role of River Basin Organisations
River basin organisations (RBOs) are a prime means that nations have adopted to manage internationally shared waters. The role is highlighted of RBOs in addressing collective action problems in international rivers and lakes. The rise of RBOs in international river-basin management is outlined, and an account given of why they form for some basins but not others. Examples are provided of RBOs and of the benefits they bring to transboundary water governance.
Andrea K. Gerlak and Susanne Schmeier
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- River Basin Organisations: Tackling Questions of Design and Effectiveness
The institutional design and effectiveness of RBOs are considered. To what extent have RBOs actually been effective in governing water resources? Their capacity to ensure successful adaption to environmental, socio-economic, and political change is examined. Long-term cooperation over shared watercourses requires more than merely establishing RBOs. The latter must also be properly designed and equipped with well-functioning river-basin governance mechanisms.
Andrea K. Gerlak and Susanne Schmeier
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- Water Resources Management and Governance in Southern Africa: Towards Regional Integration for Peace and Prosperity
The initial regional protocol of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) concerned shared watercourses. Signed in 1995, the protocol has been of such utility that southern Africa is often cited as a case of “best practice” in transboundary water governance. An account is given of the protocol’s terms and operations, setting it within the broader context of international water law. The influence of the protocol on institutional water management is described, as is its inspirational value to a region afflicted by enduring poverty and underdevelopment.
Larry A. Swatuk and Joanna Fatch
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- Water Wars in the Anthropocene: A South African Perspective
The gold fields of South Africa furnish a case-study of acute conflict over water. The discussion is framed within the context of a proposed new geological epoch—the “Anthropocene”, the era when humankind first began to leave indelible environmental traces of its activities. Gold-mining in South Africa entailed the bringing to the surface of large quantities of uranium, which were simply discarded as waste. The city of Johannesburg is surrounded by hundreds of mine dumps contaminated by radioactive uranium and other toxic heavy metals. These pollutants threaten to enter the water supply, eliciting angry public protests. A new business model for mining is outlined in which water could form part of a solution.
Anthony Turton
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- Comment
History, Democracy and the European Union
The European Union is in the grip of a crisis of legitimacy, identity and unity sparked by the financial upheaval which has forced national parliaments to impose austerity measures at the behest of the “Troika”—Brussels, the International Monetary Fund, and the European Central Bank. The cultural and historical repercussions of the EU crisis are analysed. Has concealing national differences under a vaguely defined common cultural heritage been detrimental to the development of a shared European political culture and sense of community?
Luca Asmonti
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