Governing the Nile River Basin: The Search for a New Legal Regime. This includes Sudan, another downstream nation that one might assume would oppose its construction. Another important area of cooperation is research, especially in areas like climate change, the fight against terrorism and extremism, and human rights. Hence, it seems that such an argument would receive a warm welcome from the current bench were the matter ever to be adjudicated there. The Political Deadlock on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. What are the disadvantages of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam per year, that would constitute a drought and, according to Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia would have to release some of the water in the dams reservoir to deal with the drought. These conflicts could take the form of international armed conflicts (between states), non-international armed conflicts between a group and a state, or conflicts between non-state groups. At the same. The Dam is being built by Ethiopia on the Nile River and is fiercely opposed by Egypt. (2017). This is a matter of acute concern given that Egypt depends on the Nile for about 97% of its irrigation and drinking water. Article IV of the DoP provides that the parties shall utilize their shared water resources in their respective territories in an equitable and reasonable manner and Article III provides that the parties shall take all appropriate measures to prevent the causing of significant harm in utilizing the Blue/Main Nile. Ethiopia can make a strong case that the operation of the Dam complies with each principle. Both citizens and governments should be made part of the solution to the water-related conflicts that now threaten peace and security in the Nile Basin. The colonial powers have departed and so to continue to enforce treaties agreed based around their interests would be irrational. Political instability in Egypt played an important role as the announcement of the project coincided with the resignation of President Mubarak during the Arab Spring. This agreement could pave the way for a more detailed cooperation framework, and represents a major step toward dispute resolution. Feb 11th 2021 DAMS HAVE several uses. Sudan and Egypt, which rely most heavily on the . Learn. Ethiopia also seems to have the political upper hand given that the Dam is effectively a fait accompli and given that Egypts erstwhile downstream ally, Sudan, switched sides in the dispute leaving the Egyptians diplomatically isolated. These discussions highlighted benefits such as more consistent water flow, minimising the risks of flood and drought, and the potential for discounted hydroelectricity produced by the Dam. Nevertheless, it is important to take stock of the human costs, social problems, and lasting environmental impacts of this strategy which have already drawn considerable criticism and concern. Ethiopia's determination to build a major new dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), for hydropower purposes has been the flashpoint of current conflicts in the Eastern Nile Basin (Gebreluel, 2014). Solar and wind power could break the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam According to some estimates, the Ethiopian government had to arrange for the resettlement of 1.5 million people in the four regions of Gambela, Somali, Afar, and Benishangul-Gumuz. It will take between eight and ten years to fill the new dam. The Chinese-financed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), despite a recent breakdown in talks on Africa's largest development project, risks powering up a range of downstream tensions and rivalries. It can help the riparian states outline principles, rights, and obligations for cooperative management of the resources of the Nile. Ethiopia says second filling of Renaissance Dam complete Egypt, fearing major disruptions to its access to the Niles waters, originally intended to prevent even the start of the GERDs construction. The Ethiopian government is spending $4.7 billion to construct the 1,780-meter dam across the Blue Nile. Ethiopia's dam dispute: five key reads about how it started and how it The Chinese donors who have agreed to fund it have performed no independent social or environmental impact reviews. for seepage and evaporation, but afforded no water to Ethiopia or other upstream riparian statesthe sources of most of the water that flows into the Nile. Such a meaningful resource-sharing agreement should not only resolve the conflict over water-use rights among the riparian states, but it should help define concepts such as equitable and reasonable use and significant harm, which have been used by the downstream states in their criticisms of the GERD. A major reason the GERD is so controversial today is that it has not been subjected to thorough safety and impact studies, which could pose a grave threat to downriver nations. (DOC) Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - Academia.edu The treaties also purported to give Egypt veto power over upstream projects. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam | International Rivers The GERD has become a new reality challenging the traditional dynamics in the Nile River Basin. Test. Recently, the tensions among Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile have escalated, particularly after Ethiopia announced that it had started filling the GERDs reservoir, an action contrary to Egypts mandate that the dam not be filled without a legally binding agreement over the equitable allocation of the Niles waters. This dam, set to be the largest in Africa in terms of power capacity, continues to cause disagreement between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt on filling and operation strategies. Ethiopia has the basins most suitable locations for hydropower production, and its damming of the Blue Nile would significantly increase Sudan's potential for irrigated agriculture. In the end, all 11 riparian states must understand that the way forward calls for the establishment of a meaningful resource-sharing agreement, one that sees and recognizes the Nile River as a regional watercourse. As mentioned above, Ethiopias dam-construction strategy is intimately linked with large-scale foreign investment in the agrarian sector and specifically in areas near the artificial reservoirs created by the dams. The Gerd is expected to generate over 5,000 megawatts of electricity, doubling the nation's . Sign up for news on environment, conflict and cooperation. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Source of cooperation or - USGS Second came the 2015 Declaration of Principles (DoP) which concerned the Dam specifically (rather than the Nile more broadly). They can also cause dispute and heartachefor example, over damage to. In turn, Egypt water policy and management should be changes or modified to overcome the great challenges. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) takes an expansionist view towards decolonisation as seen in the Chagos Islands Advisory Opinion, in which it allowed the decolonisation agenda to trump the UKs lack of consent to any contentious proceedings. While the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is taking shape on . Ethiopia, whose highlands supply more than 85 percent of the water that flows into the Nile River, has long argued that it has the right to utilize its natural resources to address widespread poverty and improve the living standards of its people. (2020). Note that, under Article 62(2) VCLT, territorial treaties are excepted from the change in circumstances rule. More alarmingly, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak allegedly even considered bombing the Dam. The Grand Renaissance Dam - Ethiopia's greatest risk Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the dam. Recently, however, Sudan has been more cautious with the project, citing concerns that the GERDs operation and safety could jeopardise its own dams (The New Arab, 2020b). "The Israeli installation of the missile system around the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was completed after the Israeli work began in May 2019, considering that it is the first Israeli air defense system abroad that can launch (two types of missiles), the first with a range of 5 km, and the second with a range of 50 kilometer". Sima Aldardari. This exception was implemented to mitigate the risk of decolonisation leading to boundary wars. River Nile dam: Why Ethiopia can't stop it being filled As stipulated by an Agreement of 1959 (see:Nile Main Conflict), Egypt and Sudan presented for several decades a common position vis--vis other riparians regarding the utilisation and management of Nile waters. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - Wikipedia Egypt, which lies 1,600 miles downstream of the Dam, believes its operation will reduce the amount of fresh water available to it from the Nile. A significant segment of local opinion is also aware of the well-known problems that come with mega-dams wherever they are built, among them population displacements and resettlement, reductions in the quality of life, the spread of waterborne diseases, salinisation and the loss of productive and profitable lands, more intense competition over the remaining available land, and losses of cultural and historic heritage. General view of the talks on Hidase Dam, built on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia, between Sudan and Egypt in Khartoum, Sudan on October 04, 2019. This is because the VCLT allows an older treaty to be rescinded by a new one if the new one concerns the same topic (Article 59). The other riparian states can then be brought in, either through the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) or some other regional framework, to secure an agreement that is binding on all the states. The announcement on Friday comes a day after Ethiopia said it had launched power production from the second turbine at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). The strategy and its surrounding narrative have attracted large influxes of foreign investment in the Ethiopian agrarian sector, with multi-million dollar leases of agricultural land to foreigners generally linked to irrigation projects planned in tandem with the construction of the dam. Article 7 provides that watercourse states must take all appropriate measures to prevent significant harm to other watercourse States and that, where harm does occur, there shall be consultations to discuss the question of compensation. Finally, Article 8 requires that watercourse states cooperate on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit and good faith.. We do know that Ethiopia is already seeing longer droughts and worse floods. The dam was named the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) because it was designed to bring about the economic and renewal of Ethiopia, a nation mentioned in Genesis 2:13 as the Land in which . Hydrological Sciences Journal, 56(4), 687-702. Ethiopia seems to have the legal upper hand in this dispute. Hence, the customary law argument might be too ambitious. On 5 July 2021, Ethiopia informed Egypt and Sudan that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia is undergoing its second filling. The controversy over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - Brookings The Blue Nile is Ethiopias largest river, with high potential for hydropower and irrigation. This article quantifies the major benefits of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project for Sudan and Egypt based on GERDP technical design and quantitative analysis. It merely provides at Article III that Ethiopia undertakes not to construct any work across the Blue Nile, Lake Tsana, or the Sobat which would arrest the flow of their waters into the Nile. In other words, Ethiopia only agreed that it would not completely stop the flow of tributaries into the Nile. 2. Egypts main argument might be that, despite being unsatisfactory and anachronistic, the Nile Waters Treaties remain good law and are enforceable against the respective parties. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is estimated to cost close to 5 billion US dollars, about 7% of the 2016 Ethiopian gross national product. (PDF) The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Evaluating Its The most important of these treaties is the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention). Zegabi East Africa News (2015). By Ambassador Gurjit Singh*. However, Ethiopia ultimately refused to sign the draft agreement. However, it also entails potential negative effects on Egypt, if not carefully managed (see alsoSecurity implications of growing water scarcity in Egypt). Officials in Addis Ababa argue that the GERD will have no major impact on water flow into the Nile, instead arguing that the hydropower dam will provide benefits to countries in the region, including as a source of affordable electric power and as a major mechanism for the management of the Nile, including the mitigation of droughts and water salinity. Even in 2023, there are only 46 state parties, with key actors such as the US, Canada and Brazil remaining outside the Conventions regime. Therefore, a negotiated position that favours Ethiopia is likely to be reached once it becomes politically palatable enough inside Egypt.
Delaune's Supermarket Weekly Ad,
Shooting In Roodepoort Today,
Unteachable Spirit Bible Verse,
A Mortgage Prepayment Penalty Is Illegal In Florida,
Harry Truman Mt St Helens Interview,
Articles D
