WATER CONFLICT, SECURITY AND COOPERATION

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WATER CONFLICT, SECURITY AND COOPERATION

• Dr. Marwa Daoudy
• IUHEI (Geneva), CERI (Paris)

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• Water is not necessary for life, it is life
• Antoine de St-Exupéry, Terre des Hommes, 1939

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WATER, AN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE

• PARTIAL PERSPECTIVE
•  Crisis  or  war because of freshwater
  scarcity geopolitics of water
• INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT
• Sanitary, environmental, political, institutional
  and financial issues

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MAP

• Water, an International Issue
• The Debate Water and IR
• Benefit-Sharing

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ELEMENTS OF A CRISIS

• INDICATORS
• Global data
• Resource use per person per year
• Rate of utilization
• Dependency rate on external sources

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THE WATER CYCLE
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WATER-RELATED DATA

• 263 internationally shared basins (A. Wolf,
  Oregon State, Water Database)
• 70 in Africa, 55 in Europe, 40 in Asia, 33 in
  South America, 6 in the Middle East
• 1400 million cubic kilometers (millions of
  billions of m3), 70 of the earth, only 2.5 of
  freshwater
• Renewable resources 40 000 km3/year, i.e. 0,007
  of the total water volume
• Not an issue of global availability but
  geographic distribution 9 countries 60 of
  world water resources.

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CRISIS - INDICATORS (I)

• Availability per person per year
• gt 1700 m3/h/an relative water sufficiency
• Between 1700 and 1000 m3/p/year water stress
• Between 1000 and 500 m3/p/y scarcity line
• lt 500 m3/p/y absolute scarcity

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CRISIS - INDICATORS (II)

• Rate of dependence on external sources
• Upstream/downstream (main areas of tension)
• E.g Turkmenistan (98), Egypt (97), Syria (80)

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INDICATORS (III)

• Water utilizations
• 70 to agriculture (ME 80-90)
• Global food need to find a balance between
  agriculture/industry/domestic use

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ELEMENTS OF A CRISIS (I)

• Health-related dilemmas
• Water quality (80 of diseases are water-borne in
  poor countries - WHO)
• Pollution (pesticides and salinity of water and
  soils)

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ELEMENTS OF A CRISIS (II)

• Demographic growth
• World population x 3 in 100 years
• Pressures on water x 6 in 100 years
• Mainly in developing countries
• Increased urbanization pressure on water (90
  of demographic growth is absorbed by cities)
• Green Revolution food security, intensive
  irrigation practices (vs. Blue Revolution )

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ORIGINS AND CONSEQUENCES

• Increased water demand (demographic growth)
• Decreased water supply and water quality
• Main areas of conflict

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INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE

• Decision-making process?
• Execution of mandates?
• Accountability, responsibility?

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THE DEBATE

• Institutional, economic, ethical, strategic and
  political issues at stake
• No common vision or unified strategy

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INTERNATIONAL GOVERNANCE OF THE ENVIRONMENT

• Efficiency of international agreements
• Legitimacy of procedures
• Equitable share of responsibilities

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International Water Governance

• Environmental, economic and social issues
• Sustainable development
• Promoting Integrated Water Resources Management
  (IWRM)
• Global good vs. Economic good
• Water ethics International Water Law

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MULTILATERALISM

• Promoting International Water Governance
• Stockholm, Rio, Johannesburg
• 1972, 1992, 2002

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INTEGRATED WATER MANAGEMENT (IWRM)

• Sustainable water management and sustainable
  development
• Integrating sometimes opposed interests
  (ecosystems/human needs, surface
  water/underground resources, upstream/downstream
  interests, different uses).
• Chapter 18 of Agenda 21 (Rio) water is an
  economic good

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WATER AND ECONOMICS

• Symbolic dimension water gift from God public
  good
• Water costs?

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WATER ECONOMICS THE DEBATE

• Regional scarcity need to calculate total
  distribution costs
• Global economic costs distribution opportunity
  external
• Conclusion need to enhance economic efficiency
  and environmental, ecological sustainability.
  Avoid  tragedy of common goods .

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ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

• Private investments in water sector
• Investments to increase water supplies (supply
  management) desalination
•  Virtual water  food imports water imports
  (1500 m3/ton of cereals)
• Water markets

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ISSUES AT STAKE

• Privatization of water sector risks
• Water access as human right
• Water as global public good
• Third way between total privatization and total
  State control

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WATER ETHICS

• Need to enhance cooperation among States
• International legal standards
• Slow but steady construction of IL on utilization
  of international watercourses for
  non-navigational purposes (United Nations
  Convention, 1997).

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CONCLUSIONS

• Multidimensional issue
• Water human survival, economic growth and
  political stability
• Hydro-politics link between hydraulic issues
  strategic, economic and political levels
  (cooperation, conflict, security).

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WATER AND IR
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The Theoretical Debate

• I. Water Conflict Cooperation some IR theories
• II. Debating water issues in the 1990s
  environmental security vs. virtual water
• III. Debating water issues today benefit sharing
  vs. water rights.

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Water Specificity Some Theoretical implications

• Global Common Good need for collective action
• Avoid  tragedy of the commons  (Hardin, 1968)
  or unilateral abuse by developing common and
  organized management of resources.

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• Water, Conflict and Security

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Conflict over Water

• Classification criteria (Zeitoun Warner, 2006)
• Development disputes
• Control of water resources
• Water as political tool
• Water as military target
• Water as military tool
• Inter-State
• Intra-State

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Water Conflict and Cooperation

• Regime Theory regional institutions to manage
  cooperative regimes for natural resources.
• International Governance agent-based resolution
  of collective problems at local, national and
  international level.

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Water Conflict Cooperation

• Power Matrix additional factors (other than
  asymmetry) to explain link between water and
  conflict (interests, riparian position, projected
  power).
• Inherent asymmetry as specific nature of
  conflicts over water (Haftendorn, 2000).
• Conflict resolution should address asymmetric
  structure of conflict

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Water Conflict vs. Water Cooperation

• Environmental security vs. virtual water
  (Pessimists vs. Optimists)
• Debate in 1990s very high risks of violent
  conflict because of increasing water scarcity
  (e.g., Middle East)
• Vs. no conflict despite water scarcity and
  tensions additional supply through water
  embedded in food imports

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GEOPOLITICAL STUDIES

• Conventional Geopolitics
• Natural resource endowments and geography are
  defining features of a States status
• Geographical and environmental determinism

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WATER - GEOPOLITICS

• Neo-Malthusianism WATER WARS
• Demographic growth, resource scarcity and violent
  conflict
• Cornucopian perspectives cooperation vs.
  conflict
• Available but mismanaged resources
• Need to evaluate resources economically (price)

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• WATER WARS?

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The Debate

• The inevitability of water conflicts is supported
  by quantitative and qualitative analysis. The
  link between water and violent conflict is thus
  confirmed.
• As a strategic security concern, water can become
  a source of conflict but interdependent riparian
  states are more likely to cooperate over water.

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Water Security

• A new debate on national security critical
  security studies (CSS)
• Enlargement of threats from traditional
  (military, economic) to non-traditional
  (environment, resources, health)
• Link between environmental problems and emergence
  of conflicts
•  Environmental security 

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Research Questions

• What linkages are established between the
  environment and security? How can they explain
  the successful securitization of the environment
  as a referent object since the 1990s.
• Some would argue that resource scarcities have
  been over-securitized in the last decades. How?
  Why? What about current trends towards the
  securitization of the environment in relation to
  development?

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Environmental Security (1)

• Transnational environmental problems
• Resource-based conflicts

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Environmental Security (2)

• Toronto School (Homer-Dixon, 1993, 1994)
• Oslo School (Gledditsch, 1998, 2000)
• Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars
  (ECSP), Washington.

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THE SECURITIZATION OF WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

• Link between environmental problems (water) and
  national security issues
• Threat perception
• Securitization of environmental problems
  maintain local biosphere as an essential support
  on which will depend all other human activities
  (Buzan et al., 1998, p. 74)

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UNDERLYING CONCEPTS

• Negotiation
• Power (asymmetry)
• Conflict (resolution)

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• Water, Conflict and Negotiation

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NEGOTIATION ELEMENTS

• Actors
• Structure
• Process
• Strategies
• Results

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ACTORS

• Defining the Hegemon State that temporarily
  gains a preponderance of power in the
  international and/or regional system
• It can unilaterally dominate the rules
• and procedures that guide political and economic
  relations and water dynamics

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STRUCTURE

• Asymmetry of power (upstream/downstream,
  military, economic resources)
• History of relations (politics, culture, etc..)
• Structural power (1st dimension of power)

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PROCESS

• Cooperative, integrative
• (win-win)
• Conflict-oriented, distributive
• (win-lose)
• Mixed (but predominantly)

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STRATEGIES

• Bargaining Power ( 2nd face of power )
• Time
• Costs of no agreement

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AGREEMENTS

• Bilateral vs. basin-wide, temporary vs. lasting,
  stable, unstable
• Structure of agreements
• power structure (Schelling, 1960)
• BATNA Best Alternative to No Agreement

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How to reach agreements in situations of
Hydro-Hegemony?

• Security dilemma
• Unilateral upstream development dependence and
  insecurity for downstream riparians
• ? Bargaining power reverse of asymmetrical
  dynamics

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Some Counter-Hegemony Strategies

• Issue-Linkage linkage, securitization process
• Change the other riparians utilities
  alternatives
• Impact on strategic, economic, security interests
  
• Immediate interests food and water security
• General interests regional, border security
• International Law source of bargaining and
  structural power for dependent and/or downstream
  riparians

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Power Asymmetry The Debate

• Power asymmetry between strong and weaker
  riparians constitutes a major source of water
  conflict. The will of the stronger states
  prevails and determines the course of action.
• Power asymmetry between strong and weaker
  riparians constitutes a major source of water
  cooperation A difference in power symmetries
  presents an opportunity for weaker riparians to
  find solutions and strategies to impact the
  process and final outcome, thus enhancing the
  power of the weak.

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Water Conflict Resolution

• Asymmetry of power specific to water conflicts
  vs. political or some other environmental
  conflicts
• Resolve the conflict by addressing the structure
  of conflict, not causes
• Desecuritization process focus on interests,
  power and rights

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POWER ASYMMETRY AND HYDRO-HEGEMONY

• Research findings more efficient outcomes if
  asymmetry of power (power strategies)
• limits to Hydro-Hegemony
• Only bilateral agreements limits to issue
  linkage and downstream power

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• Water Cooperation Economics

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Cornucopian perspectives

• Political Economy
• Cooperative solutions through water markets and
  pricing of water
• Virtual water
• Demand management
• Benefit-sharing

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The Debate

• Cooperation through joint water management,
  information-sharing, monitoring, etc. can provide
  the incentive for broader cooperation between
  co-riparians that is needed for effective
  de-securitization, thus allowing for conflict
  prevention/transformation, mutual benefit-sharing
  and development of all the concerned riparian
  states.

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Policy Research Findings

• Transboundary Water Cooperation as a Tool for
  Conflict Prevention and Broader Benefit-Sharing,
  Expert Group on Development Issues of the Swedish
  Ministry for Foreign Affairs
• Co-authored with Phillips, Mc Caffrey, Öjendal,
  Turton, 2006.

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The framework for the approach

• Specific research and policy-oriented questions
• What role does the sharing of benefits play in
  the conflict/cooperation debate?
• Can cooperation on the sharing of international
  watercourses be utilized as a broader conflict
  prevention tool?
• What are the key areas for development partners
  in integrating trans-boundary water management
  more closely into their overall development
  agendas?

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From Water Wars to the Sharing of Benefits

• Options for cooperation and the amicable sharing
  of benefits resulting from professionally managed
  watersheds.
• The desecuritization of water resource
  management

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Benefit-Sharing

• Sadoff and Grey (2002)
• Simplest and most useful general framework to
  date
• Benefits from cooperation over a shared river
  basin may be divided into four different
  categories environmental, economic,
  political, and catalytic.

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The Inter-SEDE Model

• Phillips et al., 2006 assumption that a
  well-managed watershed will provide enhanced
  benefits in terms of Security, Economic
  Development, and the Environment
• Comparative analysis for the Jordan, the Kagera
  and the Mekong basins
• Establishment of relevant categories of
  indicators for 21 riparians of the three basins

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Categories of Benefits

• Security promotion of peaceful relations,
  reduction of military expenditure, prevention of
  human and societal insecurity.
• Economic development enhancement of trade, food
  production, local household consumption,
  livelihoods.
• Both of the above elements are nested in the
  environment contribution to biodiversity,
  promotion of sustainable management of
  trans-boundary resources, access to sufficient w.
  resources.

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Identify Key Drivers

• Use indicators to identify key drivers
• All riparians have been ranked for all the
  indicators and resulting ranks placed in five
  bands 1-5
• Conclusions relative importance of different
  categories of drivers

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CONCLUSIONS

• Clear need for further development of the concept
  as a whole one size does not fit all
• Over-riding importance of security-related
  dynamics securitization/de-securitization
  dynamics
• Any successful benefit-sharing scheme will
  require the generation of a broad basket of
  possible benefits to act as an inducement to each
  co-riparian to be involved.
• Benefit-sharing will need to be established based
  on concrete inducements which can be quantified
• Equitable allocation vs. benefits two sides of
  same coin

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From Theory to Reality?

• Testing the frameworks in the Jordan and Mekong
  Basins.