The Washington Quarterly, 37(2), 25-37. It is clearly a philosophy that looks beyond the electricity and freshwater needs of local communities to a geo-strategic restructuring of the Horn of Africa. The situation seemed to improve in the beginning of 2015 when tripartite negotiations were held in order to determine principles of cooperation. Success on this endeavor will only occur under a legally binding regime that ensures mutually beneficial rights. It provides clear benefits to all three riparian, such as flood control, reduced flood damages and sediment control. Since 2015, technical reports on the potential impacts of the dam have failed to reach a consensus within the TNC (Maguid, 2017). Addis Ababa launched the construction of the GERD under Zenawi, and work on it has proceeded at full steam ahead ever since. Such an understanding and appreciation of Egypts water vulnerability would help the riparians develop a water management protocol that can significantly enhance equitable and reasonable use while minimizing significant harm to downstream riparians. Similarly, in 2018, the UNSC noted the water security risks in African nations such as Somalia, Sudan and Mali. A general view of the Blue Nile river as it passes through the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), near Guba in Ethiopia, on December 26, 2019. Another impressive snippet of information is that the Government of Ethiopia is financing the entire project, along with loans mainly from China. On March 4, 1982, Bertha Wilson became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. 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. The filling regime and operational methods of GERD will affect Egypt, in particular through its impact on the operation of its Aswan High Dam (AHD) which aims at mitigating the high variability of the Nile River flow. On Foes and Flows: Vulnerabilities, Adaptive Capacities and Transboundary Relations in the Nile River Basin in Times of Climate Change. The crucial leverage regarding Egypts water security lies with the Blue Nile countries Ethiopia and Sudan, as the Blue Nile is the main contributor to the Nile Rivers flow downstream. Swain, A. Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the dam. But the project has caused concern. In recognition of the fact that the Nile Waters Treaties had become an uncomfortable and anachronistic vestige of colonialism, ten watercourse states along the Nile (including Egypt and Ethiopia) agreed in 1999 to form the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). Trilateral talks between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan to finalise an agreement on a cooperation framework for the GERD have been mediated by the African Union, World Bank and United States. Whittington, D. et al. casting the DoP as a treaty) has the potential to abrogate the Nile Waters Treaties that Egypt holds so dear. Terms in this set (10) how long and high is the dam? The politicisation of the Niles water and the utilisation of development projects to achieve political ends are not new phenomena. Sudan is caught between the competing interests of Egypt and Ethiopia. To African commentators in recent decades, massive investments in mega-energy and irrigation projects were emblematic of the African economic emergence, and Ethiopia at that time vaunted itself as one of the fastest-growing economies in the region. Egypt has issued a public statement to that effect. Crucially, however, neither Egypt nor Ethiopia are parties to the Watercourses Convention and so they are not bound by its terms. Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in Africa, has the second largest population in the continent. First, Ethiopia could highlight that it was not a party to either the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty or the 1959 Egypt-Sudan Treaty. Although the immediate issue at stakesecuring a technical agreement on the filling of the GERDs reservoiris among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, the broader and longer-term goal should be for all 11 statesincluding Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Eritrea, and South Sudanto agree on a legal regime for the management of this important watercourse. This antipathy is not new, with Munzinger noting even in the nineteenth century that Ethiopia is a danger for Egypt [which] must either take over Ethiopia and Islamize it or, retain it in anarchy and misery. Still, the Dam brings the old enmity into sharp focus. The Chinese then took over the funding amidst heightened international concern regarding the social, technical, and environmental repercussions of the Ethiopian dams. The decisions that this group renders must be binding on all riparian states. It can help the riparian states outline principles, rights, and obligations for cooperative management of the resources of the Nile. 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. Given agricultures importance to pro-poor economic growth, Egypt, which has significant experience and expertise in irrigation agriculture, can share some of that expertise with other countries in exchange for increased trade with them. This exception was implemented to mitigate the risk of decolonisation leading to boundary wars. l located on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia . From this round of talks, it appears that negotiations are able to move forward and address other sticking points on the agenda, such as conflict resolution mechanisms and the dams operations in the event of multi-year droughts (Al Jazeera, 2020). Egypt, Ethiopia to form joint committee on Renaissance Dam. However, it also entails potential negative effects on Egypt, if not carefully managed (see alsoSecurity implications of growing water scarcity in Egypt). Ethiopia, however, prefers to have the flexibility to make decisions on how to deal with droughts. The three fillings hitherto, with the most recent in August 2022, imposed no discernible harm on downstream states. Feb 11th 2021 DAMS HAVE several uses. Addis Ababa expects to sell no less than 4,000 Megawatts (MW) of electricity to its regional partners in the coming decade. Subsequent impact studies were performed by the European Investment Bank and the African Development Bank, and in the light of the results, these banks cancelled their funding for Gibe III. This is hardly a revelation, as this strategy has long been foremost in the minds of the ruling elites in Addis Ababa and supported by the international powers. As a result, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has recognised water security as a possible threat to international peace. After announcing the dam's construction, and with a view to the increasing tensions, the Ethiopian government invited both Egypt and Sudan to form an International Panel of Experts (IPoE) to solicit understanding of the benefits, costs and impacts of the GERD. Four of these would potentially be located on the main river and one would eventually evolve into the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). This agreement could pave the way for a more detailed cooperation framework, and represents a major step toward dispute resolution. Disputes over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), hailed by both Egypt and Ethiopia as a new chapter in relations between Egypt and Ethiopia based on openness and mutual understanding and cooperation (. It signifies that Egypts de facto veto power on major upstream dams has been broken, and it clearly demonstrates the political will of Ethiopia to develop its water infrastructure even in the absence of a comprehensive basin agreement. The disadvantages for Egypt and Sudan are the possibility of reduced river flow, although this is only really a problem during the years of filling the dam. It could be a treaty or merely a political declaration as the name implies. According to this narrative, the Blue Nile, or Abay in Amharic, is a purely Ethiopian river. According to present plans, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) now under construction across the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia will be the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa, and one of the 12 largest in the world. However, an agreement was still far from reach. Indeed, Egypt has called the filling of the dam an. Egypt wants control and guarantees for its share of Nile waters. Another difficulty for Egypt is that making this argument (i.e. 17th round of GERD tripartite talks hits wall in Cairo. Perhaps even more consequential is the fact that this agreement granted Egypt veto power over future Nile River projects. However, by far the largest of these projects is the GERD, which was announced in 2010 and work on which was launched in 2011 by means of a nationwide fundraiser in which Ethiopian civil servants were reportedly obliged to volunteer a months salary to invest in GERD bonds. In March 2015, a 'Declaration of Principles' was signed by the leaders of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, setting the foundations for an initial cooperation. Government of the United States of America. Perhaps the most significant project in the 2003 plan was the Chemoga-Yeda Hydroelectric Project, a series of five small dams on Blue Nile tributaries and two dams on the Genale River with a couple more envisioned for a later phase. Ethiopia seems to have the legal upper hand in this dispute. Disadvantages Slow process Could be washed to the wrong direction Start up costs Lesson 4: Long term investment, It can't cope with he propagation rate of water hyacinth. The latter, in Article 2(4), allocated acquired rights of 66% of Nile water to Egypt and 22% to Sudan (with the remaining 12% attributed to leakage). According to Article 16, former colonies do not inherit the treaty obligations of their former colonial rulers and instead receive a clean slate. However, Egypt could argue that the territorial treaty exception, under Articles 11 and 12, applies whereby colonial treaty provisions concerning boundaries must survive the impact of succession and bind successor states. Copyright 2023, JURIST Legal News & Research Services, Inc. Elliot Winter | New Castle University (UK), Egyptian Water Security and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Why Ethiopia has the Upper Hand, Vienna Convention on the Succession of States, history of copyright in the United States. Despite the intense disagreements, though, Ethiopia continues to move forward with the dam, arguing that the hydroelectric project will significantly improve livelihoods in the region more broadly. Egypt says. Since its inception, there have been two, highly contentious, products. Egypt's 100 million people rely on the Nile for 90% of the country's water needs. 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). However, the Convention took almost twenty years to enter into force (from 1997 to 2014) due to the lack of necessary ratifications by states. The Gerd is expected to generate over 5,000 megawatts of electricity, doubling the nation's . In my opinion, this should be negotiable, to fill the lake over a longer period, and only when the river is sufficiently full. For nearly a century, as a legacy of colonialism, Egypt enjoyed what Tekuya referred to as a hydro-hegemony over the Nile; despite Ethiopia contributing 86% to its waters. 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. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam located in the Benishangul-Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, about 45 km east of the border with Sudan. Even then, the initial studies did not extend beyond the borders with Kenya. India dispatch: Supreme Court limits DNA paternity testing in divorce proceedings, prioritizing childrens privacy rights, US dispatch: Texas case could limit access to abortion medication, Copyright infringement made federal crime. 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. European countries including Italy, Belgium and especially the UK controlled the Nile as part of colonisation and the broader Scramble for Africa. These colonising states used the tactic of concluding treaties (often at gunpoint) to secure their interests and, in this case, essentially prohibit upstream states from using their own waters. Under the Ethiopian constitution, the state is the proprietor of the countrys land and natural resources, which gives the government significant control over the allocation and use of land. The current filling which is ongoing since early July 2021 has presented no issues as well. I agree with the delivery of the newsletter. In my opinion, this should be negotiable, to fill the lake over a longer period, and only when the river is sufficiently full. Test. The piece (i) gives a brief history of the Dam; (ii) outlines the role of the Watercourses Convention; (iii) explains the significance of the Nile Waters Treaties; (iv) sets out the main legal arguments for Egypt and (v) provides the main legal arguments for Ethiopia. Therefore, all the water is eventually released downstream with the effect that there is no net loss of water to downstream states. Nevertheless, Egypt must not use sympathy for its water vulnerability as a weapon to frustrate the efforts of the other riparians to secure an agreement that is balanced, fair, and equitable. Learn. Concern has focused in particular on Lake Turkana, which derives 90 per cent of its water from the Omo River on which the Gilgel Gibe III Dam was built. One question that keeps coming up is: Will Ethiopia be willing to release enough water from the reservoir to help mitigate a drought downstream? Could the Nile dispute be an opportunity to boost freshwater technology? Although Egypt has persistently argued that the 1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan is the legal framework for the allocation of the waters of the Nile, Ethiopia and other upstream riparian states reject that argument. In addition, no independent, multilateral Environmental and Social Impact Assessments has been carried out suggesting that Ethiopia is reneging from the 2015 Declaration of Principles (Kandeel, 2020). Because the strategy of land allocation and dam construction relied on senior executive decisions and foreign funding from China, above all, the government was largely freed of pressures of transparency and accountability. It simultaneously expects that this role will change Ethiopias international status from a country perceived as poor and dependent on foreign aid to a regional power able to provide vital resources to its surrounding region. Egypts Nile Water Policy under Sisi: Security Interests Promote Rapprochement with Ethiopia. Downstream countries Egypt and Sudan have expressed concerns over the impacts of the dam on their water supply. In March 2015, a 'Declaration of Principles' was signed by the leaders of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, setting the foundations for an initial cooperation (Salman, 2017). In contrast, other watercourse states on the Nile have lent their support to the Dam. These two factors could become serious problems. In any event, the dispute remains. This is good news for Egypt and Sudan as hydropower means little actual water withdrawal. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and hydroelectric project is located 700 km northeast of the capital city Addis Abeba, in the Benishangul--Gumaz region of Ethiopia, along the Blue Nile River. It has also expressed concerns about the potential impact the initial filling of the dam will have on areas downstream. Addis Ababa has said the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a $4bn hydropower project, is crucial to its economic development and to provide power. Owned and operated by the Ethiopian Electric Power company, the 145-m-tall roller-compacted concrete gravity dam . Ethiopias interests in developing its water resources are driven by its growing population and high demand for socio-economic development (Gebreluel, 2014). Although Khartoum initially opposed the construction of the GERD, it has since warmed up to it, citing its potential to improve prospects for domestic development. Gebreluel, G. (2014). 4. Neither the Egyptian nor the Ethiopian governments received positive domestic feedback on their agreement. It states in Principle III that the parties shall take all appropriate measures to prevent the causing of significant harm. First woman appointed to the Canada Supreme Court. (2011). 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 Ethiopian government has always availed itself of its power to transfer local populations off land it decides to declare a public resource. While this means new opportunities to develop extended irrigation-based agriculture for the Sudanese, it represents also a new threat for Egypts current Nile water utilisation (Whittington et al., 2014). The colonial powers have departed and so to continue to enforce treaties agreed based around their interests would be irrational. A Tripartite National Committee (TNC), consisting of national experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, was constituted in order to determine principles of cooperation. However, another trend stresses the need to approach the question from a broader and more holistic perspective. In an effort to forestall potential water conflicts such as the one brewing around the Dam, an increasing number of bilateral and multilateral water agreements have been concluded in recent decades. Salman, S.M.A. The dispute escalated in 2011 when Ethiopia began construction of a major new dam, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), in the absence of any agreement with downstream Egypt. Hence, it is hard to see how Egypt could make a compelling argument that it has been harmed by the Dam.

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