1. Principles and Evolution of International Law regarding Transboundary Water Sources

With increasing numbers of previous colonies gaining independence coupled with the increase in global population numbers, we see a heightened interest in governance and international laws over transboundary water sources, a major source of sustenance for humans. In this post, I would like to briefly illustrate the few major developments in international law regarding transboundary water sources, notwithstanding if it is linked to the River Nile.

The emergence over a need for international law over water bodies came about in the 1815 Vienna Conference, which was solely focused on the role of navigation over the Danube River. However, with increasing population growth and dependency on water sources for irrigation as well as the use of dams, there is a scream for a wider scope of international law protecting transboundary water sources. The Harmon Doctrine was also introduced, defining sovereignty of water resources particularly along the Rio Grande in a bid to resolve conflict between USA and Mexico. The term ‘absolute sovereignty’ was also then first introduced to the global context. Despite these attempts at creating a form of international law over transboundary water sources, they were not cemented nor followed at that time hence they only appeal as attempts and nothing more (McCaffrey, 1996).

However, the aforementioned attempts prove as vital first steps towards the generation and evolution of a more comprehensive and received international law over water. The 1966 Helsinki Rules on waters of international rivers was a vital changing point. It is agreed to be applicable to most drainage basins that cross over national borders, with the exempt of those with had previous agreements already present. Most importantly, it asserts a form of ‘equitable sharing’, noted “equity does not mean distribution by equal share, but by fair shares…” The Helsinki Rules also introduced the term of ‘International Drainage Basins’, which drew the boundaries of rivers to that of watersheds. This proved key in the definition of specific water sources but also as a point of conflict. In specific terms to the Nile, the Nile basin was previously seen to stretch to the Suez Canal, however, with that definition put in place, the Suez Canal is not the boundary as it is artificial. Hence, the Nile basin would seemingly stretch eastwards to the Sinai mountain range, bringing in new parties and issues of contention to the already contentious Nile (McCaffrey, 1999). Also, with it being the first global international law over water, there was no form of mechanisms in placethat strictly enforced that nations followed that rule (Browne, 2003). In addition, it can be depicted as an extreme top-down approach by the then “first-world” countries in trying to assert a form of rule on the world, regardless of signatories. In relation to the Nile, it must also be noted that no riparian states along the Nile actually sign nor agree explicitly to the Helsinki Rules, despite many of them claiming that previous agreements such as the 1929 and 1959 agreement nullified for misrepresentation by previous Colonial power, UK. Despite everything, it is still classified as a pioneering step towards establishing an international law over water (Raj and Salman, 1999).

From the 1966 Helsinki Rules, it became prevalent that it is difficult to establish a general set of laws applicable to ALL international rivers in particular due to each river having different characteristics. In addition, the Helsinki Rules shows a form of rejection of pre-existing theories of absolute sovereignty (Harmon Doctrine).

In the latter part of the 20^th century, there were more evolutions in relation to international laws surrounding transboundary waters. In this part, I would like to briefly introduce a few evolutions of the 1966 Helsinki Rules as well as specific laws focused on the Nile.

In 1997, there was the Convention on the law of non-navigational uses of international watercourses. Its focus was to consider sustainable utilisation of watercourses for future generations. It is comparable to that of the Helsinki Rules; however, the same issues arose, with it only being ratified by only 36 states (of which none from the Nile basin). In addition, the language used was contentious, questioning the actual definition of “obligation to do no harm” in article 7 of the document, as there are times where upper riparian states have legitimate claims and utilisation over watercourses which may inevitably negatively affect lower riparian states (McCaffrey 1998).

In more recent times, the Berlin Rules on Water Resources in 2004 was created which supercedes the 1966 Helsinki Rules. This further promotes more equitable sharing of water resources. Also, it saw the merging of different international laws such that they cover the loopholes of one another, such as the 1997 Convention used to supplement the Berlin Rules (McCaffrey, 1999). This saw an attempt to ultimately create an international law that applies to the world, but at the same time ensuring that there are no loopholes for nations to exploit. Also, the Berlin Rules on Water Resources saw the focus of weighing the needs of the people depending on the water resource. The water resources are equitably shared with relation to the dependency ratio which brought about a more fair allocation of water as well as more just claims to rights over certain quantities of water (Dellapema, 2008).

More specific to the Nile, the 1968 Ecological Convention for preservation of NaturalResources from the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Summit Conference at Algiers aimed to promote cooperation and communication between nations to study and resolve problems arising with respect to the Nile. This proved as a good enough first step of the riparian states of the Nile to acknowledge that more work and cooperation has to be put into allocating the waters of the Nile. This could also see as the prelude to that of the Nile Basin Initiative, which we would discuss in detail in the next post. 

References:

Dellapenna, J. (2008). International water law in a climate of disruption. Mich. St. U. Coll. LJ Int'l L., 17, 43.

McCaffrey, S. (1998). The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses: prospects and pitfalls. World Bank Technical Paper, 17-28.

McCaffrey, S. (1999). International groundwater law: evolution and context. World Bank Technical Paper, 139-162.

McCaffrey, S. C. (1996). Harmon doctrine one hundred years later: Buried, not praised, the. Nat. Resources J., 36, 965.

McCaffrey, S. C., & Sinjela, M. (1998). The 1997 United Nations Convention on International Watercourses. The American Journal of International Law, 92(1), 97-107.

Raj, K., & Salman, S. M. A. (1999). International groundwater law and the World Bank policy for projects on transboundary groundwater. In Groundwater: Legal and Policy Perspectives: Proceedings of a World Bank Seminar. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.

Part 3: The Cold War: Suez Crisis and its effects on the Nile

The Suez Crisis of 1956, or the Tripartite Aggression was a changing point in the political sphere of influence in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt which as seen from my previous blogposts have been an integral player in the determination of the integrity of the River Nile. This blogpost therefore focuses on the importance of the Suez Crisis and how it has a knock-on effect on the geopolitical order surrounding the River Nile - in part due to the changing stance of the Western Powers (namely U.S and U.K) on decolonisation and self-determination. The Suez Crisis can be seen as the 'straw that broke the camel's back', the event which led to the hastening of decolonisation in Africa and the Middle East.

Our evaluation should begin with a brief comparison between the different leaders of Egypt at that time and how it had a significant impact on the events preceding the change in power as well as Egypt's stance on the Cold War world order. This had quite substantial repercussions on the politics along the River Nile. The last king of Egypt, King Farouk was overthrown by the Nationalist duo of then General Mohammed Naguib and Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Nasser, who subsequently became the first and second President's of Egypt. King Farouk was arguably merely a puppet for the Western Powers, namely the United Kingdom who at that time shared control of the Suez Canal with France. The Free Officers Movement, led by Naguib and Nasser was against the idea of Egypt being a mere pawn of the West, in addition, they had garnered the support of the masses, particularly due to incidents such as the 'Cairo Fires' and Black Saturday (King, 1989). With the exile of the last king of Egypt led to the creation of the Revolution Command Council (RCC), consisting mostly of members from the Free Officers. General Naguib was then sworn in as the first President of Egypt. His reign however did not last long as he had differing opinions to that of his younger compatriots (Nasser), wanting the country to be placed under civilian rule and the military to act as more of a shield rather than the ruler (Reich, 1990). Gamal Nasser then finally took chairmanship of the RCC, and became the second president of Egypt. His anti-imperialist stance and adoption of 'positive neutralism' in the period of the Cold War drew great attention to Egypt, as he could be seen as often trying to play off the Allies against the Soviets leveraging on the Suez Canal (which was nationalised) in a bid to lift Egypt's position in the Global World order (Aburish, 2004; Mansfield, 1973). In addition, the funding of the Aswan (High) Dam then was a additional card Nasser played, understanding that the Allies and Soviet Union were both keen on maintaining friendly relations with Egypt as the then leader of the Arab world. In the end, the Allies bowed out leaving the Aswan dam to be funded by the Soviet (Gaddis, 1998). These basic understanding of the shift in power of Egypt's rulers should provide a satisfactory insight to Egyptian politics then and how it could affect not only Egypt's reign of the Nile waters but also how the fellow players who were colonies or protectorates such as Sudan and Uganda changed their stance and gained courage to actively seek for self-determination against the colonial powers.

In addition, Nasser's rule was met with its first challenge and one of the key changing events shifting the power relations present in Northern Africa and Middle East in the late 1956 in the form of an Israeli, U.K and French invasion - the Suez Crisis. Prior to the actual invasion, the canal was seized by President Nasser and his troops in a bid to nationalise the nation's crown jewel. At that time, the canal was controlled by the British and the French, and hence a main objective of their participation in the invasion was to restore the canal to its 'rightful' owners (Kyle, 1991). In addition, the canal was a key installation which facilitates the movement of important raw materials - namely oil, from the Middle East and Saudi Arabia to the West. Not going into too much detail with regards to the invasion, it can be simply cited as one of the key failures in U.K's history, which to some extent leading some to cite it as the key changing point in U.K's global power. The failure was particularly important for it saw the U.S.A not only refuse to support the U.K and France, but also threatened to economically destabilise the British economy. The eventual withdrawal of the Allied forces in Egypt culminated Egypt's rise as a leader of the Arab world and signified their strength in the region (Owen, 2002). The victory (despite political) over Western Powers from a previous colony that gained independence merely years ago aspired many other colonies in Africa and the Middle East to actively seek self-determination. In addition, with the British failure and strenuous ties between Britain and the U.S.A, Britain had to adopt a more benign foreign policy post-Suez crisis, giving in to the UN's (USA) demands for collective decolonisation (Jervis, 1997).

With all that established, we hence consider how the aforementioned events affects the sovereignty and the power relations of the river Nile. As seen, the Soviet funding of the Aswan (High) dam, coupled with the Egyptian victory over the Western powers solidified their higher position in the ladder despite being a downstream riparian. In addition, many of the nations along the Nile were at that time more concerned about other issues such as independence. As a result, it is obvious that Egypt was not only victorious in Suez, but also gained victory over the dominance of the course of the Nile. However, with the riparians slowly gaining independence, e.g. Sudan, the previous treaties with respect to rights of the water were challenged and repudiated as a form of misrepresentation as much of the treaties (mentioned in my previous posts) clearly show that the treaties were signed by colonial rulers and not representatives of the nation itself. In conclusion, the introduction of Nasserism and the rise of Egypt as a key player in the region has significant impacts, not in the Middle East and the Arab world but in Africa and the rest of the world as many colonies then saw how a previous colony managed to rise against all odds and gained not only victory against their previous colonial rulers but also recognition in the global geopolitical order.

This leads us to our next blogpost where we discuss and investigate how these independent nations with personal political agendas solve the 'conflict' of water of the Nile.

References:

Aburish, S. K. (2004). Nasser: The Last Arab. Macmillan.

Gaddis, J. L. (1998). We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES, 32(1), 196-197.

Jervis, R. (1997). Risse-Kappen, Thomas. Cooperation Among Democracies: The European Influence on US Foreign Policy. ANNALS-AMERICAN ACADEMY OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE, 1(553), 209-209.

Kyle, K. (1991). Suez: Britain's end of Empire in the Middle East. IB Tauris.

Mansfield, P. (1973). The Middle East: a political and economic survey. Oxford University Press.

Owen, R. (2002). State Power and Politics in the Making of the Modern Middle East. Routledge.

Reich, B. (1990). Political leaders of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa: a biographical dictionary. Greenwood Publishing Group.

Wucher, J. K. (1989). Historical dictionary of Egypt. American Univ. in Cairo Press.