A midst the ongoing pandemic we have been facing a plethora of issues. But this pandemic has preached us the importance of cooperation and the plenitude of boons it bestows on us. However, there are few instances around the globe wherein consensus has not been achieved owing to the lack of intent to cooperate. Such an issue is the conflict between three countries of the African continent; a conflict between the aspirations of a million and the fears of nation, prevailing over the world’s longest river system, THE NILE.
This decade-long dispute is over Ethiopia constructing Africa’s largest dam, a $5Billion project, named the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile, a tributary. The parties to this dispute are Egypt and Sudan in addition to Ethiopia, the owner. Geographically, Egypt and Sudan are riparian countries bordering Ethiopia, downstream of the Blue Nile. Thus they call themselves as downstream countries and Ethiopia is referred to as an upstream country.
1. A brief look into the past
To understand the current impasse among these countries it would be vital to know its roots.
The earliest agreement on the Blue Nile is the 1929 treaty between Egypt and Great Britain(on behalf of Sudan) granting Egypt hegemony over the Nile’s waters and veto power over other upstream projects. In furtherance to this treaty, Egypt and Sudan, in 1959 agreed to share the Nile’s waters in a proportion of 55.5BCM(Billion Cubic meters) to Egypt and 18.5BCM to Sudan leaving only 10BCM that evaporates from Egypt’s High Aswan Dam(HAD), without consulting the upstream countries.
This treaty has hence, been rejected by the upstream countries and in 2010 a new framework called the Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) was signed by Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi. This agreement was rejected by Egypt and Sudan as it violated their ‘historic’ water rights. However, Ethiopia started constructing the GERD in April 2011, leading to Egypt echoing a war on Ethiopia. But this was averted and all the three countries sat down for talks. These negotiations have still not reached a consensus and now this issue has gained global attention.
2. Deliberations
Ethiopia has relied on the principle of “equitable utilisation of shared watercourses” during negotiations, as enshrined in Article.5, of the U.N Watercourses Convention, 1997, which is in itself held to be an ambiguous piece of legislation by various scholars like A.T Wolf as the concept of ‘equitable use’ has a rather wide connotation[1].
Nevertheless, the parties in 2013, agreed to establish an International Panel of Experts(IPoE). The panel clearly ruled out the presence of any significant harm to downstream countries. Another major development from the talks was the Declaration of Principles(DoP) laid down in 2015. The DoP mainly advocates a peaceful resolving of the GERD issue. Interestingly, all the parties have agreed to have the DoP binding on them.
3. Ethiopia’s stand
The Ethiopians have invested all their fortunes in this project by buying government bonds thus making it self-financed. This project mainly focuses on generating power and is claimed to generate about 6000-7000MW of power. Thus it can not only bring lights to the 65% of Ethiopia’s powerless population but also Ethiopia could export surplus power to other countries thus improving its economic status from a low-income country to a middle-income country.
In fact, the Blue Nile being a seasonal river is more prone to flooding. Thus the GERD in addition to being a hydroelectricity plant could also be a flood mitigating structure. Hence it can regulate the Blue Nile’s flow. Thus it has already addressed a significant parameter in watercourse laws, which is the “duty to prevent significant harm”.
However, the destined productivity of this project is possible only if there is a timely filling by Ethiopia. This filling could be done only during the monsoon wherein rainfall is at its maximum. Hence Ethiopia has already begun the first filling of the GERD, this July when the monsoon begins for it.
This has agitated Egypt as it claims that in the absence of a consensus it is highly arbitrary and violative of the DoP. However, as Ethiopia contests, the DoP does not explicitly contend that the first filling cannot be done in the absence of a consensus.
Thus the very piece of legislation which advocated peace has turned into a source of another conflict.
4. Egypt’s stand
It will now be expedient to look into the arguments placed by Egypt, which considers its rights over the Nile to be eternal and indisputable.
Firstly, the GERD was started at a time when Egypt was under political turmoil. Thus it became impossible for Egypt to respond immediately. However, it soon returned and negotiations began in 2013.
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When the report came out in 2013, Egypt commented it to be a very basic report lacking specific details. According to Cairo, the dam apparently had no significant harm but if a detailed study had been done on the dam, the potential hazards could have been revealed. Interestingly, the IPoE have also agreed that their report is a basic structure.
Since the IPoE was a partial failure, in mid-2018, the National Independent Scientific Research Group (NISRG) was created. Cairo here had emphasized that the GERD had various chances of affecting the High Aswan Dam. Hence, it stressed on a cooperative approach so that there would be no chance of drought to Egypt following which a comprehensive proposal was presented to Ethiopia which was rejected by it.
It is clear from the course of negotiations that Cairo wanted a clear agreement establishing the rights and obligations on the parties. Sudan which resisted the GERD now supported it owing to the benefits the GERD conferred on it. Hence the conflict was narrowed into Egypt and Ethiopia with Sudan becoming a mere stakeholder.
According to sources, Egypt wanted a stage-based filling to avoid drought. Furthermore, it wanted an operational rule on the filling of the GERD. Egypt depends on the Blue Nile for 90% of its water requirements. Thus it is quite natural to find Cairo stressing upon such parameters.
Also, Cairo has felt that Ethiopia has wielded this issue to frame a water-sharing agreement. It feels that Ethiopia should concentrate only on the GERD and not on the percentage of water to be shared between the parties.
Thus it was clear that the parties were unable to solve the issue between them. This forced Cairo to bring in a third party to mediate, the U.S.A. and the World Bank. Article 10 of the DoP guarantees that if parties are unable to resolve the issue between themselves, a third party could act as a mediator.
5. The mediators
Thus the U.S treasury entered the scene this year, along with the World Bank to act as mediators. Seeing the ongoing dialogues, U.S attempted to frame an agreement between the parties. This was the January-15-statement, a detailed agreement regarding the precise amount of water to be shared among the countries at different climatic conditions. This was separated into four mitigations depending upon the extent of drought.
Ethiopia has refused to sign this agreement while on the contrary; the other parties have already signed it. Ethiopia feels that this agreement makes it binding upon it to share a greater proportion of the Blue Nile’s water when Egypt is facing a drought as when there is a reduced rainfall pattern it will not only affect Egypt but also Ethiopia. Hence it would have to bear the grunt of drought. Thus it seemed to be an act without reciprocal gains. Hence Ethiopia announced its departure from the U.S-led negotiations despite U.S coercing it to sign the agreement.[2] U.S and the World Bank were mere observers as asserted by the U.S treasury in its February-13-statement. Thus it was arbitrary on the part of U.S., to force Ethiopia to sign an agreement by departing from its position to establish its supremacy.
6. The way forward
Now that the U.S-led mission has turned into an absolute failure, with the irony of President Trump warranting a Nobel Prize for his role, the African Union has entered the conflict. On 26th June 2020, the A.U announced its entry into the conflict. Since then, the deliberations have been quite fruitful. By July, the three countries had announced their agreement to start the first filling of the GERD. This seems a good start and has brought confidence into the system of ADR.
Egypt has agreed stating that it has enough water owing to its water-saving techniques in Lake Nasser. Hence it will remain unaffected this year However, Ethiopia has claimed that complete filling of the dam would require at least seven years with the fact that the dam has not been fully constructed.
Despite all such good signs, the deliberations remain inconclusive. The A.U has announced that the dialogues will continue. Geographically, Sudan is a 50% desert country and Egypt is a 96% desert country which depends on the Nile Basin for freshwater with the Blue Nile being one of its largest tributaries. Already Sudan, at its al-Deim station on the Blue Nile has reported a drop of 90 Million cubic meters ever since Ethiopia began filling the GERD.[3]
At such a situation sluggish talks may worsen conditions. Thus there is a serious necessity to reach a consensus keeping in mind the Ethiopians aspiring better lives and the thirsty Egyptians. Further, it has to be borne that if talks fail Egypt will wage a war on Ethiopia as it had echoed in the past. However, it will be a last and final resort. Meanwhile, the negotiations strongly watched by U.S and the UNSC will continue towards a bleak future.
[2] https://globalwaterforum.org/2020/04/23/was-usas-involvement-in-blue-nile-dam-negotiations-a-mediation-or-a-coercion-and-intervention-critical-legal-analysis-and-conclusions-part-iv/.
[3] https://www.voamews.com/africa/ethiopia-fuels-regional-tensions-next-phase-blue-nile-river-mega-dam
About Author
This is Prakriti Ramakrish. I am a II year B.A.LL.B(HONS.) student, studying at The School of Excellence in Law (SOEL) ,The Tamilnadu Dr.Ambedkar Law University, Chennai.
I have been writing articles pertinent to legal affairs since my first year. I have presented a paper titled “Violence against Women” in the International seminar on Realisation of Human Rights of Women-Changing Dimensions Challenges and Recourse at the National University of Advanced Legal Studies (NUALS). Further I have worked as a Content researcher in the LexLife India. Also I have presented a paper titled “Is Culture Really the Culprit-Understanding Female Genital Mutilation Legally” in the National seminar on Juvenile Justice in India-Socio-legal Challenges in the Sathyabama University. Further I am a journalist with the Legalfoxes for the Legalfoxes Law Times ISSN No. 2582-6034.
It’s been a delight to have my piece getting selected by A2Z Legal Knowledge amidst their intellectual scrutiny and I express my heartfelt thanks to the organisation once again.
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