Rivers of conflict, rivers of peace.

• Author: Lowi, Miriam R.
• Position: Continuity and Transformation: The Modern Middle East

In arid and semi-arid regions of the world where water scarcity is a fact of life, the search for water punctuates the history of communities and mediates their political relations. Fresh water is vital for human survival, yet its availability is uneven and substitutes do not exist. The struggle for access to, and control over, water supplies has consistently provoked tensions and conflict between communities and nations.

However, if the parties involved in the struggle for access to scarce water were to perceive a mutual benefit in sharing the resource, then perhaps that resource could become the vehicle for cementing cooperative relations among them. In part this is what political functionalists during and following the Second World War were suggesting as a solution to international conflict: Peace could be achieved if ways were found for adversarial states to collaborate in technical and other non-political matters.(1) Over time, continuous cooperation in technical areas would bind states together in such a way that their political differences would recede in importance and eventually disappear. The former adversaries would come to realize that there was far more to gain from peaceful relations.

Unfortunately, the record of technical collaboration among adversarial states spilling over into political cooperation is far more sobering than the idealists of mid-century would have us believe.(2) Furthermore, political conflicts are sometimes so visceral and primordial that they simply cannot be ignored; over the course of their duration, they become an inextricable part of the identities of the parties involved. Under such circumstances, technical collaboration cannot be facilitated; rather it must await political settlement.

The Middle East is the most water-poor region of the globe, with the world's lowest per capita consumption of water. The problem attendant to water scarcity is particularly acute in the Middle East, as the region has one of the fastest growing populations. In addition, there are a number of rivers in this region that traverse international boundaries established during the 20th century, and that have become a focus of interstate tensions.

Per Capita Surface Water Availability in the Jordan and Euphrates Basins, 1990(3)

Total Per Capita Water/year Population Water (bcm) (millions) (cubic meters) Iraq 91.20 17.0 5364 Israel 1.95 4.6 424 Jordan 0.77 3.3 233 Lebanon 4.80 2.7 1600 Syria 23.00 13.0 1769 Turkey 100.00 55.0 1818 West Bank/ Gaza 0.20 1.8 111 In this article, I discuss two transboundary river basins in the Middle East: the Jordan River basin, which includes Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank; and the Euphrates River Basin, which includes Iraq, Syria and Turkey. In these basins, no binding arrangements for sharing the waters exist, yet some form of cooperation is imperative in order to meet the immediate and long-term needs of the states and peoples in question. The article is divided into four sections. I begin by outlining the prevailing views regarding how best to develop and manage the waters of a transboundary river basin. I explain why unitary basin-wide development under some form of supranational authority is considered optimal, and I describe the record to date in achieving this goal. In the second section, I focus on the Jordan and Euphrates River basins; I describe their geopolitical settings, outline the history of efforts to achieve cooperative solutions to water development and management, and analyze outcomes. I then summarize the obstacles to cooperation, emphasizing the preferences of the riparian states in each basin. In the third section, I consider the current Middle East peace process and evaluate how it has already changed, and is likely to change, the water issues that divide the players in the two basins. I conclude the article with some thoughts on what could be achieved with cooperation in water resource development and management, and what is at stake without it. But I remind the reader that the history of the Jordan waters conflict suggests that states engaged in protracted conflict of the sort that persists in the Jordan and Euphrates River basins are not likely to agree to share water resources cooperatively in the absence of a solution to their political conflict. Hence, prospects for cooperation in the Jordan River basin hold out more hope today than ever before, while the future of the Euphrates River basin continues to appear bleak.(4)

The Development and Management of International River

Basins in Theory and in Practice

Geography suggests that, by virtue of its physical unity, a river basin should be developed as a single, indivisible whole, irrespective of political divisions. This is because water binds land areas together as it flows toward an outlet, and interference with the water and its movement at any point has repercussions elsewhere in the basin. The water in question is a shared resource, and it can be considered a common-property resource within the river basin. Like a public good, a common-property resource is supplied jointly and no party can be excluded from access to it. But unlike a public good, the use of the common-property resources by one party does detract from the benefits enjoyed by all others.

From the point of view of economic efficiency as well, the basin should be treated as a unit; in that way, "a careful inventory of soils, feasibility of irrigation and drainage, values of alternative crops, domestic and industrial water needs, could be factored into a basin-wide model that might...yield an 'optimal pattern' of water utilization"(5)

Indeed, the development and management of the river basin as a unit has been widely advocated by engineers, planners, politicians and jurists. Moreover, since the 1940s, unitary basin-wide development of water resources under some system of supranational authority has been adopted and implemented in multinational agreements in several river basins, including the Rio Grande, the Mekong and the Senegal.

But while ties of geography suggest the unitary development of a river basin, contingent of history may impede the process. One reason is that states are reluctant to relinquish control over land and other resources that lie, even partially, within their borders. In an effort to maximize their individual gains, states ate more inclined to exploit transnational resources unilaterally, irrespective of the preferences of other legitimate beneficiaries. Hence, the challenge in international river basins is to reach cooperative, basin-wide solutions to the provision of the common property resource and enhance the benefits to all.

Historically, the record of implementation of cooperative basin-wide arrangements has been mixed. In the case of the Nile River, for example a supranational authority, the permanent Joint Technical Commissions, was established with the signing of the Agreement for the Full Utilization of the Nile Water in 1959. And while it meets regularly and has managed the river system according to the stipulations of the Agreement, the Commission represents only two of the ten riparian states - Egypt and the Sudan, the signatories of the treaty. It is neither a basin-wide agreement, nor a basin-wide authority. Moreover, the Agreement reflects most strongly the preferences of the dominant party, Egypt.

In the case of the Indus River, a basin-wide agreement was reached in 1960 between India and Pakistan, and a supranational authority, the Permanent Indus Commission, was established. This was possible, however, only after an imaginative hydro-engineering feat had been accomplished: The river system was physically partitioned between the two states, much as the subcontinent had been, so that there would be no interdependence and no interaction between the adversaries.

In studying conflicts in international river basins, it is important to remember that a number of hydro-strategic facts govern the basin and affect politics within it. First, not only does water flow, but it does not respect political boundaries. Moreover, upstream states, by exploiting within their territory the waters of a river that traverses international boundaries, can diminish the quantity and the quality of water available to states downstream. Upstream states can starve out downstream states by cutting off their water supply, or they can pollute the waters downstream by dumping toxic waste into the river. Thus, upstream states - such as India on the Indus, Turkey on the Euphrates, Israel on the Jordan (since June 1967) and Syria on the Yarmouk - are in an advantageous position. In the absence of a basin-wide agreement, these states can alter the river flow in their territory, and the downstream states must suffer the consequences. Given their superior position, upstream states have no direct interest in unitary river basin development. With a basin-wide accord, their activities on the river would be hamstrung. Hence, the challenge in international river basins is to get states to forego their unilateral advantage for the sake of the interests of all riparians. The ideal solution is a basin-wide agreement that stipulates how the waters are to be shared and managed, and what kinds of activities on the river and with the river waters are to be permitted.

Two Basins in Search of a Regime

1. Jordan River Basin

   Geopolitical Setting

   The Jordan River basin is shared by four countries: Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. It consists of four principal tributaries that are the headwaters of the river system, and one stem - the Upper and Lower Jordan. The Hasbani, Dan and Banias tributaries rise in Lebanon, Israel and Syria, respectively, and flow south to form the Upper Jordan River located in Israeli territory. The Upper Jordan flows into Lake Tiberias, the only natural reservoir within the basin. The western and southeastern shores of the lake are in Israel, while the northeastern shore is in the...