Ray Turner Obituary, George Johnson Lawyer, Articles D

As noted above, the instrument concedes for the first time that Ethiopia has legitimate interests over the Nile. In terms of the current status of talks, in 2019, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin began facilitating negotiations between Egypt and Ethiopia which led to some tentative progress. Despite the controversy and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam's effect on Egypt and Sudan, it appears that the Ethiopian government will continue to move forward with filling the dam. Indeed, Egypt has called the filling of the dam an. 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. But the Ethiopian elites show little interest in addressing such concerns, bent as they are on a nationalist revivalist project that claims an Ethiopian exceptionalism that places Addis Ababa above international law as it pursues a water-management strategy that has less to do with its development aims than with its ambitions to weaponise water in a bid for regional hegemony. Crucially, however, neither Egypt nor Ethiopia are parties to the Watercourses Convention and so they are not bound by its terms. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Ethiopia - Webuild Project They can also cause dispute and heartachefor example, over damage to. Yet, Ethiopia is fully aware of Somalias economic dependence on the rivers originating from Ethiopias highlands. UN ready to promote 'win-win solution' for Blue Nile dam project Stratfor Worldview. In its 2013 report, the International Rivers Organisation predicted that the long-term effects of the Gibe III Dam would turn Lake Turkana into another Aral Sea. Cairo . Ethiopian general threatens military force to defend Nile dam as negotiations with Egypt falter. Egypt fears Ethiopia Renaissance Dam threatens water supply This has now changed due to political consolidation over the past two decades and the advent of alternative sources of external finance (to the traditional multilateral development banks), not least from China (Gebreluel, 2014;IDS, 2013). In fact, about 85 % of the overall Nile flow originates on Ethiopian territory (Swain, 2011). Von Lossow, T. & Roll, S. (2015). Security implications of growing water scarcity in Egypt. Similarly, in 2018, the UNSC noted the water security risks in African nations such as Somalia, Sudan and Mali. In my opinion, this should be negotiable, to fill the lake over a longer period, and only when the river is sufficiently full. These discussions highlighted benefits such as more consistent water flow, minimising the risks of flood and drought, and the potential for discounted hydroelectricity produced by the Dam. Filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) along the Blue Nile River is well under way near the Ethiopia-Sudan border. (PDF) The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Evaluating Its 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. 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 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. Sudans agricultural and hydropower interests align with those of Ethiopia while it has a strong interest in not alienating its 'big brother' and northern neighbour, Egypt, with whom it shares a long and partly contested border (Whittington et al., 2014). The US has revived diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute sparked by Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project on the Nile. If it is allowed to reach dangerous levels, water scarcity has the potential to trigger conflicts. This includes Sudan, another downstream nation that one might assume would oppose its construction. Monday January 2, 2017. Ethiopian Renaissance Dam & Its implications on Egypt Perhaps the most obvious argument that Ethiopia may want to make is a rebuttal to Egypts continued reliance on the Nile Water Treaties. In order to sustain this benefit in the long run, Ethiopias neighbouring countries will have to continue to purchase hydroelectric energy, and rainfall will have to fall at the same rate on the Ethiopian Plateau. The official narrative is that Ethiopia can uproot poverty and bring about a definitive end to social and economic underdevelopment by means of the construction of a series of mega-dams combined with the development of the national energy infrastructure. 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). But with a generation capacity of 6.45GW, the Ethiopian government quoted the project as vital to the country's economic growth. A regional framework for the management of the Nile already existsthe Nile Basin Initiative mentioned abovewhich is a partnership among the Nile riparian states that was launched in 1999. This exception was implemented to mitigate the risk of decolonisation leading to boundary wars. A Grand New Dam on the Nile: The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Article 7 provides that watercourse states must take all appropriate measures to prevent significant harm to other watercourse States and that, where harm does occur, there shall be consultations to discuss the question of compensation. Finally, Article 8 requires that watercourse states cooperate on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit and good faith.. Ethiopia has never 'consumed' significant shares of the Nile's water so far, as its previous political and economic fragility in combination with a lack of external financial support, due to persistent Egyptian opposition to projects upstream, prevented it from implementing large-scale projects. Omar, A. Thus, as with the Watercourses Convention and the CFA, the DoP does not offer a clear legal resolution to the dispute. Recently, however, Sudan has been more cautious with the project, citing concerns that the GERDs operation and safety could jeopardise its own dams (The New Arab, 2020b). Egyptian players abroad: Mostafa Mohamed's Nantes defeated at PSG, Trezeguet.. Italy Serie A results & fixtures (25th matchday), Egypts Prosecution investigates Hoggpool, Six European nations express concern over growing violence in Palestinian territories, Egyptian Premier League fixtures (21st matchday), US official says Biden expected to tighten rules on US investment in China. Gebreluel, G. (2014). 4. The dam was named the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) because it was designed to bring about the economic and renewal of Ethiopia, a nation mentioned in Genesis 2:13 as the Land in which . 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. Created by. (2017). Ethiopia: The Untold Story of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam 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. What are the disadvantages of the Aswan Dam? The Untold Story of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam One question that keeps coming up is: Will Ethiopia be willing to release enough water from the reservoir to help mitigate a drought downstream? Such a meaningful resource-sharing agreement should not only resolve the conflict over water-use rights among the riparian states, but it should help define concepts such as equitable and reasonable use and significant harm, which have been used by the downstream states in their criticisms of the GERD. Even in 2023, there are only 46 state parties, with key actors such as the US, Canada and Brazil remaining outside the Conventions regime. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG, 79-110. However, another trend stresses the need to approach the question from a broader and more holistic perspective. Therefore, all the water is eventually released downstream with the effect that there is no net loss of water to downstream states. On March 4, 1982, Bertha Wilson became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law 2017. The CFA was a political success for the eight upstream states such as Ethiopia as it favoured those states and isolated the downstream states of Egypt and Sudan and made them appear recalcitrant. This crisis has raised great concerns among large sectors of the Egyptian society, especially in light of recalling such statements as "water war," "water militarization," "military management of the GERD crisis," "water terrorism," and "Ethiopian hydro-hegemony over the Nile Basin" [ 1, 2 ]. Furthermore, resolving conflicts involving the Nile River is most likely to be more successful through improvements in relations between the riparians and not through external intervention. Workers move iron girders from a crane at the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), near Guba, Ethiopia, on Dec. 26, 2019. per year, that would constitute a drought and, according to Egypt and Sudan, Ethiopia would have to release some of the water in the dams reservoir to deal with the drought. Egypts Nile Water Policy under Sisi: Security Interests Promote Rapprochement with Ethiopia. Both countries are concerned that without a clear and binding agreement with Ethiopia, the latter will have full control of the passage of water from the GERD during droughts, which would be devastating to the lives of millions in Egypt and Sudan. Egypt, Ethiopia to form joint committee on Renaissance Dam. Challenges for water sharing in the Nile basin: changing geo-politics and changing climate. It and several other large dams in Ethiopia could turn the country into Africa's hydropower hub. Disadvantages of the grand ethiopian renaissance dam jobs Water Policy, 16(4), 595-608. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a 1.1-mile-long concrete colossus, is set to become the largest hydropower plant in Africa. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a powerful generation linchpin The toll on the local communities affected by the dams has been enormous. The Washington Quarterly, 37(2), 25-37. grand ethiopian renaissance dam. In particular, the DoP takes a very strict approach to the no significant harm rule. All three countries have a vested interest in a properly operated dam. In: Yihdego, Z. et al. If the relevant parties can agree to these goals, the agreement, in the end, will need to include technical language that ensures equitable sharing of the Nile. This is because the VCLT allows an older treaty to be rescinded by a new one if the new one concerns the same topic (Article 59). One senior advisor to former Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi alluded to it when he said that Ethiopia will supply the electricity, Sudan the food, and Egypt the money. To which we might add, and South Sudan will supply the oil.. China at the heart of rising Nile River conflict - Asia Times The most important of these treaties is the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention). Al Jazeera (2020). 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.