By: Kristoffer Burck, Junior Research Associate, PILPG-NL
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a dam project in Northern Ethiopia along the Blue Nile, and is set to become the largest hydropower plant in the African continent. With its current construction date set at 2023, the dam promises to bring industrialization and development to Ethiopians. But despite the opportunity the dam may represent for Ethiopians, it has been met with objections from others. In fact, Sudanese and Egyptian politicians, whose populations are highly dependent on the freshwater supply of the Nile, warn that the dam constitutes a threat to their national security. Since July 2020, when Ethiopia began to partially fill up the reservoirs of the dam, the relationships between the states have soured. The disagreements concern the applicability of colonial treaties, the balancing of the right to economic development with the right to water, and ways to facilitate effective regional cooperation.
Colonial Baggage
According to some Egyptian politicians, the legal situation of the Nile is quite straightforward: the “Nile Waters Agreement” of 1929 guarantees a large share of the Nile´s water to the Egyptian population, and gives the government a right to veto construction projects of riparian states. But, the problem with this agreement is that it was not concluded with the upstream states, but with Great Britain, who had colonized most of the riparian upstream states, including Sudan. In 1959, a newly independent Sudan renegotiated the agreement with Egypt, with the result that the water resources were re-allocated between these two states. The former Eastern African colonies located upstream the Nile (Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda), argue that they are not bound to these colonial treaties under the tabula rasa theory. The controversial theory is codified in article 16 of the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States in Respect of Treaties and holds that newly independent states are not automatically bound by colonial treaties. For Ethiopians the argument is even clearer: they were not a party to any of the applicable agreements and are therefore not bound by them.
The Right to Economic Development
The difficulties in interpreting colonial treaties is not the only field of contention. The GERD project potentially has a considerable impact on human rights of the populations of Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. More specifically in Ethiopia, the project could positively impact the right to economic development, recognized as a human right in Article 22(1) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples´ Rights. While the Ethiopian economy has steadily grown over the past years, its successful development is still held back by endemic power cuts. A hydroelectric dam could provide a reliable source of energy, not only for Ethiopia but also for bordering countries, struggling with the same situation. A majority of the Ethiopian (diaspora) population has shown high hopes for the project, and a large portion of the GERD was funded through popular bonds. As a result, the dam could provide a pathway for Ethiopia to attain their right to development, to industrialize large parts of their economy, and create jobs that could possibly lift millions out of poverty.
The Right to Water
However, concerns about the dam project by Egypt and Sudan are based on arguments of human rights too. The “Human Right to Water” has been recognized in several international human rights agreements and receives particular attention in Goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals. In theory, filling the GERD reservoir would require a full annual flow of the Blue Nile. The Egyptian agricultural sector and the population rely heavily on the steady flow of the Nile. Consequently, a sudden substantial drop in Nile water supply would be disastrous. Egypt therefore argues that the GERD project would interfere with their right to water is to be seen as an issue of national security. In addition to the right to water, strong fluctuations of water flow could furthermore be damaging to Sudanese and Egyptian hydroelectric dams. This could impair their respective electricity stability and thereby threaten Sudanese and Egyptian rights to economic development.
Conclusion
Regional negotiations, such as the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) of the Nile Basin Initiative, have failed to reach a solution. Specifically, the definition of “water security” in Article 14 of the CFA caused contention. Arguing based on their “historical rights”, stemming from the colonial treaties, Sudan and Egypt refused to sign the agreement. After mediation attempts by intermediaries, such as the United States and the African Union (AU), and the rejection of an Ethiopian proposal for a preliminary agreement, Ethiopia started to fill the GERD´s reservoirs without an agreement in July 2020. While the situation might appear to be in a deadlock, an agreement could be beneficial to all states involved. A recent study, published in October 2020 by Nature Communications, shows that the Dam could benefit Sudan and Ethiopia, without negatively impacting Egypt. However, especially in the case of a prolonged drought, coordination between all states is crucial. The speed of filling the reservoirs would have to be adjusted to periodical rainfall and water flows would need to be communicated openly. The study suggests that a minimum annual release of water from the GERD could actually increase water safety for Sudanese and Egyptian populations, also in cases of drought. A harmonized schedule for filling and releasing water could therefore ultimately balance the rights to water and the rights to economic development. Since the release of the study, trilateral talks continued and yielded some positive results in regard to coordinating the filling process. Nevertheless, Sudanese officials boycotted the latest round of negotiations in November 2020, demanding a stronger involvement of mediators.
A cooperative agreement could offer a path to reconcile Ethiopia’s desire to economic development with Egypt’s and Sudan’s rights to water safety. Yet, such a commitment requires trust and mutual assurances. In light of the volatile situation in the region, all parties involved would be best served by agreeing on procedural issues and continuing negotiations on the technical specifications of filling and releasing water from the dam in good faith.