Abstract
The concept of benefit-sharing, as employed in the Inter-SEDE model, analyzes potential security, economic development, and environmental-related benefits to sharing the waters of the Euphrates and Tigris river basins. The article finds that Iraq scores fairly high on security and economics-related indicators, revealing the country's vulnerable downstream position. Syria's security score highlights this actor's vulnerable position as the mid-stream riparian. Turkey is favorably differentiated on some of the economic indicators. To enhance the potential for spill-over between watercooperation and conflict prevention, durable and peaceful relations among riparian states require that water-related benefits be shared.
Highlights
Not heading for water wars, lack of cooperation does carry security implications and can result in sub-optimal water management with adverse consequences for economic development and usually for the environment
The application of the concept of benefit-sharing is the central focus of this article. Another dilemma in international river basins – in addition to water as a security issue – is that optimal water-usage solutions may not be congruent with the principle of equitable utilization
Instead of “securitizing” water – viewing water through the lens of national security concerns – “desecuritization” of water resource management opens the way to negotiated agreements between and among states and the consequent sharing of benefits
Summary
Inequitable access to water has caused much conflict, especially when water is embedded in larger conflicts of a high-politics nature or where limited economic diversification restricts the range of policy options open to governments. The application of the concept of benefit-sharing is the central focus of this article Another dilemma in international river basins – in addition to water as a security issue – is that optimal water-usage solutions may not be congruent with the principle of equitable utilization. Instead of “securitizing” water – viewing water through the lens of national security concerns – “desecuritization” of water resource management opens the way to negotiated agreements between and among states and the consequent sharing of benefits. Issue-linkage between water-sharing and the upstream country’s security concerns over Syria’s support of the Kurdish insurgency brought Turkey and Syria to an agreement on minimal water allocation in 1987.14 But because agreements of this type tend to be bilateral (ignoring other co-riparians), they are at least somewhat unstable, and benefits that can arise from issue-linkage become exhausted over time.
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