Geopolitics of Water: Sustaining Environmental and Human Rights Implications

Abstract

Water is an imperative element for life and an indispensable resource for a nation. Its abundance or scarcity significantly affects the national power. It widely contributes to the core sectors such as health, agriculture, industry etc. which makes it immensely important for socio-economic welfare and development of a nation. Its indispensability and usefulness often makes it a subject of dispute among countries and in some cases also within a country. Desperation and apprehension of water shortages have fueled a number of conflicts in many regions around the world. ‘Water Wars’ as they are called have become one of the vital issues of the contemporary international as well as national affairs. The economic importance of water escalates such clashes. The conflicts revolve around who has the power to own and control water so as to enhance its economy. Seldom are such disputes resolved by negotiations and arbitrations, and most often, the parties to the dispute resort to the use of force to gain their control over the disputed water. A lot of environmental issues and violation of human rights have aggravated such water wars. This paper examines how water disputes impact the environment and human rights and how they aggravate such disputes. The wastes produced by the use of military forces, the chemicals and leftovers of the weapons used during the wars affect the supply of water. The wastes discharged by the industries and agricultural activities if not disposed properly tamper with the ground water and thereby causes difficulties in water supply. The river projects like constructing dams and commissioning barrages may deter the silt from being flown into the river which would otherwise fertilize the land and make it apt for agriculture, erode the banks which would otherwise be replenished by the silt carried down by the river and such erosions even sweep the deltas into the seas. Urbanization in the name of developing the societies and the increase in population tend to use more resources like water and thereby increase its demand, but the uneven distribution of water cannot satisfy such demand and hence breaks out the conflict. The tensions between the countries involved in the water dispute often lead to armed conflicts and such skirmishes violate the human rights. Moreover, when more than one country share the same source of water, the one having an upper hand often dominates and controls the water supply thereby making others having little access to it which also amounts to the violation of human rights. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the historical evolution of the conflicts, identify the political and economic factors that impact such conflicts, critically examine the causes of the environmental problems and the resulting environmental security and human rights issues, investigate the effectiveness of the cooperation between the countries or states within the countries as the case may be and the multilateral and bilateral bargaining to resolve such disputes. In this respect the paper examines the Nile river dispute, Indo-Bangladesh water dispute and a few other water disputes persisting among the Middle East countries. The paper concludes by throwing some light on certain aspects that may not be clear at this point of time, propose strategies to study and address the problems, apply the available data for making policies and recommend certain solutions so as to resolve the ongoing problems.