Water diplomacy and conflict management in the Mekong: From rivalries to cooperation

Abstract

The Mekong region, home to one of the world’s great rivers – the Mekong – is also one of the world’s most geostrategic regions, featuring seemingly conflicting interests among regional states including Viet Nam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia and world powers such as China and the United States of America.For nearly a century, some of the riparian states have developed parts of the basin in their territories – to great benefits and harm – and recently the remaining late developing countries are catching up with water and related resources development plans to dam, withdraw and use the mighty Mekong to fund national progress and alleviate poverty.World leaders, academics, NGOs, media and even some government officials have warned that the current rush to development is not only bringing a sure death to a great previously untamed river, potentially displacing millions of people, and threatening livelihoods, but would also usher in an era of aggravated tensions and possibly even conflict. The Mekong River Commission (MRC), tasked to manage the river for the sake of the environment and the people, is failing its mission with work that has been ineffective, uninfluential and wasted, critics say.Yet this scenario is both wrong in its thesis about Mekong development and misleading in its understanding of MRC’s role and work. While past and current water resources development in the region has brought challenges and risks associated with changes in the river system, these have not led to widespread destruction of livelihoods and conflict among riparian countries.A critical factor preventing conflict and managing tensions as well as supporting optimal and sustainable development is the MRC and its water diplomacy framework, which has a technical core to provide objective scientific advices and legal, institutional and strategic mechanisms that facilitate and support negotiated solutions to complex water and related problems. While challenges remain for the MRC as an organization, its water diplomacy framework has gradually been established and strengthened as the cases of managing tensions and potential conflicts in the Mekong for the past twenty years illustrate.