Water Politics in The Middle East - International Relations and Water

International Relations and Water

Issues relating to water supplies, then, affect international and inter-regional affairs, with disputes over countries’ rights and access to water resources most often the cause of tensions in this arena. The contended nature of some water provisions has tended to mean that certain waters become more prone to political conflicts (those which are primarily prone to this in the Middle East and northern Africa are the Nile, Jordan and Tigris-Euphrates rivers). In order to secure reliable levels of water access for their populations, states must either have a large water supply in terms of economic availability, or their rights to such supplies must be established.

Studies of water in the Middle East have also suggested that, in a sensitive hydrological location, a country’s existing surface- and ground-water access should be protected as a first priority if it is to begin to address any water difficulties or shortages. Such measures as these can be seen as being the primary responsibilities of national governments or ruling authorities; and water is therefore closely tied up with statehood and geographical territory in international relations, and with the recognition and rights of nation states as the central actors in this field.

The political process and interactions underlying the international relations of water have been characterised as having three stages. These are that a state must go through a process of; firstly claiming its right to water resources, secondly receiving recognition of this right, and finally seeking to attain its entitlement to water in accordance with the recognition of its claim. However, these processes have not always succeeded.

In this regard, water politics in the Middle East has been impacted by changes in the international political order and their implications for the area. The involvement of the USSR in Middle Eastern political affairs was seen to have had a constraining effect upon this process, in terms of claims and recognition in the Cold War era.

The post–Cold War period, therefore, has since been perceived to offer the opportunity for transforming water politics in the Middle East, in light of the shift which it has brought about in global political dynamics in the region. This potential, however, had failed to be fulfilled by the end of the decade, with states in the Middle East ‘still mainly involved in… asserting water rights over shared waters’. The consequence of this has been that ‘non-agreed water sharing is an unavoidable reality in present Middle Eastern international relations’, with attendant political problems invariably surfacing.