Another impressive snippet of information is that the Government of Ethiopia is financing the entire project, along with loans mainly from China. Mainly, for the downstream countries, the. The dispute has prompted numerous international interventions, including by Gulf Arab states, which have issued political statements and led mediation efforts. Egypt wants control and guarantees for its share of Nile waters. Thus, as with the Watercourses Convention and the CFA, the DoP does not offer a clear legal resolution to the dispute. It was in the hope of protecting Lake Turkana against such threats that it was listed as a World Heritage Site. Ethiopia: The Untold Story of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Egypt has also escalated its call to the international community to get involved. Sudan and Egypt, which rely most heavily on the . At the same. These hydraulic mega-projects underscore the ambitious local and regional political aims of the Ethiopian ruling elites. Already, the United States has threatened to withhold development aid to Ethiopia if the conflict is not resolved and an agreement reached. The Dam is used to generate electricity and went into partial operation in 2022. Article 5 requires that watercourse states utilise an international watercourse in an equitable and reasonable manner and creates the duty to cooperate in the protection and development of the watercourse. But this did not rule out eruptions of tension, not just between local communities and the central government, but also between Ethiopia and its neighbours. [35] Already, on June 19, 2020, Egyptian authorities called upon the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to intervene after tripartite talks had failed to secure an agreement on the filling schedule for the GERD. There are suggestions that Egyptian officials in the World Bank managed to precipitate a policy that funds would only be awarded for non-contentious water projects, thus precluding funding for the Dam. The GERD has become a new reality challenging the traditional dynamics in the Nile River Basin. It will take between eight and ten years to fill the new dam. The first filling of the dam in July 2020 went uneventfully. Ethiopia, whose highlands supply more than 85 percent of the water that flows into the Nile River, has long argued that it has the right to utilize its natural resources to address widespread poverty and improve the living standards of its people. Rendering of GERDEthiopia is building one of the largest dams in the world, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), on the River Nile near the Sudan border. On March 4, 1834, the town of York in the British colony of Canada was incorporated as the City of Toronto. grand ethiopian renaissance dam. In terms of the old or anachronistic law, two of the Nile Water Treaties do not bind Ethiopia meanwhile the third does not actually preclude the construction of a dam. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Egypt's enemy or a blessing in Further, it means that this figure should be used to assess the impact of the Dam on the Egyptian economy for the purposes of calculating compensation resulting from loss of flow. Because the strategy of land allocation and dam construction relied on senior executive decisions and foreign funding from China, above all, the government was largely freed of pressures of transparency and accountability. Cairo Controversy prevailed in the Egyptian public opinion, after Deltares, a Dutch advisory institute, announced on Sept. 15 its withdrawal from a study to assess the risks that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, which is under construction on the Blue Nile, can cause to Egypt and Sudan. In the end, all 11 riparian states must understand that the way forward calls for the establishment of a meaningful resource-sharing agreement, one that sees and recognizes the Nile River as a regional watercourse. In recognition of the fact that the Nile Waters Treaties had become an uncomfortable and anachronistic vestige of colonialism, ten watercourse states along the Nile (including Egypt and Ethiopia) agreed in 1999 to form the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI). [35] The lack of international financing for projects on the Blue Nile River has persistently been attributed to Egypt's campaign to keep control on the Nile water share. The Ethiopian government is spending $4.7 billion to construct the 1,780-meter dam across the Blue Nile. Egypt and Ethiopia have once again locked horns over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile. Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam. Finally, Ethiopia could make a strong case that the operation of the Dam is in alignment with the core principles of international water law, namely equitable utilisation and no significant harm. These are found in Articles 5 and 7 of the Water Courses Convention respectively and, despite the scepticism outlined above, arguably form part of customary international law. International rights organisations have reported that many cases of displacement were not voluntary and that entire communities were driven from their villages. Ethiopia has never 'consumed' significant shares of the Nile's water so far, as its previous political and economic fragility in combination with a lack of external financial support, due to persistent Egyptian opposition to projects upstream, prevented it from implementing large-scale projects. This has now changed due to political consolidation over the past two decades and the advent of alternative sources of external finance (to the traditional multilateral development banks), not least from China (Gebreluel, 2014;IDS, 2013). Indeed, Sudan had initially opposed the Dam but changed its position in 2012 after consultations with Ethiopia. Both citizens and governments should be made part of the solution to the water-related conflicts that now threaten peace and security in the Nile Basin. The three countries have agreed that when the flow of Nile water to the dam falls below 35-40 b.c.m. It states in Principle III that the parties shall take all appropriate measures to prevent the causing of significant harm. Churning waters: Strategic shifts in the Nile basin. Factbox: Key facts about Ethiopia's giant Nile dam | Reuters Ethiopia argues that developing this resource is crucial to its economic development, and to overcoming poverty and famine, that have plagued the country in the past. It also created a counter message to Egypts powerful the Nile is Egypt narrative that is familiar around the world. The Zenawi concept of a Strong Ethiopia envisions the country as a powerful hydroelectric energy hub exporting electricity to Djibouti and Somalia in the east, Kenya and Uganda to the south, and Sudan to the west. Egypt has issued a public statement to that effect. The most important of these treaties is the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (the Watercourses Convention). In the relatively unlikely scenario that the above points failed, Ethiopia could argue that there has been such a change of circumstances since the Nile Waters Treaties were concluded that they ought to be terminated. Hence, it seems that such an argument would receive a warm welcome from the current bench were the matter ever to be adjudicated there. Why was the aswan high dam built? Explained by Sharing Culture It could be a treaty or merely a political declaration as the name implies. In any event, the dispute remains. On 5 July 2021, Ethiopia informed Egypt and Sudan that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia is undergoing its second filling. An agreement between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is within reach, with the United Nations standing ready to support talks and the African Union-led process to settle remaining differences, the Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs told the Security Council in a 29 June videoconference meeting*. Another difficulty for Egypt is that making this argument (i.e. Egypt, fearing major disruptions to its access to the Nile's waters, originally intended to prevent even the start of the GERD's construction. The significance of Gulf involvement was highlighted by the . Governing the Nile River Basin: The Search for a New Legal Regime. (2020). Ethiopia is pinning its hopes of economic development and power generation on the Blue Nile dam, which Egypt fears will imperil its water supply. In fact, about 85 % of the overall Nile flow originates on Ethiopian territory (Swain, 2011). 2011. how much does the reservoir contain? However, Sudans future water requirements will likely exceed its water quota as defined in the 1959 Agreement. The other riparian states can then be brought in, either through the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) or some other regional framework, to secure an agreement that is binding on all the states. The dam was named the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) because it was designed to bring about the economic and renewal of Ethiopia, a nation mentioned in Genesis 2:13 as the Land in which . This was an attempt at a wholesale replacement for the Nile Waters Treaties. Addis Ababa launched the construction of the GERD under Zenawi, and work on it has proceeded at full steam ahead ever since. Filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) along the Blue Nile River is well under way near the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Another important area of cooperation is research, especially in areas like climate change, the fight against terrorism and extremism, and human rights. Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan reach 'major common understanding' on dam. Ethiopia Needs the United States to Act as an Honest Broker in the Nile . The toll on the local communities affected by the dams has been enormous. It provides clear benefits to all three riparian, such as flood control, reduced flood damages and sediment control. They can also cause dispute and heartachefor example, over damage to. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is a Big Deal - BORGEN The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will increase energy generation and development in Ethiopia, but it may have unwanted consequences for other Nile River users. Chinese banks provided financing for the purchase of the turbines and electrical equipment for the hydroelectric plants. Egypts Nile Water Policy under Sisi: Security Interests Promote Rapprochement with Ethiopia. Egypt Forced to Negotiate on Nile Dam. Tawfik, Rawia Discussion Paper 5/2015 . The results indicated that the negative impacts on Egyptian water resources are dominant. Sign up for news on environment, conflict and cooperation. At this point, though, the GERD is nearly completed, and so Egypt has shifted its position to trying to secure a political agreement over the timetable for filling the GERDs reservoir and how the GERD will be managed, particularly during droughts. In particular, the DoP takes a very strict approach to the no significant harm rule. But with a generation capacity of 6.45GW, the Ethiopian government quoted the project as vital to the country's economic growth. Attempts to resolve the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam dispute over the past decade have reached a deadlock. These discussions highlighted benefits such as more consistent water flow, minimising the risks of flood and drought, and the potential for discounted hydroelectricity produced by the Dam. It concludes that Ethiopias legal position is far stronger and that a negotiated agreement in its favour is the most likely outcome of the dispute. Created by. Ethiopias interests in developing its water resources are driven by its growing population and high demand for socio-economic development (Gebreluel, 2014). Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, Ethiopia - Webuild Project Environmental Impacts Of Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam On The (2017). Salman, S.M.A. The unilateral decision taken by Ethiopia - which never recognised the 1959 agreement but had previously not been able to challenge it in fact - to build the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2011 represents a major political challenge to the 1959 Agreement. The 1959 agreement allocated all the Nile Rivers waters to Egypt and Sudan, leaving 10 billion cubic meters (b.c.m.) Ethiopia says second filling of Renaissance Dam complete This paper discusses the challenges and benefits of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which is under construction and expected to be operational on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia in a few years. In July of 2021, the second filling of the dam was completed. The crucial leverage regarding Egypts water security lies with the Blue Nile countries Ethiopia and Sudan, as the Blue Nile is the main contributor to the Nile Rivers flow downstream. At stake, too, is . Owned and operated by the Ethiopian Electric Power company, the 145-m-tall roller-compacted concrete gravity dam . In contrast, if water from the Dam were to be used for irrigation purposes by Ethiopia (i.e. Lastly, over-year storage facilities upstream in Ethiopia will allow Sudan to increase its water use. It and several other large dams in Ethiopia could turn the country into Africa's hydropower hub. Crucially, however, despite being signed by Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, the legal status of the DoP was left (deliberately) vague. It will also give Ethiopia more control . March 14, 2020, 6:57 AM. Yet, Ethiopia is fully aware of Somalias economic dependence on the rivers originating from Ethiopias highlands. The Chinese donors who have agreed to fund it have performed no independent social or environmental impact reviews. By Ambassador Gurjit Singh*. What are the disadvantages of the Aswan Dam? It too has legal arguments it could adduce in support of its position that the Dam is permitted under international law. l Coordinates 111255N 3505 . In the absence of the application of the Watercourses Convention, various other legal arrangements and political declarations must be considered to gain an understanding of the regulation of the Dam and the Nile River more generally. On Foes and Flows: Vulnerabilities, Adaptive Capacities and Transboundary Relations in the Nile River Basin in Times of Climate Change. In that light, Egypt should minimize trips to Washington, D.C., New York, and Brussels, and instead use its diplomatic resources to improve its relations with the other riparian states. The Grand Renaissance Dam - Ethiopia's greatest risk Amazingly, the normally required social and environmental impact studies were only conducted three years after construction of the dam had began. The controversy over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - Brookings The researchers looked at the dynamic interactions between the Nile's hydrology and infrastructure and Egypt's economy. The piece (i) gives a brief history of the Dam; (ii) outlines the role of the Watercourses Convention; (iii) explains the significance of the Nile Waters Treaties; (iv) sets out the main legal arguments for Egypt and (v) provides the main legal arguments for Ethiopia. 4. What could have been strictly technical negotiations have turned into a political deadlock. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) constitutes a real crisis for the Egyptian regime, where Ethiopia several times blamed Egypt for the failure of negotiations conducted between Sudan, Egypt and Ethiopia on the dam. As stipulated by an Agreement of 1959 (see:Nile Main Conflict), Egypt and Sudan presented for several decades a common position vis--vis other riparians regarding the utilisation and management of Nile waters. After announcing the dam's construction, and with a view to the increasing tensions, the Ethiopian government invited both Egypt and Sudan to form an International Panel of Experts (IPoE) to solicit understanding of the benefits, costs and impacts of the GERD. Officials in Addis Ababa argue that the GERD will have no major impact on water flow into the Nile, instead arguing that the hydropower dam will provide benefits to countries in the region, including as a source of affordable electric power and as a major mechanism for the management of the Nile, including the mitigation of droughts and water salinity. We shall begin with the former. However, the DoP lacks these key traits, and these omissions suggest that it may simply be a non-binding declaration designed to ease political tensions and to illuminate a way forward. . . Despite the intense disagreements, though, Ethiopia continues to move forward with the dam, arguing that the hydroelectric project will significantly improve livelihoods in the region more broadly. GIGA Focus No. In general, the Ethiopian development philosophy rests on two pillars: mega-dams and mega-agricultural projects. Impacts of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on Downstream Countries Match. Washington Must Act Now to Save Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Although Khartoum initially opposed the construction of the GERD, it has since warmed up to it, citing its potential to improve prospects for domestic development. It will be the largest hydropower project in Africa. Recently, however, Sudan has been more cautious with the project, citing concerns that the GERDs operation and safety could jeopardise its own dams (The New Arab, 2020b). Ethiopia and Sudan are currently developing and implementing water infrastructure developments unilaterally - as Egypt has done in the past and continues to do. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is a 6,450 MW hydropower project nearing completion on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia, located about 30 km upstream of the border with Sudan. These are two of the largest dams in Africa. Maguid, M.A. (2011). Second, the upstream riparian states must recognize and accept Egypts near total dependence on the waters of the Nile River. Neither the Egyptian nor the Ethiopian governments received positive domestic feedback on their agreement. DISADVANTAGES OF ASWAN DAM the agriculture output of Egypt. Egypt had asked the UNSC to push the three countries to adhere to their obligations in accordance with the rules of international law in order to reach a fair and balanced solution to the issue of the GERD. Egypts repeated references to the rules of international law is part of an effort to maintain its so-called natural and historical rights that were established and reaffirmed by the 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and 1959 Agreement between Egypt and Sudan, respectivelytreaties many of the other involved parties reject as anachronistic and untenable. Here, for the first time, Egypt recognised Ethiopias right to use the Nile for development purposes. On the contrary, GERD has a positive impact in terms of reducing flood and silting and boost water conservation as well as generate energy for the region. The Friends of Lake Turkana, an NGO representing indigenous groups whose livelihoods are dependent on the Lake, filed a suit to halt the construction of the dam. The Untold Story of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Link, P.M. et al. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Its Effect on Egypt It is therefore intrinsically connected with the question of land ownership. Egypt fears Ethiopia Renaissance Dam threatens water supply Ethiopia completes third filling of Blue Nile mega-dam reservoir Copyright 2023, JURIST Legal News & Research Services, Inc. Elliot Winter | New Castle University (UK), Egyptian Water Security and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Why Ethiopia has the Upper Hand, Vienna Convention on the Succession of States, history of copyright in the United States. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a powerful generation linchpin A regional framework for the management of the Nile already existsthe Nile Basin Initiative mentioned abovewhich is a partnership among the Nile riparian states that was launched in 1999. Egyptian players abroad: Mostafa Mohamed's Nantes defeated at PSG, Trezeguet.. Italy Serie A results & fixtures (25th matchday), Egypts Prosecution investigates Hoggpool, Six European nations express concern over growing violence in Palestinian territories, Egyptian Premier League fixtures (21st matchday), US official says Biden expected to tighten rules on US investment in China. After all, the VCLT allows states to withdraw from or terminate a treaty owing to a fundamental change of circumstances which has occurred and which was not foreseen by the parties (Article 62(1)). The Political Deadlock on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. Article 7 provides that watercourse states must take all appropriate measures to prevent significant harm to other watercourse States and that, where harm does occur, there shall be consultations to discuss the question of compensation. Finally, Article 8 requires that watercourse states cooperate on the basis of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, mutual benefit and good faith.. The disadvantages for Egypt and Sudan are the possibility of reduced river flow, although this is only really a problem during the years of filling the dam. As early as 1957, Ethiopian officials said that the Somalian economy could not survive on its own given how heavily dependent it was on Ethiopia. Helping Egypts cause, during the preparation of the VCSS, the International Law Commission stated that treaties concerning water rights or navigation on rivers are commonly regarded as candidates for inclusion in the category of territorial treaties. However, it must be noted that this would represent a generous interpretation of the territorial treaty exception. It can help the riparian states outline principles, rights, and obligations for cooperative management of the resources of the Nile. It can be demand-driven, typically caused by population growth, and supply-driven, typically caused by decreasing amounts of fresh water often resulting from climate change or a result of societal factors such as poverty. This article considers water security in the context of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (the Dam). Construction on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam began in 2011 and it is currently nearing completion. The instrument was a success in terms of cooling tensions between the states which seemed increasingly likely to come to blows. Although the immediate issue at stakesecuring a technical agreement on the filling of the GERDs reservoiris among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan, the broader and longer-term goal should be for all 11 statesincluding Tanzania, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Eritrea, and South Sudanto agree on a legal regime for the management of this important watercourse. Ethiopia, however, prefers to have the flexibility to make decisions on how to deal with droughts. The drying up of this in Central Asia has been called the worlds worst environmental catastrophe. Improved relations among Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Sudanese can go a long way in enhancing the ability of their leaders to negotiate and adopt agreements that reflect the interests of citizens, especially regarding economic development and poverty alleviation.