Mediating Trans-Boundary Water Conflicts: Issues and Approaches to Long-Term Resources Management and Conflict Resolution

Trans-boundary rivers are shared by multiple sovereign states, creating conflicting demands on the river’s resources and further complicating already difficult political legacies. This combination hinders cooperation over the communal resource and makes trans-boundary river basins areas of conflict. To resolve such conflicts, the involvement of a third party mediator with the capabilities to offer incentives to reluctant riparians, coupled with the creation of a management institution to address conflicts as they arise, offers the best means of addressing both the short term issues of getting states to agree to a cooperative arrangement for the river and the long term commitment problems that would lead states to renege on the agreement. This thesis will explore the utility of the combined short and long-term approach to mediate trans-boundary river conflicts by examining the mediation and resolution of the Indus River conflict between India and Pakistan. The lessons learned are...Show moreTrans-boundary rivers are shared by multiple sovereign states, creating conflicting demands on the river’s resources and further complicating already difficult political legacies. This combination hinders cooperation over the communal resource and makes trans-boundary river basins areas of conflict. To resolve such conflicts, the involvement of a third party mediator with the capabilities to offer incentives to reluctant riparians, coupled with the creation of a management institution to address conflicts as they arise, offers the best means of addressing both the short term issues of getting states to agree to a cooperative arrangement for the river and the long term commitment problems that would lead states to renege on the agreement. This thesis will explore the utility of the combined short and long-term approach to mediate trans-boundary river conflicts by examining the mediation and resolution of the Indus River conflict between India and Pakistan. The lessons learned are then used to investigate the unresolved conflict between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq over the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and offer ways of managing the conflict.Show less

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Mediating Trans-Boundary Water Conflicts: Issues and Approaches to Long-Term Resources Management and Conflict Resolution