India-China Water Dispute on the River Brahmaputra

AbstractIncreasing and competing demands among countries for water is a major cause of international disputes. This article builds on research of negotiation processes and institutional frameworks of international river basin management. Its focus is the search for effective approaches that can be applied to the resolution of Arab-Israeli water disputes. While every dispute is unique, the Arab-Israeli situation is not the only case with stubborn and long-standing enmities, shortages of water resources, political and economic power imbalances, absences from negotiations of vital riparians, and rapidly changing political climates. In the Arab-Israeli water dispute, there are both parallels and lessons to be learned from the situations in other river basins.The treaties that have thus far emerged from Arab-Israeli negotiations are briefly reviewed, as is the potential for future regional agreements. The history of other river basin negotiations is useful in charting the future directions of the Arab-Israeli water conflict. Issues include options and modes of negotiation, information and technology sharing, the importance of the geopolitical climate, comprehensive versus incremental agreements, linkage of water agreements to environmental and other issues, the power balance among participants, cost-sharing strategies, and institutions, and the capacity for implementation.Although the strained political relations between Arabs and Israelis have worsened in the past year and one-half, the water treaties do not seem endangered for the most part. Indeed, water negotiations may again become one of the confidence-building measures that can facilitate other more general negotiations, after the current stalemate is broken.

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Sovereignty Entanglements in Kashmir

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190648664.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Haines

Keyword(s):

River Water ◽

Indus Basin ◽

Water Control ◽

Early Access ◽

Territorial Sovereignty ◽

Flow Through ◽

Water Dispute ◽

Indus Waters Treaty

This chapter argues that Indian and Pakistani constructions of territorial sovereignty on the plains, heavily dependent on their positioning upstream or downstream, differed in the context of Kashmir. Several Indus Basin rivers flow through Kashmir before entering Pakistan. Dominating Kashmir therefore means having early access to river water, and the ability to construct water-control projects such as Pakistan’s Mangla Dam. One reason why India-Pakistan water relationships remain controversial is that the Indus Waters Treaty, representing a very narrow settlement of the water dispute, did not address the geopolitical challenges that Kashmir posed. The chapter therefore shows that competing Indian and Pakistani articulations of the link between water control and territorial sovereignty became even stronger in the context of the Kashmir dispute.

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