2011. how much does the reservoir contain? International experts analyze impacts of Ethiopian dam In response, Ethiopia threatened military force to defend the dam and protect its interests (The New Arab, 2020a). Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Agreement within Reach, Under-Secretary One question that keeps coming up is: Will Ethiopia be willing to release enough water from the reservoir to help mitigate a drought downstream? The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Africa's Water Tower To African commentators in recent decades, massive investments in mega-energy and irrigation projects were emblematic of the African economic emergence, and Ethiopia at that time vaunted itself as one of the fastest-growing economies in the region. The Washington Quarterly, 37(2), 25-37. Another argument Egypt might adduce concerns the DoP. The current filling which is ongoing since early July 2021 has presented no issues as well. Indeed, Egypt has called the filling of the dam an. Test. Ethiopia's dam dispute: five key reads about how it started and how it 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. 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. Ethiopia completes third filling of Blue Nile mega-dam reservoir The instrument was a success in terms of cooling tensions between the states which seemed increasingly likely to come to blows. 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. Indeed, Sudan had initially opposed the Dam but changed its position in 2012 after consultations with Ethiopia. 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. The Chinese donors who have agreed to fund it have performed no independent social or environmental impact reviews. These hydraulic mega-projects underscore the ambitious local and regional political aims of the Ethiopian ruling elites. This is because the VCLT allows an older treaty to be rescinded by a new one if the new one concerns the same topic (Article 59). The current global energy crisis may help in this regard in the sense that Egyptians may find the allure of discounted hydroelectric energy stronger than ever before. The Tripartite National Council (TNC) was then established, consisting of members from each of the three countries with the aim of carrying through the IPoE's recommendations (Attia & Saleh, 2021). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) takes an expansionist view towards decolonisation as seen in the Chagos Islands Advisory Opinion, in which it allowed the decolonisation agenda to trump the UKs lack of consent to any contentious proceedings. Nile Basins GERD dispute creates risks for Egypt, Sudan, and beyond. While such dams also come with long-term benefits to local populations, the chief beneficiary will always be the state, which reaps profits from the sale of surplus electricity. Nevertheless, Khartoum continues to fear that the operation of the GERD could threaten the safety of Sudans own dams and make it much more difficult for the government to manage its own development projects. However, Ethiopia ultimately refused to sign the draft agreement. Stratfor Worldview. Construction of the 6,000-megawatt, US $5 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) began . The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will have negative impacts not only on Egypt but also on poor communities in Ethiopia as well as on its Nile Basin neighbours. Owned and operated by the Ethiopian Electric Power company, the 145-m-tall roller-compacted concrete gravity dam . Even then, the initial studies did not extend beyond the borders with Kenya. Negative impacts of the GERD - Opinion - Ahram Online Ethiopia could argue that those imperial powers did not foresee the decolonisation of Africa and that this represented a watershed event that profoundly changed the foundation on which the Nile Water Treaties were constructed. Before discussing the benefits, the article will brief the general technical overview of the GERDP. Ethiopias Blue Nile Dam is an opportunity for regional collaboration, Developing countries are key to climate action, Self-organizing Nigeria: The antifragile state, Managing the compounding debt and climate crises. per year, that would constitute a drought, 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, 1929 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty and 1959 Agreement. A series of talks since then have largely failed to produce a consensus among the concerned countries, with tensions rising again after Ethiopia announced its intention to begin filling the dam in July 2020. Given the advancement of the dam construction - the GERD being, as of March 2015, 40% complete, according to Ethiopia - Egypt had good reason to reconsider its position (RANE, 2015). In contrast, if water from the Dam were to be used for irrigation purposes by Ethiopia (i.e. Cairo - U.S. Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa Ambassador Mike Hammer met with senior Egyptian government officials on July 25 to advance a diplomatic resolution on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that supports the water needs, economy, and livelihood of all Egyptians, Sudanese, and Ethiopians. It states in Principle III that the parties shall take all appropriate measures to prevent the causing of significant harm. This article quantifies the major benefits of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project for Sudan and Egypt based on GERDP technical design and quantitative analysis. GIGA Focus No. These are two of the largest dams in Africa. The Eastern Nile Basin is of critical geopolitical importance to the Niles overall hydro-political regime. In particular, the DoP takes a very strict approach to the no significant harm rule. Poverty alleviation, which is a major concern for all Nile Basin countries, could form the basis of a cooperative arrangement between all the Niles riparians. While this means new opportunities to develop extended irrigation-based agriculture for the Sudanese, it represents also a new threat for Egypts current Nile water utilisation (Whittington et al., 2014). Neither the Egyptian nor the Ethiopian governments received positive domestic feedback on their agreement. Negotiations resumed three weeks after Al-Sisi took office in June 2014, and an agreement was made to resume negotiations - an achievementhailed by both Egypt and Ethiopia as a new chapter in relations between Egypt and Ethiopia based on openness and mutual understanding and cooperation (Omar, 2014). It seeks to build an infrastructure for regional water hegemony, positioning it, at the very least, in such a way that it can exchange water for oil. Kandeel, A. Ethiopia: The Untold Story of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Download PDF 1.40 MB. 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. (2014). An argument could be made that some of its provisions have passed into customary international law, however, that would require clear general practice and opinio juris. His successor, Mohamed Morsi, said that Egypt was prepared to defend each drop of Nile water with blood. An armed conflict has not emerged, but there are suggestions that Egyptian intelligence services undermined Ethiopia internally by assisting the Oromo Liberation Front in its campaign of civil unrest in Ethiopia in 2016. But the project has caused concern. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is the new - The Conversation 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. PDF Negative Impact of Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Population on - AJER It was in the hope of protecting Lake Turkana against such threats that it was listed as a World Heritage Site. In July of 2021, the second filling of the dam was completed. "The Blue Nile is the lifeblood of Egypt and its people and critics fear the dam could significantly reduce water flow to the country." "Climate change is such a big unknown. IDS (2013). "I came to Cairo on my first official trip to the region to hear . I agree with the delivery of the newsletter. Egypt says. On March 4, 1982, Bertha Wilson became the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. On Foes and Flows: Vulnerabilities, Adaptive Capacities and Transboundary Relations in the Nile River Basin in Times of Climate Change. In 1964, the US Land Reclamation Bureau conducted a study for the Ethiopian government, identifying 33 hydraulic projects in the Blue Nile Basin. Swain, A. This exception was implemented to mitigate the risk of decolonisation leading to boundary wars. Ethiopia says it will take a further four to six years to fill up the reservoir to its maximum flood season capacity of 74bcm. Whittington, D. et al. Egypts main argument might be that, despite being unsatisfactory and anachronistic, the Nile Waters Treaties remain good law and are enforceable against the respective parties. Ethiopia and Sudan are currently developing and implementing water infrastructure developments unilaterally - as Egypt has done in the past and continues to do. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Egypt's enemy or a blessing in It signifies that Egypts de facto veto power on major upstream dams has been broken, and it clearly demonstrates the political will of Ethiopia to develop its water infrastructure even in the absence of a comprehensive basin agreement. Addis Ababa launched the construction of the GERD under Zenawi, and work on it has proceeded at full steam ahead ever since. Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam - ArcGIS StoryMaps Success on this endeavor will only occur under a legally binding regime that ensures mutually beneficial rights. In the imperialist age, Ethiopian emperors threatened to alter the course of the Nile and stop its flow to Egypt. African Union, Israel and the crisis of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Omar, A. The final touches to these plans were added in 2005 and 2007, and one involves nine hydroelectric dams along the Gebale Dawa to produce some 1,300 MW of electricity for export. The Chinese-financed Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), despite a recent breakdown in talks on Africa's largest development project, risks powering up a range of downstream tensions and rivalries. Egypt and Ethiopia have once again locked horns over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Blue Nile. This is on the basis of the principles of State succession as outlined in the Vienna Convention on the Succession of States (VCSS). Egypt has also escalated its call to the international community to get involved. Ethiopian Yearbook of International Law 2017. However, as noted above, the trouble with relying on the DoP is that its legal status is not clearly defined. Churning waters: Strategic shifts in the Nile basin. Downstream countries Egypt and Sudan have expressed concerns over the impacts of the dam on their water supply. Indeed, Principle II notes that the purpose of the [Dam] is for power generation and regional integration through generation of sustainable and reliable clean energy supply. This is crucial given that hydroelectricity generation simply involves holding water back behind a dam for a period of time, and then releasing it again in a managed manner so that the electric turbines can spin consistently.