Abstract:
This thesis, for the International Human Rights Law program, looks at how the Nile water crisis is perceived through academia, international law, and through political negotiations. The dominant approach to dealing with the increasing water shortages, due to population growth of riparian states and environmental degradation of the Nile, is politically oriented. There is a dominance of this approach, although it's limited in eradicating the problems which arise in addressing shared watercourses and resources among states as it concerns the human rights of citizens to water. There have been academic works relating to the human right to water indirectly under the umbrella of Human Rights and Environmental conventions, yet there exists no legally binding framework that correlates with the human right to fresh water resources specifically, within conventions concerning human rights. The global water crisis relates to both quantity and quality, although the latter is not emphasized as quantity. The crisis is also closely linked to the global environmental crisis and the degradation of life-supporting ecosystems. The water crisis is also based on a deficiency of management: fragmented institutions, inadequate policies and deficient legal systems, insufficient funding for water supply and pollution control, and shortage of political will. Using the Nile as a case study in Egypt, I wish to illustrate the mindset represented in dealing with the increasing scarcity of water resources in the region and for riparian states specifically, in an effort to explain that the approach to utilizing Nile water demonstrates the Nile as a commodity, instead of a scarce resource which the state is responsible for securing and sustaining for their human populations that need it to survive.
