Fighting Water Wars: Regional Environmental Cooperation as a Roadmap for Peace

Abstract

There is a general consensus among experts that water scarcity in the twenty-first century will seriously threaten world peace. As it is essential for virtually all domestic, agricultural and industrial uses, as well as for maintaining ecological balance, water is the fundamental pillar of socioeconomic, cultural, political, and environmental development. Water’s deepening scarcity, the thinking goes, could thus lead to an upsurge in interstate armed clashes. However, management of transboundary waters has historically led to a process of cooperation rather than confrontation— a trend that is greatly enhanced where institutions are able to properly cultivate environmental governance, and when civil society can deploy transnational ties. In other words, water has not lead to major interstate clashes, at least not yet. The question now is how should we cope with increasing water stress so as to continue fostering cooperation? This article intends to explore this issue, starting with a brief overview of global water resources, followed by a presentation of the main paradigms regarding environmental scarcity and conflict, and ending with a case study of conflict containment through water cooperation.