Cooperation on International Rivers

Abstract

It is generally accepted that conflicting demands over international rivers will intensify. There is an active debate on whether this will lead to “water wars” or to unprecedented cooperation. Framing the debate in this manner, however, tends to cast the concept of cooperation as all-or-nothing, implying that “cooperation” is an extreme, in direct opposition to “war.” This conceptual construct obscures the many practical levels of cooperation that states can undertake to their mutual advantage. It is important to recognize that it is entirely rational that states will always have a “national agenda” for a river that they share with other states, and that they will cooperate if it serves that national agenda. In practice, there can be a continuum of levels of cooperation, from simple information sharing, to joint ownership and management of infrastructure investments. Furthermore, it may not necessarily be the case that “more” cooperation reaps “more” benefits in all river basins. There are many different types of benefits that can be secured through the cooperative management of international waters, with each individual basin offering different potential cooperative benefits with different associated costs. For each international basin, the optimal mode of cooperation will depend on a mix of factors including hydrologic characteristics, the economics of cooperative investments, numbers and the relationships of riparians, and the costs of parties coming together.