Conversations > Water Rights

My country, Ethiopia, is the source of 86 per cent of the Nile waters. However, for close to a century, Egypt, through colonial-based treaties to which Ethiopia is not a party, saw to it that it received the lion’s share of Nile waters and introduced the self-claimed notion of “historic rights and current use”, leaving nothing to the remaining nine riparian countries.

Ethiopia has made it clear from the very beginning that construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is based on its sovereign and legitimate rights to use the Nile waters and it not causing significant harm to downstream countries.

The negotiations on the GERD relate to a single project on a single tributary of the Nile River. Water sharing and water apportionment are simply inapposite in these negotiations. Rather, these negotiations are intended to fill and operate the GERD in a manner that provides Ethiopia with the equitable benefits of this project without inflicting significant harm on downstream states.

Bringing up issues relating to so-called 'colonial' treaties is a political ruse designed to distort facts and deflect attention from the real issue, which is the need to reach a balanced agreement that preserves the interests of all three riparian states.

It is no accident that Egypt falsely accuses Ethiopia of not wanting to be bound by the guidelines and rules under negotiation. This comes from its latent motive of enforcing the guidelines as a water sharing agreement to block future upstream development. As we have made it abundantly clear, time and again, this is not a water sharing negotiation. If it were, then other riparian countries will have had every right to take part in the negotiation process since the three countries cannot decide on the rights of other riparian states.

Ethiopia will abide by and faithfully implement the guidelines and rules on the annual operation of the GERD once an agreement is reach. However, it will not constrain its right to use the Nile waters for future development by the guidelines and rules or the quantified obligations contained therein.

Egypt knows that there is nothing more unilateral than apportioning the entire average annual flow of the Nile to Egypt and the Sudan at 55.5 and 18.5 billion cubic meters, respectively, excluding Ethiopia, which contributes 86 percent of the Nile waters. This, Excellency, is the crux of the matter and why we have not been able to achieve a breakthrough in the trilateral negotiation. In plain language, Egypt had made it a point to use the GERD negotiations to impel Ethiopia to endorse the unfair and unequal 1969 Agreement, which is anathema for Ethiopia, as it would be for any soverign nation.

If there is in fact any threat to peace and security, in connection with the GERD, the responsible party would be Egypt, which has been engaged in saber-rattling and bellicose threats to use force. It is our hope that the Council would not be misled by Egypt's misrepresentation of the facts surrounding the construction of the GERD. Moreover, we also trust that it would reject Egypt's unwarranted demands which are designed to ensure that the unequal, colonial-era arrangements on the Nile remain unchanged and unaltered.

Much as we wholeheartedly support Ethiopia’s right to development, including through the use of our shared water resources, we believe that justice dictates that Ethiopia respect Egypt’s right to life.

Contrarily, Egypt and the Sudan demand Ethiopia be indefinitely committed to the thresholds unless they agree to the review. This position clearly shows the intention of Egypt and the Sudan to make the GERD the only water development project Ethiopia could build over the Blue Nile.

Ethiopia proposed a compulsory arrangement whereby Egypt and the Sudan will review the document when there is upstream abstraction or they enter into a proper water allocation agreement with Ethiopia. Egypt and the Sudan decline both and have advanced their position, which gives them a veto power over the right of Ethiopia to further use the Blue Nile.

Ethiopia has only one conclusive response to this: it has a right to proceed with the filling of the dam, and it will certainly continue with the development of its water resource and the construction of any other water development project based on the principle of equitable and reasonable utilization and of causing no significant harm. Egypt and the Sudan are opposing Ethiopia’s use of the Nile water, citing the perceived harm they will sustain to a self-claimed water share and unilaterally imposed claim over use of the water of the Nile.

It is deeply disconcerting that Ethiopia has sought to exploit the GERD negotiations in order to consecrate an unfettered right to unilaterally construct further waterworks and undertake future developments along the Blue Nile upstream of the GERD and across other transboundary rivers that it shares with its neighbours. For Egypt, all riparian States of the Nile basin, including Ethiopia, have an inalienable right to enjoy the benefits of the Nile River.

For Egypt, all riparian States of the Nile basin, including Ethiopia, have an inalienable right to enjoy the benefits of the Nile River. However, such a right must be exercised in accordance with the applicable rules of international law, especially the principles of prior notification and consultation, the equitable and reasonable utilization of iinternational watercourses, and the obligations to protect the riparian ecosystem and to prevent the infliction of significant harm.

The Council of the League of Arab States at the ministerial level, at its extraordinary session held on 15 June 2021 in Doha, decides to affirm that the water security of the Republic of the Sudan and the Arab Republic of Egypt is integral to Arab national security and reject any action or measure that negatively affects those two countries’ rights to the Nile waters

Unlike the simplistic portrayal given by Egypt, the dispute is not on the legal status of the GERD guidelines. Rather, it is on the content of this guidelines and rules. Egypt wants an instrument that will be cited to foreclose Ethiopia from using the Nile upstream of the GERD. Ethiopia refuses to sign such instrument. Egypt demands Ethiopia to agree to an adversarial and adjudicatory dispute resolution mechanism. Ethiopia offered a consultative dispute resolution mechanism, with a possible involvement of mediators, leaving the last call for heads of governments of the three countries. It should be noted, Egypt do not have any dispute resolution clause in its water sharing agreement with Sudan. Contrarily, Ethiopia within the CFA on the Nile Basin agreed to adjudicatory dispute resolution in the incidence of dispute.

Entertaining downstream notions that wrongly perceive water issues as a security issue in contradiction with the notion of equity and reasonableness may make the UNSC privy to Egypt and Sudan’s historical design for total control of the Nile through the 1959 treaty and sets precedence impinging on the entitlement of upstream states of the Nile in their respective territories.

Beyond the self-claimed and colonially imposed “historic right”, Egypt made it impossible for anyone to agree with it on the matter of the Nile, by nationalistic and belligerent narratives.

Disguised in the annual operation of the GERD, Egypt wants to uphold the status quo and maintain the 1959 partial water allocation to the detriment of Ethiopia. To this end, Egypt introduced triple layered thresholds in the name of drought, prolonged drought and prolonged dry years that will keep the GERD on a perpetual state of release.

To deal with the management and utilization of the Nile waters without addressing the root cause i.e., the absence of a fair water allocation framework in the basin is to ignore the elephant in the room. In the GERD negotiations, the cart came before the horse. Had there been a fair and equitable water allocation and utilization framework in the basin, the issue of the guidelines and rules for the first filling and annual operation of the GERD would have been less complex. Unfortunately, this prerequisite agreement is not in place. As a result, any detail agreed on the GERD must change whenever Ethiopia develops the Blue Nile upstream of the GERD. Otherwise, no one but Ethiopia that has barely used the resource will sustain harm as Egypt and Sudan already exhausted the resource andopenly declare they need more water to meet their need.

Egypt and the Sudan insist that Ethiopia should not be allowed to fill the dam without their consent. Ethiopia, as a riparian country that contributes 86 per cent of the entire water flow, has the right to utilize the Nile. Ethiopia is under no obligation under international law or practice to seek the consent of the two lower riparian countries. That would clearly amount to affording a veto power to those two countries over the development endeavours of the more than 110 million people of Ethiopia.