Abstract
Multilateral agreements are emerging as important mechanisms for structuring cooperation in politically and ecologically complex transboundary river basins around the world. While such agreements are offered and legitimized as a means to advance ecological and human security, they instead often promote state-centric environmental securitization. As a result, seemingly progressive agreements grounded in international law are likely to precipitate and mask environmental degradation until it becomes serious or even irreversible, creating both ecological and human security crises at a variety of scales. Case studies of wetland ecosystems in both the Zambezi and Mekong basins reveal the material and discursive linkages between international agreements and security. By drawing on critical approaches that acknowledge both the socially constructed and the multi-dimensional nature of sovereignty, this paper exposes significant institutional barriers to ecologically sustainable transboundary cooperation in the two basins.
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Notes
The study of conflict and cooperation between states in international river basins has been termed hydropolitics (Elhance 1999). Most research on hydropolitics does not problematize this definition to any great extent (see, for example, Swain 1993; Wolf 1998). Turton (2002) notes that this is a narrow definition, which does not capture the full range and complexity of issues concerning conflict and cooperation in international river basins. He offers the following definition: “[Hydropolitics] is seen as the authoritative allocation of values in society with respect to water” (16). Our understanding of hydropolitics has more in common with Turton’s definition. We do not investigate the conditions under which sovereign states engage in cooperation or conflict over water. Rather, we ask questions about the values, representations, and assumptions that frame and construct understandings and interpretations of both conflict and cooperation. Our approach is best characterized as critical hydropolitics (Sneddon and Fox 2006).
The Mekong basin has been the focus on transboundary water cooperation and development since the late 1940’s, when the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East established a Bureau of Flood Control to advise and assist governments in the region (United Nations 1968). In 1957, following the work of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the Wheeler Commission, which resulted in plans for large-scale multipurpose development in the form of a cascade of 180 dams, the Mekong Committee was formed, comprising Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. The Committee became the Interim Mekong Committee beginning in 1978 (its work was interrupted by war and post-conflict political and economic isolation in Cambodia) and was reformed as the Mekong River Commission in 1995.
SADC’s Protocol applies to all transboundary basins in the 12 states on the Southern African subcontinent, not just the Zambezi. Transboundary governance initiatives in the Zambezi basin date to 1987, when the Southern African Development Coordinating Conference adopted the Zambezi River Action Plan (ZACPLAN) under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program. There has been limited implementation of this basin plan (Chenje 2003), and the more recent Protocol now guides transboundary development and management. In November 2006, the Zambezi basin states came together to sign an agreement to create the Zambezi River Commission (ZAMCOM). Of the eight riparian states, Zambia did not sign the agreement, and three states—Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe—did not ratify it. ZAMCOM is intended to enable more effective participation and management of basin resources. It would operate according to the guidelines set forward by the SADC Protocol.
Jetfetr Sapukwanya, Zambezi River Authority. Interviewed in Lusaka, Zambia, May 2004.
Ian Campbell, Mekong River Commission, November 2002, Dialogue on River Basin Development and Civil Society in the Mekong Region, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand.
Environmental or ecosystem governance takes into consideration processes at a variety of scales, recognizes the natural variability and uncertainty of ecological processes, and includes in decision-making those affected by rules and policies. Ecosystem governance implies that both the “integrity and resilience of democratic ideals as well as critical ecological processes” are taken into consideration in environmental management (Cortner and Moote 1999: xi). Researchers from both the natural and social sciences understand ecosystem governance as a key component of ecologically sustainable resource management (see Brown and Macleod 1996; Cortner and Moote 1999; Gunderson et al. 1995; Lee 1992; Norton 1998; Walters 1986). Ecosystem governance is a logical first step towards ensuring human and ecological security.
In the Mekong basin, state borders were demarcated by the British (Burma) and the French (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam), with Thailand serving as a non-colonized buffer between the two powers. Prior to the imposition of the modern territorial state, which is based on absolute space (Taylor 1999, 69), political organization in the region was based on space “conceived in terms of cosmology rather than geography” (Jerndal and Rigg 1998, 814). The political world was modelled on the mandala, with states occupying “vaguely defined geographical areas” (Wolters 1999, 28). In the Zambezi basin, the Berlin Congress of 1884–1885 divided Africa among the European powers and created modern states in the Zambezi basin. The British ruled present-day Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, and Botswana, the Portuguese controlled Mozambique and Angola, and the Germans controlled Namibia and Tanzania. The arbitrary boundaries of these states completely disregarded pre-existing political, cultural, ethnic, and linguistic regions.
Wetlands, according to the Ramsar Convention, include “areas of marsh, fen, peat land or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salty, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six meters” (cited in Chenje 2000, 47).
The territorial state is the locus of sovereignty in the modern political world. In a world of territorial states, sovereignty, through both its external and internal dimensions, structures the Westphalian system of mutual rights and responsibilities (Litfin 1998, 7; Weber 1995). Externally, sovereignty means recognition by other states in the international system of states (Bierstecker and Weber 1996, 2). External sovereignty can also be described as legal sovereignty. States are recognized by other states as legitimate powers. Internally, sovereignty refers to autonomy and control within territorial boundaries, which means that states agree not to intervene in the ‘internal’ affairs of other states (Litfin 1998, 5).
There are a number of (older) concepts in stream ecology that prioritize the longitudinal dimension and therefore reinforce the idea of a single-thread channel. Most notable is the River Continuum Concept (Vannote et al. 1980). This concept disregards floodplains and groundwater (Ward et al. 2001), which makes it blind to the land-water interactions that define wetlands. The River Continuum Concept supports the representation of rivers as watercourses, but it does not describe actual ecological processes in large, floodplain rivers.
Ironically, the 20th century is replete with examples of efforts to control water through large-scale dam construction stymied by the unruly and unpredictable behaviour of river systems. The end of result of many such projects has been quite severe social and biophysical disruptions (McCully 2001).
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This research was conducted under support from the United States Institute of Peace (Grant (361–02S). Thank you to Natalie Koch for her work on the maps. We would also like to thank J. Gupta and two anonymous reviewers for very insightful comments.
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Fox, C.A., Sneddon, C. Transboundary river basin agreements in the Mekong and Zambezi basins: Enhancing environmental security or securitizing the environment?. Int Environ Agreements 7, 237–261 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-007-9036-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-007-9036-4