Gebrehiwet Kahsay
Department of Political Science and International Relations, College of Social Science and Languages, Aksum University, P.O. Box1010, Axum, Trai, Ethiopia.
Heliyon. 2020 Sep 23;6(9):e04877. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04877. eCollection 2020 Sep.
The longstanding hydro-political history of the Nile River had been characterized by the domination of a single riparian country, Egypt, through its claim of historical and natural right discourse which is essentially not acceptable in modern international water laws. Nevertheless, the Nile upper riparian countries have been experiencing several political and economic changes that could a major reason to promote shifts the status quo. The aim of this paper is to give exploratory and theoretical analysis up on changing the wrong historical claiming of hydro-hegemony in the Nile river basin. Methodologically, the paper is employed general qualitative and theoretical approach as well as exploratory research design. After their independence (except Ethiopia), upstream riparian countries of the Nile River basin have begun to look at the utilization of the shared water resource to meet their respective national development needs. This, in fact, has its own reasons. Among others, most of the riparian countries are currently more politically and economically stable than the past several years. Secondly, the emergence of modern international water laws have contributed a lot in giving an awareness of the rights of riparian countries on shared water resources through its icon principle of equitable and reasonable utilization on trans-boundary water resources. This paper is, therefore, trying to show the invalidity of the historical notion of hydro-hegemony which is basically void in any contemporary international water laws.
尼罗河由来已久的水政治历史一直以单一沿岸国家埃及的主导为特征，埃及通过其历史和自然权利话语主张来占据主导地位，而这种主张在现代国际水法中根本无法被接受。然而，尼罗河上游沿岸国家一直在经历一些政治和经济变革，这些变革可能是推动改变现状的一个主要原因。本文旨在对尼罗河流域水霸权错误的历史主张的改变进行探索性和理论性分析。在方法论上，本文采用了一般定性和理论方法以及探索性研究设计。尼罗河盆地的上游沿岸国家在独立后（埃塞俄比亚除外），已开始着眼于利用共享水资源来满足各自国家的发展需求。事实上，这有其自身原因。其中，大多数沿岸国家目前在政治和经济上比过去几年更加稳定。其次，现代国际水法的出现通过其关于跨界水资源公平合理利用的标志性原则，极大地提高了沿岸国家对共享水资源权利的认识。因此，本文试图说明水霸权的历史观念在当代任何国际水法中基本上都是无效的。
