Negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Security Implications for Ethiopia
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Date
2022-07
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Addis Ababa University,
Abstract
The objective of this thesis is to assess the economic and political security implications of the Grand
Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) negotiations for Ethiopia. The nature of the study is primarily
doctrinal research. The research design is qualitative research and explanatory and predictive
approaches are employed to conduct the study. The sources of data are interviews with experts on the
issue under study and a range of literature that are of primary and secondary sources.
The GERD project is backed by a series of negotiations since its inception unlike projects conducted by
Egypt and Sudan on the Nile River. Here, issues of negotiations kept broadening and third-party actors
started engaging in trilateral negotiations which resulted in proposed and adopted agreements. The study
unfolds the security implications of those negotiations for Ethiopia. In doing so, it answers questions on
patterns of major treaties on the Nile River, security implications of major treaties and the GERD
negotiations for Ethiopia, the ways major treaties on the Nile River inform negotiations in the GERD, and
the outlooks of future negotiations as well as projects on the Nile River.
Negotiations on GERD started at a trilateral level but attracted the intervention of regional and
international negotiation platforms including the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) forum. The
UNSC has redirected the dispute to the AU-led platform which is a good stance toward implementing the
‘African Solutions for African Problems’, maxim. Yet, negotiations failed to result in a binding
cooperation agreement which, among other things, is attributable to the perceived risk of the parties
constituting fear of being disadvantaged upon cooperation, and the sustained suspicious relationship of
the parties manifested through unwillingness to make a meaningful compromise.
The study concludes the contents of the proposed and adopted agreements of negotiations in the GERD
compromise the security of Ethiopia by imposing onerous obligations that are not backed by reciprocal
protection measures imposed on the lower riparian countries. Hence, it recommends a carefully designed
negotiation approach to tackle the security threat posed by negotiations and adopt a legal framework to
establish a usage right of Ethiopia on the Nile River.