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the historical land of the Yakima and Matilla Nez-Person Warm Springs tribes who have formed a coalition to advocate for incorporating ecosystem functions in the modernized treaty. And that group came out with a statement recently that said that any modifications to the treaty must ensure full engagement and consent from tribes and first nations and be in alignment with articulated indigenous governance principles. So they're advocating essentially for expanding the formal negotiation team to include representatives from Native American tribes and First Nations. Next, stakeholders sort of responding to these needs on both sides have identified ecosystem functions as a key component of a modernized treaty. The US came out and said that there's an opportunity for inclusion of certain additional ecosystem operations and the BC side, the British Columbia side said basically the exact same statement. There is certainly a lack of clarity about what exactly ecosystem functions mean. It's sort of become a buzzword within this negotiation process. And a lot of stakeholders trying to advocate for clarifying and determining what exactly are we thinking about when we're talking about ecosystem functions. And then finally, the terms of the Canadian entitlement have led to conditions that disadvantage US electricity consumers. Because the Canadian entitlement specifies that all power generated downstream would be split evenly among the United States and Canada |
although the energy market has changed considerably since 1964. So the original economic assumptions were based on forecasts of declining downstream power, but these prove to be incorrect. And so the power sharing agreement has ultimately been more favorable to Canada than to the US. And the US entity has proposed rebalancing the power benefits to better reflect the actual value of the coordinated operations. However, some Northwest politicians believe that the terms of the treaty are beyond repair and introduced a bipartisan resolution in the United States House of Representatives calling for its termination. Well, this seems unlikely. It is another sticking point in the renegotiation process. So formal negotiations opened on May 30th in 2018. And in June 20, 2020, the 10th round of treaty negotiations occurred via web conference. And at the conclusion of those most recent conversations, the two sides released almost identical press statements, which I've excerpted on this slide. Due to the confidential nature of the cross-border negotiations, the specific details of Canada's initial proposal and of the US framework that they're referencing here have not been made public. And this lack of information has been really frustrating to the numerous stakeholders who regard modernizing the treaty as essential. So in 2018, a coalition of 31 nonprofit organizations sent a letter to the US entity advocating for, among other things |
the expansion of the US negotiating team to include a broader range of stakeholders and greater transparency in the negotiation process. So I'll talk a little bit about like how the negotiations actually work. Each side is represented by an entity. And the US entity is made up of the State Department, the Bonneville Power Administration, which covers multiple states in the Pacific Northwest, and the Northwest Division of the US Army Corps of Engineers. And the Canadian entity is represented by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs traded and development in the BC Hydro Power Authority. And so these are the sort of formal negotiators, but in addition to those teams, there are numerous other stakeholders who are not formally involved in the negotiation process but have claims to the basin. So these include, for example, states and their legislators, a large assortment of NGOs and other nonprofits, public utility districts, and tribes in both the United States and Canada. So as far as like thinking about what comes next and trying to imagine sort of how this treaty might resolve. As I said, the negotiations are still very much in progress and there's not a ton of information about how things have been evolving. That said |
there seems to be a consensus emerging around how they can leverage the treaty to address ecosystem functions and other environmental concerns such as climate change. This seems to be a priority for many of the non-formal stakeholders and has that has been reflected in statements made by the US and Canadian entities. There are lots of stakeholders who all have various views about how the treaty should be modernized. And there are even some stakeholders who believe that a formal treaty is unnecessary. So I think there is sort of a more, I think it's unlikely that that actually emerges as an option. But there's a question of whether the two sides could cooperate on flood control without a formal treaty or whether, you know, good treaties make good neighbors. So that's where that's where I'm at. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Jim, for excellent presentation. I think it's really nice the way that you have presented. It's really wonderful. So now I would like to, yeah, askop and Flora to make the comments and yeah, then we can discuss further. So what will you think will be the biggest challenge to overcome from the government side? I think it's sort of this fundamental question of the treaty that they have has basically worked for 60 years and people have been pretty happy with it on both sides. The US feels like they're overpaying for power but that's sort of been the main objection to the treaty as it currently stands. However, I think there is a fairly broad consensus that the treaty should be |
the scope of the treaty should be expanded to include all of these ecosystem, not all of these ecosystem services, but certain ecosystem services relating to salmon fisheries and climate change. And I think figuring out, I think the biggest challenge for the government is figuring out, to what extent are we going to transform this treaty that has basically worked for 60 years and sort of brought in the scope of these negotiations, which I think it's just sort of a slippery slope. And is this treaty as, you know, even the right vehicle for having those conversations about trend boundary environmental concerns. I don't know. I'm not sure I actually have an answer to that one. Yeah, I think that's the biggest challenge. I'm also thinking something that since the climate changes in the climate changes very much in the issue. So, help me understand this because I'm not that much familiar with the US government system. So I was thinking that, for example, the last government of the US, as far my understanding goes, not really very supportive of the measures to be taken about the climate change and everything. And I know that like in the US, there is a spoiler system. Like, once the government changes, almost a major portion of the administration changes. So with this shift of administration, do you think like that will have significant effect on making the future decisions on this treaty? And if yes, then how that might end up? Yeah, I think I would venture yes. I think that even under the Trump administration |
climate change still featured in this treaty because if, for example, there is less snow melt or less snow accumulation because of a changing climate that has serious impacts on, you know, U.S. hydroelectric power generation and the economy of the Pacific Northwest, I think 40% of Washington electricity is hydroelectric. So if there's less water, there's less power, and that's quite devastating to the Northwest economy. So to that extent, I think it's sort of the impacts, the potential impacts of climate change on this treaty had already been taken into consideration, whether under the current administration that might be expanded to include sort of more comprehensive environmental values, it seems possible. I also think that this treaty is not a major foreign policy priority for either government. So it's kind of skated under the radar a little bit. And during like some of the, there were 10 rounds of negotiations and then it kind of was put on hold during the changing government. So I think whether it will be picked up with sort of more focus on environmental concerns, I think remains to be seen. Actually, both the questions came from my experience as a government officer, because in our case, in the US or in most of the developed countries generally what I see that although the governments change but the national policies and the national goals more or less remain same very minor changes unless like some drastic measures they can but in this the world, government changes |
the whole thing falls apart and you start from you. So which is why I was trying to actually understand this thing so that I can actually design my presentation and paper from that perspective. Thank you very much. It was an amazing presentation and I loved it. Thanks, Marshall. Do you have any feedback or question for Jema? Yeah, yeah, I really, really enjoyed this presentation. Great job. I appreciate your use of graphics. I think, you know, making a presentation is, you know, good presentation is always not as easy as it seems. So, yeah, overall, I think I learned a lot. It was very easy to follow. I definitely had a couple points that I would consider as like further considerations, like not really necessary, but things that came to mind while I was listening to the presentation. So I'll run through and you can either respond or not respond to each one. So the first one is, are there still opportunities for further hydropower expansion along the Columbia River? Because you mentioned that flooding is still a priority, but I know in a lot of parts of the world, hydropower expansion is really diminishing because we're just utilizing everything that we can. So, yeah, so in my understanding, there is not, there are no opportunities for additional dam construction. There are opportunities for greater efficient, like greater electric efficiency. Some dams have been identified as potential targets for removal, which would then catalyze additional needs on the existing dams for flood trul measures. Um, Yeah, those are right. Yeah, yeah |
yeah, and so then the next one, so you talked about this a little bit, especially at the end, but I was wondering like how climate change might exacerbate the water resources in the future. And like, I guess specifically if certain stakeholders should be included. So you already mentioned a lot of stakeholders that are not being included. But it would be interesting if like ecologists either like representing the like two countries or some kind of neutral ecology representation to be included in the negotiations to really advocate for these environmental needs and not just the wants of the two countries like economically or technologically. Yeah, that's a great question. I think one of the suggestions that has emerged in recent years is officially adding NOAA to the US entity team to have a better advocate for sort of environmental impacts in that formal body. That is one of the things, or like other sort of representatives from the US Department of the Interior that could sort of be more of a voice for environmental concerns compared to like the power administrations who have sort of clear expertise on the hydroelectric side, but aren't necessarily equipped to consider salmon habitats and things like that. So that's one of the strategies that has been proposed. Has not happened yet. Awesome. Okay, so the next thing is about, so you did a good job of explaining the gains and losses from the treaties point of view, like which parties were suffering and which ones were really experiencing gain |
but it'd be interesting to learn more about like how this treaty was successful in terms of negotiation. So not just the effects of the treaty itself, but also like, if people are saying that this is like the model negotiation treaty, it's I'm sure it's not just because of what the treaty was able to achieve, but also like how the treaty was negotiated. I think that's like one of the most interesting things about your presentation is that it basically refers to no animosity between the countries. Like it took a really, really long time, like decades of negotiations, but like almost nowhere in your presentation did you mention like, well, they like really, you know, like got stuck on this one issue or they couldn't move forward because like this one party was like not cooperating and I don't know I think it'd be interesting to understand like why why is that like it's must have like something to do with the negotiations and then also probably the conditions of what's happening. Yeah, that's a great point. I have not really built that in, but I think that's a, yeah, that's super helpful. I'm definitely going to do that. Yeah, I think like an easy way is like looking at the Bruno Verdeen's 12 steps and just checking off like which ones seemed to be fulfilled and then which ones don't because I imagine many are checked and then that's why it was yeah, no |
no, it was really interesting I think it's like a big shift from the case that I'm working on where like basically the government hate each other and like that's why nothing is able to get forward and I think it's just um it's interesting to see how long the timeline is even if the governments don't hate each other. Yeah I was thinking a lot of that a lot about that after listening to Hussein's case last week and And like the two, they kind of arrived, the US and Canada kind of arrived at the negotiating people with this idea of mutual gains in mind. And the treaty emerged from that. And it wasn't the, it's not that the treaty is enabling an effective diplomatic relationship. The treaty is the result of an effective diplomatic relationship. So how that kind of differs and how that might be leveraged for a sort of more comprehensive and forward looking document going going forward. So yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. Definitely. Yeah, no, I'm just trying to see. Okay, so the last thing that I had was, I mean, you mentioned this as one of your open questions, but like, it's really interesting what the consequences for the different stakeholders would be if the treaty was terminated. I think like it seems like everyone's on the same page that like treaty's working, it's good, but then it's really weird that like they're unable to extend the treaty. It seems like mainly just because people are dragging their feet. But yeah, it seems like in most cases if the treaty went away |
stakeholders would have some kind of loss. But I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, thanks for a very constructive suggestion. So any other suggestions from Aaron or Cassian or as nine? Okay, so yeah, I would like to ask one thing. Maybe Mushroop touched upon it, you mentioned five areas of new renegotiation process. So, and so what are the disagreement among these areas that you mentioned among the two parties between Canada and US? Is there kind of, who are you able to explore the disagreement among the parties for those areas that that can negotiation might stack? I think what it's interesting about this case is that the disagreement isn't necessarily between the two entities, but also between all of these sort of peripheral, or not even peripheral, like they're deeply involved, they're just not part of the formal process. So one of the things that's been so interesting looking through all of the documents that have been, or the statements that have been put out by the US and Canada is how identical they are. So they kind of, they, after each round of negotiations, they put up these statements they're like, oh, we made so much progress, like we responded to their framework, we responded to their framework |
like things are moving right along. And all of the sort of complexity seems to be driven by these other actors who are pushing for change. So I'm not sure if there's like necessarily a ton of disagreement between the the two countries around say like the inclusion of indigenous peoples in the negotiation process. Like I think both countries are sort of willing to expand the scope of the treaty to think about how those those tribes have been harmed over the last 60 years. But the conflict then is like how does the sort of collaborative treaty mechanism respond to the needs of these stakeholders on both sides of the border? Does that answer a question? Yeah, yeah, thanks. So the second issue that I wanted to mention that you mentioned climate sense is one of the future aspects that need to be considered. So is there any study that can provide details what are the expected impacts of the climate sense? Is it future flooding or is it the impact on the energy hydropower generation? So I think if you can mention those impact, I think then it could be much more, I think your suggestion could be much more solid. Yes, I think I left that out for complexity's sake here, but I think the main concern is sort of this shift from a basin that's driven by snow melt, to a basin that's driven by rain. And as that, like, as there is less snowmalt and more rain, the kind of flood control mechanisms change as well as the potential like management of hydropower over time. So yes, I do have sources for that and I will include those in my final case study. Yeah. Jim |
I've mentioned to you a couple times along the way, um, that it's invisible, but the states and the provincial governments in Canada are in fact very much calling the shots. Yeah. And they're not officially part of the entities. But remember that the US entity is led by the State Department because allegedly this is an international negotiation. And the State Department has no relationships with the governors of all those states, no longstanding working relationships, which has caused some severe difficulty for those governors. It may be, you don't have to do this, but you might want to imagine as a last little piece of your paper what it might be like and how helpful it might be to imagine a second track of negotiations convened by the US governors and the provincial leadership in BC with First Nations and Tribes. I mean, they would have enormous credibility. They said, we're getting together because we are convinced that the future of this agreement, whether it's strengthened or renewed or replaced, it needs to take account of changing conditions from 60 years ago and we feel those when we have responsibilities. And if they were to organize a set of sessions with NGOs and touch this on their own. The State Department, I promise you, would cut the same way that the Canadian agencies would show up, but they wouldn't be there in their official capacity. And if they just took three or four questions, maybe even two or three questions, that are not addressed for the future in the existing treaty |
and laid out substantively agreements they might reach, the same way that Bruno described local officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, initiating their own conversations, trying to come up with what they'd like to see as jointly beneficial elements of a future supplementary agreement, which then became the basis of what the US government negotiated. I think the same thing could happen. And I think it's, I think the two big differences between then and now are that there were enormous number of positive benefits to be shared in the beginning. Yeah. And so they were getting together, I agree that everyone who pointed out they start with friendly relationships matters, but when the actual negotiators sat down, okay, how much flood control are you going to give me? Well, how much money are you going to give me? And that was the negotiation. Whereas now it's okay, what restrictions are we going to impose? What dams are we going to take down? Who's going to build the new flood control systems if you take down existing dams to make salmon migration possible? It's not all about allocating gains. That's one big difference. The second is, nobody had those concerns about salmon and climate and other natural resource questions and ecological concerns, the way we do now. And that's not represented well in the entities. And but the concerns are there, but the entities can't really negotiate them very well. So I think if you if you look at what's what's different in big ways between then and now |
that the response to that that would be most effective in the short term is to have a different track of local and non-governmental and scientific negotiators generate some of the elements of a supplementary subsidiary version, or addition to the existing agreement. And I think governors, governors in those states have been tracking every move in the State Department. I mean, my engagement in this case, I think I mentioned, happened when I was doing training for the State Department and the two guys who were appointed by the State Department to lead these conversations with zero, zero background in anything Northwest, water, Canada, that absolutely just thrown into this and they were saying, so we got a problem. These governors are telling us that they want to say what should happen. And we don't know, how should we negotiate that? That was the question they were asking is, how should we do this negotiation with these governors who don't have any official role while we're trying to negotiate with the Canadians? That was the conversation. And I don't think they figured it out. And I think there's the enormous pressure coming on the US government from the states. That's a thing I've been trying to untangle is the relationship of state governments to their representatives back to the federal government because so many state representatives and senators from the Northwest states have come out with various, you know, official statements and their perspective on these renegotiations and like what, you know |
you know, how are the Washington senators coordinating with the Washington governor to get things back to the State Department like trying to tease out all of those? They're not? They're not? That's for show. That's, we're trying to make political capital on the legislative side. The key is the governors. The governors have the access to the White House. The governors only care later about getting the Senate to ratify any change in the treaty. Between now and then the House of Representatives, the governors don't care to talk to them. There's nothing they're going to do for this. So my sense is that when you see state legislators and congressional legislators from the states making noise about this issue, it's political self-promotion to try to gain some advantage from all of this, but it isn't because they expect to be part of solving it. Got it. That's good to know. What's helpful? But it is wonderful to have somebody say there's a successful treaty. I think that's great. A successful water treaty between two countries. Wonderful. It's basically worked the way it was supposed to do for a long time. And we have, you know, we have parallel negotiations after 50 years in Latin America. We didn't spend much time on it, but there are negotiations between different countries in Latin America where treaties that existed over shared waters for 50 years are up. And you can't just extend the treaty. Everything has changed so much. But nobody knows, well, but we've had this treaty at 50 years. It's worked. Why should we mess with it? Well |
because the conditions have all changed. But that doesn't that doesn't translate into a specific strategy for how to do the negotiation. In my view, if if there is anything we've learned, it's that you need to get all the stakeholders, I mean, Aaron's one of his four conclusions, you need to get all the stakeholders into the story. Well, you can't do that in an official treaty renegotiation. So you have to run a parallel effort and get the other stakeholders into the substance of what should the new agreement say and why. And as Bruno has shown, if you can get agreement at the next level down from the national government on the two sides, and you have real players with stakes, and they say this is what we think, whether it's you're changing the treaty, you're extending it with a new supplementary terms to, however you do it, here's the substance and we all agree with it and we'll all support it. Yeah. That for me is how the, what a diplomacy framework meshes with the political reality of the treaty renegotiation. But I think presentation was terrific. It's such an interesting circumstance. I don't think you can conclude anything at this stage, but I think you can say as you have, look, this is a problem. Treaty renegotiation |
treaty extension. Here's what they face. Here's what they got into it. Here's what they're trying. Maybe they could try this. But I don't think you anyone could hold you or anyone else to try to come up with a conclusion about anything in this case at this stage of the game. I think we're at the lessons learning phase more than we're at the lessons learned phase. Yeah, maybe in a few years someone can update it. I hope so. We'll give them your paper to start with. Yeah, so thanks Zuma again for the presentation. Also thanks. And I don't know for the presentation. So on next week, we'll have last two cases by Mushroof and Flora. And as I already mentioned that the deadline for submission is on 21st of May. So yeah, we are expecting much more massive presentation and also much more final piece of your work in the next week. And as I already mentioned that, please provide your feedback by May 24th. I guess you already. Yeah, on the whole course. Yeah, for the whole course. As you already add a footnote to what Adam said at the outset. MIT has this online, give it a rating, here's a set of questions. And then they say what the average score was on each question by averaging across whoever happened to answer. I do not find this system helpful. I've never learned anything from that device and I have always asked people to please just send a paragraph something. What do you think the strengths and weaknesses of the course are and what idea do you have about something we could do to improve it? In a conversational just rough draft email |
that's how I learn stuff about what we do in the course and how to improve it. So yes, MIT would like you to please fill out the formal evaluation form and we'll live with whatever the numerical score is, whatever that means. But we really would like to learn something from you. No, we made a decision to have guest presenters, particular guest presenters. Did we make good choices? Did we give them good advice about how to structure what they were presenting? Anamesh and I tried to provide the water diplomacy framework in some more expository way at the outset. We ask everyone to pick a case and write a case. We use the aquapedia frame so that people have some common device because it's worth it because we've put, publish your paper in the aqua pedia. I mean, so we make a bunch of decisions. Those could all be different. Yeah, and also last thing I would like to mention that last year, two students, so one of the students was able to submit their final paper into a journal article. So it's already submitted in one of the journal article. Another student is still working on that. And another student was able to publish their article in a newspaper. So this kind of thing says, these are the practical things. So all these are the possibilities that you can do and I am happy to support you. So yeah |
this I think it's very practical. So it's very encouraging to us that there's peer acceptance and excitement about the things that are produced in the course. So we tell the stories of people whose papers became theses or dissertations or their papers became articles in peer review journals or their papers turned into op-eds. This is all for us, one indicator that people getting something out of the thinking, reading, writing, listening, talking that happens in the course. So we hope you'll think of a way to capitalize on all the work you did in some other outlets if you can. And we'll help, we'll help. In some cases it takes another year to deal with the journal that wants more elaboration and we'll be glad online to help you if you want to follow up on any of this. Is there any other specific issue that you would like to mention maybe for the final paper or other issue? I think everybody's just doing wonderful work and we're very excited about the products. See everybody next week for the last go at this. So all right. Bye. Stay well. Next day. Thank you. All right. Bye. All thankew. Thank you. All. Thank you. Great day. Thanks. |
So thank you very much for the opportunity of the presentation. So today I would be presenting about the Gangesh water conflicts between India and Bangladesh, which is actually one of the major boon of contents that's happening between the two neighboring countries. So I would be speaking about, it is basically, it follows three flows. The first part would speak about from where the problem originated. And the second part would say that what is the present condition and the third part would discuss which I think would be the most relevant part for our past, that is the water diplomacy part on how we can actually approach the problem and how we can try to find a solution. So let me go to the next slide. So I would be putting a little bit of disclaimer. Some part of my discussion might not match with Bangladesh's government's official view. So I would, this is important because of years of training, because I'm not an academic, because of years of training, two things happens. The first one is subconsciously, and I have found it even when I've taken classes in Japan or in the US, that's automatically I actually reflect the views of a typical Bangladeshi bureaucrat, the particular government's point of view. It is very, I had to train myself to, I mean, stay away from that view and try to match with the academic standard and come up with as much as objective point of view as possible. So here I would try deliberately |
I mean not to match the typical staffs that is said by the Bangladesh government or any government to per se. So that is one thing. So and the second part is the political history because although it's a treaty, it's a river treaty, but it is very sensitive both for Bangladesh and India, and the political history between Bangladesh and India has sort of influence in this whole discussion. So knowingly or unknowingly, sometimes that political history will visit us in my presentation. So with these two disclaimers, I start my presentation. So first a little bit of history and geography. So you all know about the Indian subcontinent that there are many countries. It was basically under the British rule for 200 years and before that it was 600 years under the Mughals or the Muslims. So before 1947 at the leftmost the huge map that you see total blue this is the situation of Indian subcontinent. And in 1947, right after the Second World World, the Indian subcontinent was divided into two, and that is after the partition in 1947, you can see the green part still stays the India, the present-day India, and the orange part, a deep orange part, that is on the upper side it's West Pakistan and on the lower side, the small country, it's East Pakistan, which is the modern day Bangladesh. So in 1971, we had a war against the western part of Western part of Pakistan. It was actually very natural. You see that there is like almost 2,000 miles gap between the two parts. So it was sort of obvious for many reasons. So in 1971 |
this first one single country that is India, second India and Pakistan, and after 71, it became three countries, that is India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. So this is the case, and here I'm bringing this little bit of a little bit of history to explain the relationship dynamics of Bangladesh and India, because without bringing the relationship dynamics between Bangladesh and India, it is kind of tough to understand that how and why this treaty is so sensitive. So here we can see that in 16 December, 1971, you can say this is the surrender ceremony, this is the surrender ceremony of the occupying force in 16 December. And on the left side, 3 million people, that is the official number Bangladesh claims. It is disputed, but this is the official number that it was killed. So there was, we said that there has been genocide and murders, which happens almost in all the words. So this is the surrender ceremony and there is an interesting fact, you will see that in the left side, someone who is signing for Bangladesh. This is an Indian, Indian general, General Jaljit Singh, Aurora. So you can understand the historical connection between India and Bangladesh. It's very deep. And it used to be, and during the liberation war, India, India helped us militarily. And later, after the independence, which both the parties considered that both India and Bangladesh should be very friendly |
but after the independence that actually changed and major anti-Indian sentiment has been present there. And one of the reasons this happened is the the Faraka Dam which has created serious trouble for Bangladesh. And for that, gradually there has been some treaties, and it was so serious that, let me explain the basin a little bit first. So I would be reading from an article by Saito-Roman. So this is the Ganges Water Basin. You can see that from the Ganges is coming and coming and coming and it is entering from the Hoogli. Hoogli falls in the West Bengal. So previously before the partition, Bengal was united. So there was no East Bengal or West Bengal. So after the partition, one part of Bengal fall into India. We speak the same language. Our culture is almost same. The religion is a little bit different. A little religion, the Hindu majority is in the Western part, the West Bengal and the Muslim majority is in the Eastern part, because the partition happened for the two nations theory that the Muslims will be living in Pakistan and the Hindus and other religions will be living in India so that was a theory but that was a the theory but that was a the ganges river originates in the central Himalan at the altitude of 7,010 meters and extends into the Aluvian Gangesic plains and drains into the Indian Ocean at the Bay of Bengal. The Ganges is a transboundary river which has a total length of approximately 2,600 kilometers and a total catchment area of 1,087,000 square kilometer. The river basin spreads across India, Nepal, China, and Bangladesh |
where India shares the major portion, which is 79% of the total basin area. And in contrast, Bangladesh is the furthest downstream country of the basin and shares only about 4% of the basin area, which nevertheless represents 37% of the total area of Bangladesh. The hydrological cycle and water resources of the Ganges Basin are governed by southwest monsoon, characterized by high temperature, heavy rainfall, strong seasonal variations. The region is characterized by flooding in the wet season, which is June to October and water scarcity in the dry season, which is November 2 May. During the monson season, there is an abundance of water, but during non-moonson season, lower precipitation causes reduced flow in the basin. The insufficient supply of water in the downstream during the dry season causes significant socioeconomic impacts through disruption to the agriculture, fisheries, forestry, andthis of this region. So here we can see a little bit more details of the close-up that the the Ganges river that is entering. Here is the Farakadam and here it's it's it's Ganges enter Bangladesh through the West Bengal the Huggli area, and it enters and it becomes Podda, which is the biggest river in Bangladesh, also which is the economically most significant river in Bangladesh. And the impact you can see in the next picture, you can see that in the lower part, which means this whole part, this Ganges delta, the lower part, the Ganges River when it enters Bangladesh |
it becomes Podha and any change in the flow or any climatic change or any man-made change has serious impact in the lower region of the southern part of Bangladesh. And I actually have seen directly because my hometown is actually in the Bagheera area which is in this region. So although it's like anecdotal experience but I can actually see that like our village area it was it was actually very of flora and funa, but with time it actually reduced and now that when I go to go to the village after like five or ten years, we see that it has totally changed. So this actually matches with the academic articles that I've read here. So what are the major water diplomacy events between Bangladesh and India since 1971? As you know that in 1971, Bangladesh became independent and India had direct help, India had direct contribution towards that. So in 1972, right after Bangladesh became independent in 1971 December, and in 1972, the Bangladesh father of the nation Sheikh Mujib Roman and Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, they sat down, water was actually an issue back then, what was actually an issue back then between India and Pakistan, especially this Farakadam, the Ganges River Water Sharing Treaty. So for the first time, this actually sat down immediately after the independence in 1972, which actually shows that how important it is for this |
for the region to maintain the peace and tranquility between the two countries. So the first joint water commission between India and Bangladesh was established in 1972. And this newly made joint water commission between India and Bangladesh actually tried to survey and they try to determine what are the course of actions that can be taken because for decades, decades for India-Pakistan rivalry, no development actually happened. So in 1974, it was declared by that commission that there was this joint declaration to resolve water sharing issues, the existing issues that were there. But in 1975, Bangladesh Shikmajibu Rahman was killed with his family and there was a coup d'etat and the military took over. So in 1976, India unilaterally withdrew from this declaration. So after this happened in 1977, there was this temporary five-year treaty which ended in 1982, which started in 1977 during the Bangladesh National Party regime which is the which is historically considered as anti-India. So in 1982 it was not renewed and after that after long break in 1996 there was this treaty between India and Bangladesh which is a Ganges water sharing treaty between Bangladesh in India which was signed by Dev Gowdhav Gowdh, the Biden Prime Minister of India and the present Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina Wazed. So this is more or less the major developments and there is this interesting, interesting fact that is there, that from India to Bangladesh |
54 rivers actually come. And Bangladesh is in the downstream and India is in the upstream. 54 rivers from India. Bangladesh is a riverine country. There is like hundreds of rivers. 54 of them actually comes from India. And it is spread in Bangladesh throughout just like a net. But unfortunately, so far there has been only one treaty, one proper treaty, which is the Ganges Water Treaty with Treaty Sharing. And out of, for last quarter century, there has been no treaty. And another water treaty, the Thista Water Treaty, there has been many talks, but still there has been no development. So we can actually understand that why we are speaking about this Ganges Water Sharing Treaty, and its significance. So what do we find in 1996 water treaty between Bangladesh and India? So this was the treaty. This is the very, very minimum that treaty was there. The first, the first, the first, the sharing calculation was like this,000 a QZX or less water when it's available 50% will go to India 50% will go to Bangladesh if it's between 70,000 to 75,000 the India will maintain the balance of the flow and the Bangladesh will have remaining 35,000 QSX and 75,000 QZsX or more when when there is water availability, 40,000 QSX will go to India and Bangladesh will maintain balance of the flow. So that was the basic, that was the very basic and the very minimum of the water sharing, what a treaty between Bangladesh and India. So what are the real scenario? I mean, this is the treaty that we have got |
but what is the real scenario? So here we can see the real scenario that Bangladesh has been frequently deprived of its minimum share during the most critical periods of the dry season, and which has caused the loss of agricultural land, created created problems in salination, the wellness of the people has decreased, and which has created such a huge issue that in every election that Bangladesh happens, this repeatedly comes. And during the March 21 to 31, the 10-day cycle in the year 2010, the actual release to Bangladesh was 44% lower than the indicative release. And in 2016, the situation became even worse than that, even worse. The actual release during March 21 to 31 was 47% lower than the indicative share, followed by a further 34% and 49% decrease of flows during the other alternate critical periods. So we can see that whatever that is written there in the treaty, unfortunately this is not the real scenario is very very different, which is why I mean we have to look into these issues very seriously and we have to decide because this is going to end in 2025. This is 2021 and if it is not renewed, a very different scenario might happen. We don't know what is going to happen, but now is actually the perfect time to think about this particular scenario and think of different possibilities, especially from the conflict resolution point of view. And what are the problems with the treaty that we can see that it underestimated the impact of climate variability, the frequency of low flow events and increased water extractions upstream |
and the future climate change and higher upstream water demand were not predicted. And also on several locations, neither Bangladesh, this is very interesting, that I was speaking about the problem that Bangladesh is facing, but a few articles actually indicated that the treaty was made in such a way that in several locations, not only once, not only twice, but several locations, neither Bangladesh nor India was able to receive their respective shares as a stipulate, as stipulate in the treaty. And some other problems that we can discuss with the treaty is that Bangladesh frequently did not receive its fair share during the most critical periods of the dry season when water demand is relatively high in both countries. And there was no guarantee clause for Bangladesh, no guarantee clause for Bangladesh, which would ensure that, I mean, although there is treaty, but if Bangladesh does not get, there is no guarantee that is ensured for Bangladesh. So that became another major problem. And the opponents of the current government, they used to say things like, there is no guarantee, which means this is just a show-off. So which also created huge political turmoil in Bangladesh scenario. And it is evident that the advanced hydrological models were not used. And because if there was, I mean, there was advanced hydrological models were used, the prediction would not be, I mean, creating so much trouble. If there was, if there was deliberate error, then maybe one side would be benefited and one side would not be benefited. But unfortunately |
the standard was set in such a way, it shows that none of the countries several times do not get what they're supposed to get according to the treaty. So some of the authors like Sajdul Islam, he actually questioned the hydrological models that has been used to deal with the treaty. And he also claimed that the advanced models were not used, which is why the treaty is in the pen and paper, but in reality, the quantitative distribution of water has not taken place properly. So this is, we can see, there are some picture, two pictures actually that I've picked, that what happened during the, what happened during the dry season. So Bangladesh is a country which is, which used to be full of blessings from the nature, a lot of, I mean, you wouldn't see dry lands very often, but after this barrage actually happened and during the dry season, this actually happened and what happened is the poor farmers, I mean many of them actually lost their lands and they had to, I mean, some of them actually, there has been cases that some of them could not even survive, physically they couldn't survive. And many of them in those areas, they left their lands and they came to the capital city, and which is why after they came to the capital city, they didn't know anything but agriculture, but they started to find a job, they didn't find it. So they try to do other things which it didn't work. And at one point, what happened, that crime rate increased very high, because because because, they cannot survive in their area |
and they come to the capital city or the big cities, and they start committing crime. So that is how actually indirectly, even with the crime perspective, even the law enforcement perspective, this Farakka is actually affecting Bangladesh. So let's see the ground realities. So now that we will enter into the third part of our presentation, which is the water diplomacy part. So let us check out some of the ground realities. The first of all, I mean, India has economic, political, geographical and military advantage and not only that, it has been very few, I mean for last, last almost 15 years the present government is in the power and they have very strong tie with Indians and many of the many of the political experts they say that without India's support and backing this government wouldn't probably survive. So some of the political scientists they actually come up with that that sort analysis. So I mean, whether this is true or false, that is a separate issue. But one thing that is clear, that a huge, huge population, I mean, a major population group, they actually believe this. And once they believe this, they automatically have the anti-India sentiment. And India, by cashing out on this sentiment, even the political leaders, they also get paranoid. They also think that if we try to take any decision that does not divaically go in favor of India, maybe India will try to pressure the Bangladesh politics and the Bangladeshi political leaders will lose their seat. So with this fear, very |
very, very little instances are there that Bangladesh actually confronted India. And I'm sure that this situation is not uncommon in other parts of the world. So also like in 1971, India was directly supporting Bangladesh to become independent. Their soldiers actually died with our freedom fighters. So what happened that when the war ended, immediately there was a there was a joint commission initiated, but it is very unlikely that that sort of warmth of relationship between the two countries is going to come back in the near future and even there is a strong political will there is animosity both from Bangladesh, Bangladesh side and Indian side and as I say that there is very strong anti-Indian sentiment currently given in Bangladesh. And this feelings is mutual due to the political scenario both in India and in Bangladesh. The present government in India and they try to, they're a populist government and there is us versus them |
this sentiment is being very much played in India and also in Bangladesh. So these are the ground realities. So what are the things that we can do that is what are the things that is I'm trying to portray. The first water diplomacy approach that I try to find is the finding common grounds. What are the common grounds that we can say because Bangladesh actually stands no chance by confronting India saying that you have to give us. India would just say that like well we wouldn't give you do whatever you want. So here this international water management is still. So from there I actually I actually brought this and so these the issues that we can see that low dry season fresh water flow the increasing siltation accumulation of sediments water resources along the areas of the river basin are depleting the small rivers on the distributor is getting dried and disconnected reduced length of waterways used for negotiation and reverberation formation of a formation of drylands and the socio-economic vulnerabilities. So the problems that has been there, Gorae is actually a variant of the Ganges River on the middle side, middle side of the Bangladesh. And Haura Bhoegroet River is in the West Bengal, another river. So these common issues that is actually there, both between Indian and Bangladesh. So the joint water commission that we have and in our water diplomacy syllabus, what we have studied in various times |
that an emphasis on joint water commission and finding the common challenges is very much stressed in water diplomacy. So I think these are the issues that happens both for India and Bangladesh during the dry seasons in West Bengal and in Bangladesh. So these are the things that both the parties can discuss and they can try to share some common ground which can be exported and that is how the treaty can be, the treaty can be upgraded. So another water diplomacy approach is the indicating India's own problems with Farakka. This is a 2017 newspaper article with some references. So there was this Indian chief engineer. He actually discussed when this plan was happening in 1961. So he actually pointed out some various problems, for example the drought and the climate change. These are the things he actually pointed out to the Indian government. He's a Bengali guy, Krishna Bhattacharya. So he actually pointed out those problems, but back then his career took a, he was a chief engineer on the West Bengal side when this Farakada was happening. And when he indicated those problems, for example, the different parts of Ferman and 12 other districts in Bihar, the flooding, the drought and the drought, the flooding, the drought, the floodgates, the drought, the floodgate, the 6.4 million cubic meter to 21.88 million cubic meter till 2003. So this sort of things happened and these were actually predicted. So this problem not only is from an academic report, this was so serious that the Bihar, in the Bihar area, some very influential politicians |
the chief ministers and they actually saved the central government that why don't you, I mean, demolish the Farakadam. So the way Bangladesh wants a solution for this Farakka problem, even some parts of India, they actually wants the same. So when there would be a discussion, maybe from Bangladesh's perspective, this India's own interest can be exploited and come to a middle ground. And this is something which Bangladesh repeatedly failed and India became repeatedly successful. Bangladesh, since after the 1982, when another party, which is historically considered as anti-India, they came to power, they tried to internationalize the Faraka situation. They tried to, I mean, the SARC was built and then this issue was taken. But India was actually stressing that no, this is a bilateral issue. But if you look at the basin, you will see that there is China, Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Well, Bhutan and Nepal, their cases exactly like Bangladesh. But the surprising new scenario is that now that China has global aspirations. China, more than once, they came out with a Tista river, which is another river in the northern part of Bangladesh. They came up with the proposal that we would help you with the technology and the money so that you can build another branch on another side. So this became another bargaining chief for Bangladesh that using the China factor, I would, using the China factor and building an international, the joint commission can be international, It needs not to be bilateral, it can be international, bringing China |
since the China is actually trying to provide Bangladesh with some new options. And they are actually saying that China's water weapon, that is the word they have used. So this is, this is a concept that I've borrowed from the syphilislam the the Shavigal slums are a class the bringing other bargaining chips that is not usually considered. For example this is Bangladesh on the on the left side the West Bengal is there you can see the Jorn, Bihar, and this is Nepal Bhutan. This is Bangladesh, and you see a huge part of India is actually there, and the majority of the border is in, is with Bangladesh. And there is, I mean, sentiment, there is strong sentiment against the Central Indian government because it is very much, I mean, it is called the Seven Sisters, and the Seven Sisters, well, this is far from the Central Government and which is why the control is very much, I mean, not as strong as Delhi or the nearby states. So, and many of these states, they actually want independence of their own. And which is why, and even when at present, Bangladesh and India has a very strong tie because of the historical reasons, the present Prime Minister, he, when his whole family was killed, for six years, he actually lived under the Indian protection. So it is considered that she would probably never go against the interest of India. But when anti-Indian sentiment comes with a new political party, there is always threat that this part of India would be very much tumultus, there will be terrorism, and many of the terrorist leaders |
many of the nationalist leaders of those parties, they actually, I mean, they used to operate from Bangladesh. And one famous incident that I can say, that in 2004, 10 trucks, 10 truck load of, most advanced military weapons were passing towards Bangladesh, but it was a fluke that it was caught, so it became a huge case. So I mean, it can be a huge trouble for India. So this particular issue can actually can be brought in the negotiation table by saying that well, we would provide you full support with safety and security of your the Seven Sisters part in exchange. Maybe we can discuss about the sharing of the water treaty. So this is a one bargaining chip which I think can be exported. I try to see that to check the literature, but so far I haven't seen that Bangladesh has went through that path. And another chip can be, there are some articles from the Indian sides. They actually claim that the Bengal, Bengal means the West Bengal, they need Tista and the Tista, we have a barrage in Tista, we have a dam in Tista, and still there has been many talks but so far there has been no treaty. So I mean, although we are speaking about the advancement of Ganges Treaty, the abrog, the upgradation of Ganges treaty, maybe the Tista River Treaty, Bangladesh actually can think of, discussing with Ida Ida, whether they can bring this Tista River Treaty with them as well. Tista is very sensitive because Tistha is actually, it has originated in Sikkim, which is very close to China, and this is the Tista river, especially for which the Chinese |
the Chinese actually offered Bangladesh a technical support to bring further dams and by doing that, changing the course of the river. So it became a very serious issue between Bangladesh and India and the diplomatic talks are still going on. So these are actually the steps that we can think of using as the bargaining chief so that a new joint commission can be made and the things like climate change and other problems which was not considered in 1996 can be considered now because in 30, 35 years, in 30, almost 30 years, the technology has changed, the GPS has come and many other, the scientific scenario has changed. So maybe by bringing all these things together, a better solution can be said. And before I finish with all the criticisms, I would actually, I would actually again say that, which I feel and I also read from the Ahmed's article, that this this Ganges Water Treaty is probably it is not perfect. It is definitely not perfect, but if it was not there, the situation for both the countries would probably worse. So the treaty should be there and we should try our best to, we have four years, maybe we can try our best to think of the advancement of the treaty, the, and also addressing the, addressing the limitations that we are currently facing. Thank you very much. If you have any comments and if you have any questions |
I'd like to answer them. Thank you. Thank you. Omar Shook for the nice presentation. So now I'd like to ask others to make comments like Aaron and Jima. Do you have any comments or feedback? Thank you for a really great presentation. I learned a lot. I really appreciated how much sort of geographic and geopolitical context you brought in. I thought that was really helpful. And I really liked the sort of back third of your presentation where you really kind of got through all of the water diplomacy framework elements. So yeah, great job. I think my feedback as you're thinking about writing your paper would be, there's, I was a little confused at times about sort of how the treaty has failed to be implemented, thinking about like, most, most specifically around like how neither country is able to receive their respective shares it was stipulated in the treaty is that technical problem is that a diplomatic problem. I think you could maybe identify like where the specific sort of limitations or weaknesses of the treaty are in terms of how that actually is sort of manifested on the ground. So that's one thing that keep in mind. Yeah, I don't know if you could talk about that at all. Like are there sort of technical flaws or political flaws that might be sort of fault to understand. Well, the technical flaws, I actually accept my limitation. I'm not really a technical guy. I tried to read some technical papers. And I actually read one of Professor Onimation's paper, which gave me some insight. So the one technical paper that I read |
they said that in last two decades, almost last two decades, very few, very few, I mean, very few papers or very few research has been done to actually try to quantify, the quantify the amount of water that has been there. One of the reasons was there, but initially the historical data was not there. For example, in first five years, probably, I mean, first one or two years, the type of precision that you need to get that what is going to happen through the history. Now that we have it, fortunately, because it has been quite long, so the research has already started. So maybe I will try to put that. And the diplomatic problems that we're saying that, one major problem that I can say, I mean, since this is an, I would never say this outside the classroom, that for example, US, it has a national policy. The government changes, but the policy, the main theme of the policy remains, maybe some sides changes, but if you have to change the main theme of the policy, for example, US has a defense policy, right? US is a defense policy, that we would do this, who's do that. How we would do that, maybe that can be discussed. And maybe different governments can do it in a different way. So in India, of course, Indian democracy is not as strong as the US or the UK, but in India, in some basic factors, for example, the defense or whether they would share this or that, they also have some sort of policy. They also have some sort of strict policy that even though the political government changes |
this doesn't change much. And they strongly uphold the Constitution. And one of the reasons is that there has not been in the history of India more than 60 years, from 47 to 2021, more than 60 years. No military takeover was there and because of India is so huge, military takeover is actually not very much feasible. But in Bangladesh, it's a country 50 years of age. Out of 50 years, more than 15 years there were military governments, and I would be very blunt here. At present, we are also have some sort of autocratic government and the system has become such that, I mean, it is very tough for Bangladesh to come out from this political. So when you speak of diplomacy, we have some wonderful diplomats, really well-trained diplomats, but the decision actually comes from the politicians. I would not blame them. They definitely have their point of view, but due to this lack of a political culture of having a straight aim, I mean, it is like, I mean, total one government comes comes. So for the five or ten years, one policy was going. The government changes, it goes backwards. So it's zigzag, zigzag. So I mean, it is an issue, but thank you very much for the input because I would try to address these things. Specifically, maybe I wouldn't be speaking too much about diplomacy because I work for the government and they read those papers. But the technical part |
maybe I will seek help from Larry and Professor Gain to include more the technical parts in my paper. Thank you very much. I'm Mushroof. I also echoed I learned a huge amount of your presentation. The question I have, and perhaps you addressed this somewhat, but I like to speak more to it, maybe I missed it, but is it does the current, does the current treaty have, like, how does it manage water measurement and the processes for actually determining how much water there is at the times of year and how much water there is over time? Because you've talked about the ways in which the amount of water has changed, partially as a result of droughts and the different piece of infrastructure that have been built. But I'm interested in what, if there's any ongoing collaboration or shared effort, or even individual kind of national efforts to quantify how the water, both quantity and quality is changing over time? Well, I do not know very details of the technicalities, but I can give you some very basics which is there on the treaty. So the geography of the two regions is more or less same, and the West Bengal and Bangladesh. So although we are speaking of India, India is a very big country, right? So 28 states, but ultimately Bangladesh and Bangladesh shares with West Bengal. From where this, the Ganges River comes. So I mean, by studying the, by studying Bangladesh or by studying West Bengal, a very basic idea actually can be found. For example, the dry season in Bangladesh from January to May |
it is same in West Bengal. And the West season in Bangladesh, which falls up to December, so from July to December, that is also that is also same in both the parties. So the joint committee, they probably use some hydraulic models to to actually set the amount of water. For example, it is 70,000 cubics. The basic standard is the first one is if if there is 70,000 cubic seconds, QSEC, the unit is QSAC is there, both the countries will share 50%, 50%, so thi thi thousand QSAC is there, both the countries will share 50%, 50, 50%. So this is how they have made. And from 70 to 75, so there would be, the balance ratio would be for India and Bangladesh would get a minimum 34,000 QSACs. And if it's 75 to 75 and above, then the same kind of ratio is there. So this much ongoing, is there, for example, you mentioned that there have been years in which neither side has gotten the amounts is allocated. Have there have there been any ongoing efforts to, you know, if there's under 70,000 to quantify how much is flowing? And yes, I think that Bangladesh, we have an agency, Bangladesh, England Water Authority, we have Bangladesh Water Development Board. So they actually conduct some scientific studies. And based on those, I would be honest with you that those, the government organizations, I mean, for example, the scientists, scientists who have that sort of expertise, the Bangladesh |
those organizations are not really the most lucrative jobs for them. So we do what we can and sometimes we bring foreign consultants and with those some studies are made and based on that actually this sort of distributions are made. But then again, there are flaws in this. I think in terms of measurement, the Joint River Commission is so there is joint collaboration between India and Bangladesh, the Joint River Commission is responsible for measuring the things. So in terms of theory, both the Indian side, there is a Joint River Commission and in the Bangladesh side, there is Joint River Commission. So both parties, in terms of theoretically, they measure and in terms of dry season prior, they measure the flow and they agree on that. So I think in terms of agreement, they do have this kind of things. But in reality, this kind of collaboration, although they exist, but this kind of enforcement is they rely only on the Indian side that maybe they don't regularly go to the Faraka point to measure the things but they I think the the way that Indian Joint River Commission communicate to the Bangladesh Joint River Commission they agree onthat kind of measurement. So that's the idea. I was actually looking for some articles whether the the State Water Department, I'm not sure that whether the Indian states have separate water departments or not or whether it's a federal, I'm not sure. So I try to find whether there is any collaboration between not only the state level but also the not only the federal level but also the state |
the West Bengal state and Bangladesh, but probably I, I probably I, I, I, I, I, I didn't find it in such a collaboration. So is there any other feedback that you would like to being like Councilmore, um, uh, as fine. Well, Mashro, congratulations on your presentation. I learned a lot from you today. Thank you. Especially the visual was very rich, your presentation. I just have one quick suggestion because you said that you are not going to mention a lot about the diplomacy because you are part of the governor. But when you read the Larry's book, specifically the page 133, 133, he mentioned about that water manager and the stakeholder can approach to the conflict using the traditional way or they can use the non-zero sum approach. And I think that's very interesting if you can include in your final paper. Yeah. Specifically when they talk about the water management that's falling two categories. A high authority can enforce a decision or the other parties themselves can negotiate a settlement that formal authority helped to implement. I think this chapter is very interesting for your presentation. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I'll look into better. I'll try to incorporate. You have page one, 32, 33. Thank you very much. Yes. Yeah |
Ladi. Thanks for the presentation. I'm hoping that you can synthesize the diplomacy discussion in the final version of the paper and it would be wonderful if you had a one-page introduction to your discussion about diplomacy that highlighted two or three ideas about what's new or different with regard to diplomacy that could be tried, that hasn't been tried, without going into all the explanation in this summary of how this would be done, but to just highlight, you're talking about bargaining chips, you're talking about linking other issues, it's a lot. Pick two or three things that you want to suggest that are new and say, I think the focus should shift to involving all of the states and not just the national governments. Okay, if that's, if that's one of your proposals, then state that as a, as a, a new emphasis that should, that might change the whole story. If you think, as Aaron was implying |
that a new approach to joint measurement would provide timely and believable information in a different way and that with that information new joint management under different sets of circumstances would be improved even if the treaty isn't changed then say that but not more than two or three ideas that could be expressed in a couple of sentences as the contribution to your discussion about diplomacy. Because otherwise it's too much. Okay. It's impossible to follow all the different lines of diplomacy that are implied by the different maps and the different bargaining chips and the different relationships and what might be done and it's just too much. Just choose two, no more than three, but even those two ideas about changed diplomacy and highlight those, okay? I know that you have lots of other stuff. I think for the paper, the power of the paper will be improved if you zero in on just a couple of ideas about changes in the diplomacy going forward that haven't been given enough or the right attention in the past. Professor, in that case, maybe I will try to speak about the, I mean, one point that I said, maybe instead of three or two, I will just focus on one. That is the bargaining chips, the alternate bargaining chips. Maybe I can choose just this one and go deeper on that. What do you think? I think that there are different bargaining chips that are more or less attractive to one country or another, and that instead of saying bargaining chips is one thing, I would specify the bargaining chip. Pick one bargaining chip. Which ones |
which I mean, I thought the idea that you have all these states, they're not happy with their own national government. It's possible that a negotiation involving those states could change what gets talked about and shift the balance of power and provide an opportunity for a sub-regional piece of the treaty to go ahead. So that's about bargaining chips, but it's about the involvement of subnational units on the India side and why their involvement could make a difference. So I'm really saying, don't just talk about things at the level of bargaining chips. It's too broad. Pick a couple of bargaining ships that you think are most promising and say who should do what with this new bargaining chip that might lead to either a new treaty or better administration of the existing treaty or a completely different kind of treaty. I mean, not keep the one you have and in addition, adopt maybe a new treaty about this additional river. Maybe that's what opens things, but take specific bargaining chips and make them into your recommendations, okay? Okay, so thank you. Yeah, so in a line with Larry's succession, so my succession would be, so you mentioned only the state versus state diplomacy, but you know the India's order resource responsibility is given to the state, I mean not federal state. So most, mass of the water power is given to the state. I mean |
West Bengal state has the power for managing water resources in the West Bengal. So the central government cannot intervene anything regarding the decision of the West Bengal water resources issues. So in that case, one of the key stakeholders would be the West Bengal. And I mean, you know the how the, this the water treaty didn't work, although the central government was agreed with the Bangladesh government, but because of the West Bengal government, it didn't happen. So I think this, as Larry mentioned, if we can incorporate, you can incorporate the state as a stakeholders, maybe that can also important. And I think that is essential, not important, because without a state, you cannot negotiate with the central government. So this is on point and in terms of identifying issues, already if you ask some of the people's key peoples, they need to be easier for you. So you already identified several cases. One of the issues is the, is Bangladesh is concerned regarding the climate sense and its impact on the future river flow. And so this is one of the key aspects, but also other aspect for the Musolgan. You already mentioned the incorporating how the seven sisters and the transit where Bangladesh can help achieving this, this, yeah, the new water treaty that incorporates the future ensuring future river flow. But also, you know, the last few years, there was a discussion for developing a barriers in the Ganges within the Bangladesh part |
which India denied and with India opposed and that plan has been hard deep sea base the deep sea berries in the Oh, the village. Yeah, the fresh order flow. Barriers in the Bangladesh to a store of fresh order for for southwest part of the Bangladesh. So this kind of option, creation can be helpful for treaty negotiations. So I believe if you can ask some of the people that I already mentioned to you, if you interview them, I think you can have more, much more insight. But for the paper, you might not consider them given the time limit, but there's Larry mentioned if you consider only two or three specific point that can be helpful for incorporating. So one could be the climate sense, other could be the engaging as stakeholders like a state level stakeholders and interacting with the seven sister state for the transit and how this can help treaty negotiation. So this kind of this specific aspects you can consider. Thank you very much. |
Thank you, everybody. I'm going to talk today about the Confederated Salish Kootenai tribe, which are referred to a CSKT tribes, compact with the state of Montana, to which the US government is also party. This compact kind of evolved over the course of a couple of a few decades and actually just started to be implemented this year. So we'll talk about how they got there. Just to start, this is Montana. These is the various water basins in the state of Montana. This little area on the corner here is the Flatland Reservation. So it's actually a fairly large chunk of land. The water rights that we're talking about today really cover the entire region of Northwest Montana, mostly west of the Continental Divide, but there are some rights that were affected by the treaty that actually on the east side of Continental Divide. So we're going to talk about the history, the kind of way that these water rights came about, some of the context on the negotiations, talk a little bit about the negotiation topics, then where they ended up. And even as I go through the history, I hope to explain, because some of the disputed rights, kind of a lot of the questions go back to the origins of those rights. I hope to kind to kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kindthe historical context so that it's and also kind of begin to shed light on kind of the present status of them and and how they came up with the negotiations based on that context. So to quickly look a little bit at the history, the Treaty of Hellgate |
which is the treaty that created the Flathead Reservation in North West Montana, it's about a million and a quarter acres, was signed on 1855 by representatives of the US as well as the tribes that were party to the treaty. The treaty gave them the rights to that land, but it also included an unusual line which has become very important that was not included in any of the other treaties that the US government negotiated with the state of Montana. This line is from Article 3, the exclusive right of taking fish and all the streams running through or bordering said reservation is further secure to set Indians, as also the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places in common with citizens of the territory. So this provision maintained that the tribes had the rights to use water that passed through some of the lands that they conceded, the part that says the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places. This is the basis of what I've become to be known as the tribes off-reservation water rights. And we'll talk about what those are and how those became contentious. As was often the case with treaties of Native tribes, the US government violated the spirit and the letter of the Hellgate Treaty within a number of decades. The kind of general history that pertains to a lot of the, you know, all the Native American tribes is in 1887 the Dahls Act was passed with subdivided Native reservations into individual allotments and open reservations to settlements by whites. In particular, the Flathead Reservation |
this kind of accelerated after the Flathead Allotment Act of 1904, provided for the distribution and irrigation, actually, you know, actually a few different sizes of allotments, but predominantly a hundred and six acre a lotments, Indian households. And then the rest of those of the acres that weren't given out were considered surplus. And those surplus acres were available to to non-travel members. And so today, actually, most flatland reservation residents are not tribal members. And there are many, both public and private non-travel water uses, including municipal uses. For example, Pulse and Montana, which is the county seat of Lake County, which is one of four counties in the, that enters into the Flathead Reservation. Pulse, Montana is the sea county of Lake Montana and it's the largest town of the Flathead Reservation. So I think it's just important to recognize the complexity of the land use. The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project was a federally funded irrigation system that was developed over the course of the first half century, mostly in the 20s and 30s. And it's really a really extensive network of irrigable acres, canals, laterals, distribution systems, pumping stations, storage reservoirs, that provides irrigation to all the land that was described on the past slide, both native uses, native users, and municipal and non-native users, particularly agricultural users on the reservation who are not members of the tribe. So that's what you need to know about that. Oh yeah |
and it's important to know that CSKT operates a large portion of FIIP of the Platin Indian Irrigation Project. It has since the 80s. So water rights. Like many western states, Montana adopted a first in time first and right doctrine of fire appropriation. And until 1973, most rights in the state were use rights, which means they were exercised when someone basically took water for beneficial use. Most of the time, they never filed those rights with the county or the state. So many rights have no paper record, you know, rights often span multiple counties and they were, and they'd be competing claims to the same quantity of water. I mean, this became increasingly complex because rights were also checked in county courthouses. So even if a right was filed, we had to go to every county courthouse to figure out, you know, if there were competing rights. So in 1972, when Montana adopted a new state constitution recognizing existing water rights, it also called upon the state legislature to, quote, establish a system of centralized records for water rights. And that's the origin of the dispute, is the status of the Indian Rights in the centralized record. In 1973, the Water, Montana passed the Water Use Act |
which mandated that the Department of Natural Resources Conservation permit new claims and manage a record of water rights. And it established a system of adjudicating pre-1973 claims. This means that all new claims had to be filed with the Department of Natural Resources to Conservation. And it began to create a bureaucratic structure for looking at all claims filed prior existing, even if they were filed prior to 1973. In 79, the Senate Bill 76 established the Montana Water Court, which was set up initially on a 15 15 year term limit, although it's still around now 50 years later, and they're hoping to have all their work done. I believe the most recent estimate I saw was by 2028, but even that is, you know, questionable. And to establish the Water Court to adjudicate all priest 1973 claims. However, while this legislation was under consideration, both the US Department of the Interior and the tribes expressed opposition to having their water rights adjudicated by a state court because they argued that these water rights, the both the federal water rights pertaining to federal lands, whether the national parks or Bureau of Land Management lands, and also the native water rights, which were held and trust by the US government, say that they argue that they were not subject to state courts. And many in Montana's agricultural community also opposed the use of water courts to determine native rights because ranchers and others, both on the reservation |
off the reservation feared that extensive tribal claims were supersede their historical rights because of the first and time doctrine. In response, the legislator amended the draft legislation and established the Montana Reserve Water Rights Compact Commission, which negotiates on the state's behalf. The commission was also initially authorized for a limited term, but that term has been was extended and extended and we'll talk about where it ended up. There are just, there are two kinds of travel rights that pertain. There are federally reserved rights that were set aside by the federal government for use by the native tribe. And these have a priority date that's equivalent to the date of the reservation's creation. So in the Flathead Reservation, it's 1855. And they're governed by what's called the Winters Doctrine, which refers to the Supreme Court doctrine that said that when the US set aside land for Indian Reservation, it implicitly reserved adequate water for the tribes to fulfill their livelihoods. And so this is the on reservation rights that we're talking about that are federally reserved. The Aboriginal rights are rights that predate a reservation and are explicitly recognized in the two years statute to create the reservation. And these rights have a different priority date of time immemorial. And time memorial means, I thought that was an interesting term, you know, time extended, what it means is time extended beyond the reach of memory, record or tradition, and definitely ancient |
ancient beyond memory or record. So these are the off-reservation rights that were subject to that kind of the provision in the original treaty that I mentioned. And two things to note about this. The Aboriginal rights, you know, almost by definition because of the time and memorial claim, by definition, have an earlier priority date than the, than all other claims in all other water rights in Montana because of the tiny memorial date. And something similar is actually occurred, although it's been more disputed with the federally reserved rights. Given that the tribe, the Flathead Reservation was not open to homesteading by by not travel members until 1909. The tribe has argued that on-reservation rights are necessarily superior or senior, sorry, to all other on-reservation rights, regardless of whether they're aboriginal or reserved. But this fact, which has come to be accepted, was not accepted at the time by many non-travel residents of the reservation, especially ranchers and other kind of large irrigators, as well as a number of municipal governments and republic and state legislators who argued that this somehow constituted an unconstitutional takings, taking under the US Constitution under the Montana Constitution. It's not worth getting into it |
but just to say that there wasn't agreement at the beginning that was the fact. Legislation that I just discussed set up the Montana State Compact Commission. And the Compact Commission is a nine-member commission appointed to four-year terms kind of in this makeup. And it created this really complex process for getting an agreement negotiated. First, the negotiations and then the full commission wants to read upon how to vote upon the negotiations. Then it had to go to the Montana State legislature who had to ratify it. Then the tribal compact, so on the left hand column now, then had to go to the Montana State Legislature who had to ratify it. Then the tribal compact, so on the left hand column now, then had to go to the US Congress. In Congress, both the Senate and the House had to ratify it. The president had to sign it. The tribe then had to vote to approve it. And it then needs a kind of pro forma approval by the Montana Water Court who issues the final decree entering the rights agreed upon into the system that the state now manages according to the 1973 Constitution. So it needs that there's a huge number of parties who have to sign on to this. And at every step of the way |
there have been roadblocks and issues and renegotiations as a result of the complexity of this process and just how many parties were apart. So there are a couple of other contextual things that I want to bring up because I think they're important to kind of understanding the contentiousness of the conversations around the compact. Three court cases that I'm not try to pronounce it, Choti, one, two, and three I guess. There were three court cases cases that were far between 1996 and 2003 and argued before the Supreme Court. And actually, the last one was only, yeah, only found kind of during the actual negotiations. I was on the Supreme Court made its ruling. And it recognized the distinction between state appropriate water rights and reserve water rights. And the ruling was that new and amended water use permits on the reservation had to show that their proposed uses would not quote unreasonably interfere with a planned use for which water has already been reserved. And what the Supreme Court said again and again, as this case was re-fought in different forms, only the first one was actually called Jody as it was fought in different forms, what they argued was that because the state and because private non-tribal water users couldn't show proof that their claims were not unreasonably interfering with a planned use, then that burden could not be met. And so a new water use permit could not be issued. And so this decision had a few significant impacts. It gave the tribes, the CSKT |
the CSKT, a significant amount of bargaining power because municipalities and non-Indian reservations on the flat-hand reservation couldn't apply to the state for new or amended beneficial use permits so long as the tribe's reserved rights remained unquantified. And the potential negative impact of the state on the state of having to litigate each of the claims separately, each of the travel claims separately was ramified. It's also important to note because that non-Indian permit holders were frightened of not receiving sufficient water for their own use years or losing their water rights altogether because of the possibility of the tribes having reserved claims. And this generated political panic among non-Indian municipal and county politicians and amongst other irrigators in the region. In 1982, the tribes and coordination, or anticipation and negotiations with the compact mission, collaborated with the US theological survey on an extensive drainage by drainage measurement program of groundwater, surface water, stream flow, river flow, minimum fill levels of different bodies of water. And so by the time the negotiation started in 2000 |
the US government and the trials were in possession of an unprecedented amount of data about the water that was up for review. I got to interview a long-time travel attorney who started his career in the early 80s and retired last year. So his choice career was bookended basically by this negotiation. What he said was that fact-finding was a process of sharing data with the state to bring the state up to speed. And it's something that I think was interesting about the negotiations is that opposition, especially from legislators over the course of negotiations, was often ignorance because the, just the knowledge was so one-sided at the start of negotiations. Finally, it's important to note that the alternative to negotiations loomed over the negotiations. The tribes of the state, if they did not agree to a compact, the two sides would be forced to litigate each claim separately in the water court. That would have been very costly and taken many years. And it was valid fears on the part of the non-tribal water users that they would be at risk of losing their state-appropriated water rights because the tribes earlier priority dates. Even the tribes recognized that having to litigate their claims would be costly and burdensome. And just to give you a sense, these are just the off-reservation claims that you see here. The left are 97 rights that, of 2018 it changed a little bit after that. As of 2018 |
the tribe was going to rate was going to maintain off reservation. And these are the rights that the tribe that the state thought the tribe had the ability to adjudicate if they didn't have a compact. And so the tribe, if a compact wasn't reached, the tribe could have gone to court and litigated upwards of 10,000 different water claims across Western Montana. And as a result, there was a lot of incentive for the state to come to a settlement that both quantified the tribe's rights and also protected the junior rights of non-tribal water users so that this, so that this, you know, didn't occur and there wasn't decades of litigation over these rights. So in terms of kind of negotiation topics that the barred discussed, there were on reservation rights pertaining to the irrigation project on reservation rights pertaining to the irrigation deliveries. So this is water from the irrigation project that has historically been used by non-tribal water users. And so their right to continue to receive that water. There was water from the Flathead System, meaning the Flathead River, its tributaries, and the Flathead Lake. And there were a were a number of non-consumptive rights. Off-reservation, there were in-stream flow rights, as well as state law-based non-irrigation rights, which I'll talk about a little more later. Actually, one thing that I didn't put here is the other thing that was obviously a part of this was off-reservation rights claimed by non-travel users, which is most, you know, most rights |
off-reservation rights that were at risk as a result of this were by non-travel users. And somehow I didn't put that on here. And then there was implementation. And so these were the discussions. I'm going to put a kind of calendar in front of you, and I don't need you to read through all of it. This is what first of two pages, because I really want to call your attention to a couple of things. So the first thing is a start date. The first negotiation sessions occurred in 2000. But in 2001, the state issued, and this is after all three of the, you know, Chioti 1 and 2 were done and the Chioti 3 was currently before the Supreme Court, and despite that, the state issued yet another on reservation permit during negotiations, despite multiple rulings by the Supreme Court. And I think it's important just because it chose to accept the level of distrust and also the level of skepticism that the tribe had about the state's ability to, in willingness to negotiate forthrightly. I think it's also important that the facilitator who was bought in 2011, Edward Sheets, I was told that I've been trying to get in toucest with him and I haven't been able to, but I was told that relatively little had been decided for the time he began working on the negotiations and he brought order to the negotiations and served as an unbiased party with which both sides could discuss. And I think the impact of him as a neutral party is really important. I think also just the number of years that passed between 2002 and 2005 |
the two sides turned their attention entirely to negotiate an interim agreement once they realize the long overtake to come to a final agreement. And then because of a number of, for a number of political reasons, they abandoned the interim agreement. When the compact failed in the state legislature in 2013, because that's what occurred, the first compact was agreed , it went to the state legislature, it failed. And much of the opposition at the time was Republican representatives expressing concern that the compact didn't sufficiently protect non-travel water uses. And some of it was legitimate concern, though some of it appears to have been political grandstanding. Then the state and the tribes agreed to a limited reopening. Two years later, when the legislature meets again, they pass it. And then it went to the US Congress, where it sat for five years in different forms with slight amendments occurring all over the place until finally it passed as a part of the COVID-19 stimulus bill in December. And just days after that, the tribe council passed it and now it's awaiting a bureaucratic review that is expected to be simple, routine. I was told by John Carter, the former staff attorney for the tribes, that one thing that helped the revised agreement passed two years later was extensive dialogue with a couple of key Republicans who were willing to learn more about the agreement, but whose opposition in 2013 faded by 2015 once they understood the big thing better. So that's I think something that I will return to at the end |
but just the importance of that of understanding. So this is where they ended up. On reservation rights were protected in a number of ways. The tribes agreed to with 211 total on reservation rights. Really detailed, I didn't get into the detail here in terms of how it's apportioned, where it comes from, where it goes with a priority of 1855. They then agreed to relinquish the right to call all other on-reservation rights. The state agreed to give the tribe's ownership of the, or to the US ownership and trust of the tribe of the irrigation project, provided that the tribe continue to deliver a certain quantity of water to non-tribal water users, non-tribal irrigators who have historically used the irrigation project. And that was a really contentious part of the agreement because the number of non-travel users wanted the state to pertain ownership. Then there were a number of non-consumptive rights. Yeah, so one quote, I'll skip a little bit, but one quote I want to say, this is a quote from a big timber, a rancher named Lawrence Grosefield, who formed a group to help support the 2015 version of the compact, the revised version of the compact. She gave this in 2015, and she said there, oh, he gave this, I'm Lawrence. There wasn't much in the way two years ago of an educational effort for the press or legislatures or anybody were going to be out and visible and just trying to spread accurate information about the compact and the whole process and that two years later after the first failed |
that that educational process was really important. Off-reservation, the tribes retained eight off-reservation in-stream flow rights, as well as 58 additional rights to be co-owned by the state and the tribes with very detailed parameters. The tribes agreed to relinquish 97% many thousands of claims protecting then non-travel users across Western Montana. And that was hugely important. I want to point out one thing which is that the map I showed you earlier of the off-reservation claims, it said on the map that there were 97 off-reservation rights in 2018 that the tribe were getting. But by the time the actual agreement was passed by the US Congress, that number had dropped to 58. And that occurred because Senator Danes in Montana, basically with the tribes, negotiated slight changes in order to get other senators on board, other U.S. senators on board. So it's interesting that even once the agreement had passed, you know, was agreed to by the two sides, even once the state legislature had agreed to it. Four years later, when it was with the U.S. Congress, they were continuing to negotiate over minor points so that they could get this thing passed once and for all and quantify the tribe's rights. Implementation. The tribes, at the very beginning, the tribes wanted a unitary system that they controlled on reservation. Over time |
they came to an agreement for a unitary system that was jointly controlled. And this was unprecedented for the state and who had never given up some management to one of the tribes in the state and also was a significant concession by the tribes. This joint board is currently being set up with help from a state commission. And the state agreed also to give $50 million to a number of water measurement and irrigation efforts. The unitary system is something that a lot of the, also again, the non-traveling irrigators were very upset about because they felt that they would lose the ability to negotiate rights that they but they felt they didn't should not have to go to the tribe for I'll leave it at that for now. A couple conclusions that I want to bring up. One is that divergent knowledge is an impediment early on negotiations that water measurement should be undertaken or jointly observed. I think it's really interesting that one of the major impediments in the first years was simply the fact that the state didn't have anything close to the level of understanding of the existing water on the reservation that the tribes had and that the US government had. Second that impartial facilitators are essential and should be utilized even before negotiations begin. That the first decade, you know, it wasn't wasted a lot, some of the stuff was decided upon, but by the accounts when Edward Sheets was brought on, things moved forward much more smoothly in a really ordered fashion and with a lot less chest beating. And third |
so when politics are bound to get in the way of an agreement's approval, it's better to include skeptical parties than to build wall about negotiators. I mean, this is a personal thing. I think that certain state representatives and senators as well as some major irrigators might have been, if they have been educated on the negotiations prior to the documents, public release, it's possible. I don't know know this is for certain, but it's possible that some of their resistance could have been mitigated. And then again, adaptive, which we've talked about before this class, adaptive governance necessitates shared control. Finally, I didn't know what to do with this. It's one question I've been graphing with the past days is I've been editing my doc by like my written report which is what should we basically what should we make of the fact that even after the CSKT after the tribes had negotiated with everybody in good faith they had to give up additional rights in order to get it passed by a US Congress is there another system given the complexity of process, another system that could have been set up to help create a process that wouldn't have required as much legal approval? Or is that simply a fact of history and we need to accept it? And I'm just, the question I'm interested. And with that, I will open it up for comments and questions and I know those a lot. So thank you all. Thank you. Um, Aaron for the nice presentation. So now I would like to ask us nine to make comments and feedback. Very well done, Erin |
Erin, with your presentation. You really picked a very complicated case study because it involves a lot of stakeholders. So as it involves a lot of stakeholders, so my first question would be, how do you think that all stakeholders came into one page? And why do you think, why do you think this treaty, this this treaty took so much time to, you know, finally conclude? Because it involved a lot of litigation. What was the things which were not going in the right direction before? And what was the thing which happened this time to make it in the right direction? In terms of why it took so long, there are a couple of things. When the Water Commission was created, when the Compact Commission was created in the late 70s, you know, they had about about a little over a dozen thing, you know, agreements to negotiate with the federal government and with the state's tribes. And they decided they purposefully did all of the others and then did and then did the Flathead Reservation one because the latter one was the most complicated. And I think that actually, that actually wasn't a good thing. I think that there was a lot of a lot of study and animosity and kind of divergence that that occurred in those in those intervening decades. In part, I think because the tribes saw what was coming out of these other agreements and immediately began formulating alternate things, alternate ideas because they didn't like what the other agreements were saying. And so a lot more could have been done, a lot more could have been earlier, I think |
I think, if discussions started in the early 80s for example or the mid 80s. I think the other things that that impeded the timeline. First is that because partially because of that the tribes came into the negotiations with a lot of preconceived notions about what the kind of what the final agreement should look like. And there were a lot of news reports, for example, after their first, after their first formal negotiation session of all of these things that the tribes said that they wanted the final agreement that the states immediately threw up their hands and said absolutely not. And negotiations actually shut down for a year at that point. And so if those conversations could have started in the 80s when the tribes were beginning their process of studying the water quantity, the water quality, and if that, you know, the questions regarding the implementation could have been ongoing, I think a lot of a lot of anger and, you know, could have been mitigated. So a part of it was, was just, uh, there was so much, there was so much confrontation going into the agreement and very little trust. And so you, and, and the other thing I think that I think the second thing I want to say is that I think that the role of the negotiator was really important. Without the negotiator, a lot of, you know, a lot of the opportunity for building trust didn't occur. And it became, you know, they became venting sessions |
the negotiations. And it wasn't always a productive thing. So that's the question in terms of what went while it took so long. I think a negotiator helped a lot. And then I think eventually having, I mean, and this is where I think the water diplomacy framework does come to bear significantly, which is that I think once, once the two sides did have a shared understanding of the quantity of water in all the different locations and of the various, you know, various legal arguments and of the potential uses. Once there was that shared understanding, it was a lot easier to come to agreements because they understood from what, you know, point they were, they were compromising from. Whereas the tribes went into it with a lot more understanding and and would put up a very hard wall to begin with. And so having that shared understanding was was really important. Sorry, I think I've rabled on a little bit there, but I hope I got to your questions. So yes. I do have further specific questions. Yeah, one more. Yeah, yeah, it is related to the water diplomacy win-win framework. How do you think both parties agreed on this on a win-win side, for example, I read somewhere on the on I was doing some research on your yesterday and I said I read that the tribes were allocated the national bison range which I think somehow was an attractive thing for them for agreeing into this pretty. There's a secondary note with this question is, you mentioned in one of your slides that the number of non-tribes is kind of more than the actual tribal area |
tribal people. So given the, I just want to understand from you what is a percentage of tribal people there and non-priva people and how do you think that that balances or evens out the whole treaty and things in the Montana region? So, so just to clarify, the national bison range is on the Flathead Reservation. So the tribes were given the kind of the management, rights over the management of that range. But it was already on the reservation. It wasn't, it wasn't something off reservation that they were fighting over. It was on reservation land that was, you know, under the legal authority of the tribes but managed and trust by the federal government until until this occurred. In terms of the sorry, what was your question about your question about the kind of the numbers of non-tribal members? Yeah, I wanted to know that in this whole Montana region, which we're just with, in which the treaty is enforced, what is a percentage of the tribal people are there and the non-tribal people? Like how much benefit aren't they going to get the non-tribal people? So I can't remember the population of the tribe I don't remember right now. I believe it's about 8,000 and about 60% of the members live on the reservation so I believe it's it's I don't know the tribal members maybe it's about 8,000 and about 60% of the members live on the reservation. So I believe it's, I don't know, the travel members, maybe it's 5,000. I can't remember exactly right now how many travel members live on the reservation. It's a few times that in non-travel members. It's not |
I'm not sure the exact numbers again, not travel members of all the reservation, but it's a few times that the town of Polson, which is the biggest town on the reservation, has a population of about three and a half thousand, and there are many other small towns. So those, they were, those rights, the tribes were given a, you know, this agreement quantified, just to clarify, if anybody didn't make this clear before, this agreement quantified the tribe's rights on the reservation. But then there's still other water. So that other water then, because the tribe rights are quantified, can now be claimed by non-tribal users on the reservation. But that makes sense. With regards to the irrigation project, the irrigation project included a number of delivery schedules, and those delivery schedules were specifically to provide water to non-tribal irrigators who have historically used that water. And there was a lot of disagreement about that. Those irrigators, many of them argued that the amount of water they were being allocated was insufficient and they were going to have to move their lands. And the state of Montana agreed to actually support them by helping to invest and kind of, you know, drip agriculture and other things. But it will protect it over the long term their rights, the non-travel rights on the reservation, but the one limitation is that the travel rights, which are quantified now have priority. I took his name question to refer to proportionality. If you look at the overall benefits that are allocated to the federal government |
the state government, the tribe and non-tribal members living on the reservation, as the final agreement reflect some kind of proportionality, equal proportion of gain, however measured, did everybody come out roughly the same relative to the gains that they got, not in terms of how many people, but just in terms of these different categories. Yeah that's a good question. I think in terms of number of people I really I don't know in terms of the categories the non irrigators on the reservation yes so not So non irrigators, meaning not the irrigation project users, not the non irrigators definitely did. The municipalities were portion are going to have sufficient water to grow. You know, homeowners and developers can build again for both reservation and non-reservation, not traveling, not travel members. There's a significant amount of enough water and now enough legal clarity that that was a gain in itself. The group, you know, off reservation as well, I think that a lot of the, off reservation, definitely the non-tribal members, not the of the citizens of the state gained a lot because the tribe of band, you know, gave up a lot of their claims. The one area where I think there's still disagreement on and I don't have a, I think that it's still very controversial and it will be throughout implementation is on reservation irrigators. I think our one group that's that still a number of whom still feel like they did not have sufficient, they did not gain sufficient protection by, as a result of the negotiations. Good |
that's a good answer. Thank you. Yeah. Cassiana, do you have any feedback or go send to Arrows. I'll be very quickly. First, Aaron, congratulations for your case. Very well, very well done. Very well. It's a complex case study. I just want to highlight some points here. I appreciate the historic context that you gave from 1855 until 2000. Also, I learned, I like to learn a lot about the first in time, first in right that you mentioned before the 1973. And you mentioned that the facilitator arrived in the negotiation only in 2011. But even with the facilitator, it took like nine years to reach the agreement. So to clarify, it took, it actually took, so the facility arrived in 2011, they reached their first agreement in 2013. So that was when they reached the agreement. Then as a result, the result of the state legislature voting it down, they renegotiated the agreements for 20 in 2015. And at that point, and that point it was just sitting in Congress. So the facility, so they weren't negotiated anymore. There were some minor things that were changed, but and the facilitator is actually still involved, but what it actually only took two years with him to reach that agreement. Oh, two years, oh great. Got it. Yeah. Aaron, you don't have to do here because I know Jemma has to present the Columbia presentation. But if you can describe more in your paper, the negotiation process with the compact commission |
I like a lot that's the slide you put over there with the nine members. And if you can compare with the water managed board that's only have five members, right? Yeah. Six members on, but only five can vote. It's still only I really appreciate. Congratulations. Thank you. I am. Trying to understand the negotiation process has been really tricky. I like I've heard I've read and I've heard that there are that there are transcripts of the negotiations out there. But I've actually called I've called around I've called like the DNRC and a number of other people who are partying them and I've emailed people who mentioned that who have cited them and I can't find them. I have a number I have a lot of the I have a lot of the, I have a lot of the, what's it called, the topic lists, the topic lists, but not the, but not the transcripts themselves, which is disappointment. So any, any other question or comments from Flora or Jima? Okay. Thank you all. I appreciate your feedback. Yes, so maybe before Larry, I would like to ask one thing. So how does national politics played a role? Because I learned that the comparison, the state legislator, specifically the Republican legislator is not in favor of this autorright issue and and there are some issue between within the Republican and there are some issue within the Republican and there are some conflicts. So how does it play role in the negotiation process in this treaty? I defy anybody to explain that. Anybody. I don't care who they are. Because there's what the system is designed to do |
and there's what the system, a political system, actually does. And what it actually does is a function of who has the majority and who's in leadership in the executive branch. And it doesn't matter what it says on paper about what is a state's right, what is a national government's right, what is executive, what is legislative, doesn't matter. It all changes every time there's a shift in power and relationships. So there is no way to answer the question about what is this crazy intergovernmental system we have supposed to do relative to Indian rights because you then also have the court entering. We have these three branches and the Supreme Court got involved in this case at one stage, as you heard from from Aaron, and you have state legislature and you have the federal government legislate, the Congress, but you also have the agencies, and the agencies have responsibilities for the tribes, the Interior Department. It is an insanely complicated system, and it's very hard to know what's going on, even when it's happening, because it's not transparent. And people make all kinds of private deals. And other issues get traded off against the issue you're interested in. And you don't even know that that's why somebody voted a certain way. They didn't care about the issue, but they got something from somebody else for something else. So unraveling all that, I mean, I think Aaron did a wonderful job as best you can do of at least getting a timeline and looking at the outcomes. But the process, I mean, even with the transcript |
it's indeciferable. And everything related to Native Americans in the United States doesn't go the way the law says it's supposed to. Every treaty has been broken, continues to be broken. Every promise, everything that the US government promised and committed to, none of it's been upheld. And so yeah, I can point to what the system says. And somebody can hold up a treaty and say, look, here, I'm guaranteed certain rights. Yeah, well, try to get it enforced. So it's the complexity of the US intergovernmental system and the extent to which it's really not transparent what's happening, make it impossible to answer your question. Thanks. So maybe for the final paper I would like to ask, because this is one of the treaty that is successful recently in terms of order treaty. So maybe you can share very specific lesson learned from the negotiation process. I think that would be much more helpful in terms of what are diplomacy aspect. I think as this is very new kind of treaty that is successful and how the process works and what are the general lesson learned. I think that would be much more interesting things. I really like the four concluding points that you had. I think those were very strong. And as long as in the text, you will give you elaborate on them slightly. But as four concluding points, in terms of what can be learned from this case, I think they're terrific. Yeah. Thank you. |
So. So, today we are going to talk about the evolution of water resources management and at the end of the class you will be able to describe paradigm shift and evolution of water resources management in general. But also you can critically evaluate the importance of IWRM for water diplomacy and also water energy food nexus and its relation with water diplomacy and also importance of water diplomacy for SCE being sustainable development goals. Today's talk is regarding a new process, recent a process of order resources management and sustainable development goals and its relation with water diplomacy. In this figure, I try to summarize from taken from this references how the water resource management has evolved throughout the time. It has four metrics. You can see that from the centralized management to decentralized management in the vertical axis. And from centralized management, it means a centralized form of governance, where a stakeholder engagement and participation is the possibility of stakeholder engagement is very low. But when it moves to the decentralized form of governance, it can include stakeholder engagement from local peoples and local participations. And in the horizontal axis, you can see from the supply side management to the demand side management. In the left upper corner, this is the traditional development of water resources management, not only water resources management |
any development started from this side. So it's highly centralized and supply side approach. So this is the first development pattern of water resources. So for example, in this case, only option is to invest how to create dams, construction, reservoirs. So this is the only consideration for the water resources management. And it considered only engineering based approach and it's very technocratic approach without considering societal aspects or economic aspects. Mainly how to make the development and how the development pattern is started and how the engineering structures can can help to make the development effective. So this is the only only consideration in this phase. And then so this is the position of A in the left left and side upper corner. And, but slowly, it moves from A to B. And in that case, the, from investment oriented decision, it moves it takes consideration of the societal issues slowly. And then, so initial management paradigm considers mainly engineers, hydrologists and technocrats, but slowly they can understand that this may create, this can create consequences to the society and they can try to understand the demand of the local people slowly and so they try to incorporate the, they try to realize that order is not only the, what is not only the development pattern or supply side management, it needs to consider also societal and economic aspect and thus demand side options started and demand side management started. And then slowly it moves to the C and in that case, institutional reformation start, for example |
decentralized form of governance institution and yeah, so the from engineering based structure of the management paradigms more shift towards different disciplinary bodies in the management body, but also local engagement can also take place. So this is the overall broader evolution of the water resources management happens internationally and also many countries. So here I can give an example, how it happens in Bangladesh because I know this context of Bangladesh water resources management, how it happens throughout the time. So I can also explain the graph that I have shown and what happens practically in Bangladesh case. So before 1947, Bangladesh was a part of the British colony. And during that time, there was no embankment to protect flooding in Bangladesh. So in that time, local people manage the embankment during the dry season to grow the crops. And in that case, landlords, the British emperor provide ownership to the landlord to manage a specific area of land and through engaging local farmers, the landlords was responsible for managing flood protection embankments only during the dry season for growing crops. But during rainy season, that embankment was vanished because of the rainfall and the river water could enter into the floodplain and it helps sedimentation and it increases the, yeah, so land formation was happening during that time because sediment could come into the floodplain. And so this was kind of natural process was maintained during that period. But after 1947 |
the British colony ended and there was no institution like the landlord management territory was not there. And since then, this part of land was part of Indian estate. So it was, so India and Pakistan was divided and Bangladesh was part of the East Pakistan during that time. And so during that time, there was no responsible authority to managing the embankment or flood plan. And during that time in 1954 and 55, there was a major flood events. And after that flood events, flood protection embankments was constructed in 1960s. And you see during that, we were heavy engineering works started. And in that case, the embankment protects the flooding from the river, but also it helps initially the agricultural production highly. But slowly after few years, you know, this is, this river carries huge amount of sediment and that's sediment deposited in the flat plane and that makes the land formation in the flat plane. But due to the embankment, this process was was not taken place due to the construction of the embankment. And then the sedimentation was happening in the riverbed, a riverbed instead of the flood plain. So the floodplain, the land formation was not happening in the floodplain, but those sediment was deposited in the riverbed and that increased the reverber and it reduces the navigability. At the same time, the internal water logging started. So in 1980s |
this whole area of floodplain becomes water logged and permanent flooding was happening because of this construction of embankments. So you see how the consequence started from the supply side approach without considering only the narrow focus of the supply side process. So initially it helps improving the agricultural production, but in the long run, it created a disaster to the local people. So local people understood this process and they really understood what is happening there. So going against the government, they try to cut the embankment and bring the river water inside the floodplain. And process they called is tidal river management in 1990s. So they try to implement this process going against government process and they try to implement locally with self-organizing capacity and they implemented in one flat plane and they were successful and after two years they were able to see the major impact like navigability of in the riverbed is increased and also the floodplain, the sedimentation was happening in the floodplain. So then the government could also see the positive benefits. So then they try to institutionalize these approves in the government approach. So you can see how the transformation or evolution happened in this context. Similar explanation that I just gave in the previous slide |
just to show how the evolution was happening. I also try to explain how paradigm shift in water resources management happened through the literature provided by Claudia Paul Bossum. She's one of the experts on adaptive water resources management or integrated auto resources management. And so in her work, she tried to categorize or explain different dimensions of order resources management from control, command and control approach to the integrated approach. So in the governance dimensions that the measure paradigm shift has been from centralized form of governance to the to the police-centric form of governance, incorporates both integration of top-down and bottom-up approach. And also in terms of sectoral integration, in the case of command and control approach, in that case, the sectoral integration was not possible and it gives policy conflicts, but in the integrated form, integrated and adaptive form of management, the cross-sectoral integration is possible and that also integrates policy implementation. So in the case of scale of analysis and operations, this trans boundary problems emerge when reverse sub-basins are exclusive scale of analysis and management. But in the integrated form of governance, the trans-boundary issues address by multiple scale of analysis and management. And in the case of information management, understanding fragmented by gaps and lack of integration of appropriate or proprietary information sources, but in the case of integrated form of governance |
this comprehensive understanding achieved by open shared information sources that feel gaps and facilitate integration. And there are also three other dimensions. So as infrastructure, you can see that in the first cases, only the command and control approach massive centralized infrastructure design and engineering-based structure is dominant. But in the case of integrative and adaptive order resource management, this incorporates combination of centralized and diverse source of design and power delivery is very important. And in terms of financial and risk management, this case is only structural protection and its risks are considered, but in the case of integrative management, diversified financial resources are considered for by considering broad set of private and public financial instruments. And important aspect is dealing with uncertainty. In the case of command and control approach, it is considered that uncertainty is considered as undesirable sign of incomplete knowledge. So they don't know what will happen and how to manage the uncertainty. And this will create major problem, but adaptive and integrative management, the irreducible uncertainties are acceptable and the adaptive approach are taken, how to deal with the future uncertain outcomes by considering different scenarios. For example, different perspectives of explicit, different perspectives are explicitly acknowledged. So here you can see differentiation |
difference between the two approaches from command and control to the integrative approach. So now we would like to introduce one of the major paradigm shift and major dominant paradigm of water resources management, which is integrated water resources management. And of course, this falls in the right-hand side, the characteristics that I have shown here. So integrative and integrated water resources management. Integrated water resources management is not new, although the internationalists conceptualized recently in the twenteenth century and at the end of 20th century is introduced in the international arena, but there are ancient practices that incorporates the integrated, the major dimensions of integrated water resources management has been considered. For example, in 9th century, suburb irrigation system in Bali is one of the ancient irrigation practices which practiced this integrated water resources management. Of course, without knowing the concept, but they try to incorporate the integration, self-organization for managing the Bali irrigation systems through ancient practices. Here I wanted to share a video, very short video, but you can find interesting how they were able to manage this subacrigation system in the Balinese agricultural practices. So let me share this. You can see how self-organization and cooperative management of cooperative water management has taken place since that ancient time. And not only the Sobak system |
but also there are other historical practices that incorporates this integrated form of resource management practices. Another water resource management practices in Valencia, Spain, the Monte Stakeholder Participatory Water Tribunal have operated at least since 10th century. But also, the modern form of integrated water resources management was influenced mainly by Tenezza Valley Authority created in 1933 to holistically manage water resources. So I don't know whether you are familiar with the Teneze Valley Authority. Did some of you are familiar with this? Larry, do you know, I know some information, but probably you know better than me regarding the TVA form of management approach? Well, TBA wasn't just set up as a water management body. The Tennessee Valley Authority had enormous scope of development, power, and responsibility. And one of the few times in the United States where there was development across a large region, more than just a city or a metropolitan area. This covered much more of an area and it attempted to give public management to infrastructure at a scale that the United States wasn't used to. And it, as you point out, it was credited with being a planning mechanism. But given how anti-planning the United States has always been, I think it's more helpful to think about it as a development mechanism. And we had, and still have, but we had then lagging regions in terms of economic development. And the strategy was, let's make a massive investment in a lagging region. Let's have all of the infrastructure |
roads that connect it to other places, water that it needs, electricity or hydropower that it needs. Let's have all of the infrastructure done simultaneously and let's invest government funding at a large enough scale that it would then promote subsequent private investment and make it a sustainable place but with a much larger role for government managed infrastructure that never took off as an idea. We don't see other regions of the United States where lagging areas were targeted by an economic development strategy that said let's have a massive public investment in all of the infrastructure, job creation, training, and let's not worry about state and local government, and let's do it at a scale that turns around a lagging region because smaller scale efforts to turn around lagging regions don't work. So the way to understand the TVA story, and there are many books written about TVA, sort of longing for a regional, publicly managed, massive infrastructure project that would stimulate the economy in a way that wouldn't happen otherwise. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, also in the IWRM literature globally, this TBA approach is highly acknowledged and it says that the TBL-like approach must room all over the world for developing, mainly agricultural development in the developing countries. So that culture has been practiced is also in other places and the regional development plan through incorporating, for example, power generation, flood control, and how this integration happens. And also the concept |
integration of multiple sectors in the IWRM also came from this TBI-like approach that is mentioned in the IWRM literature. Yeah, so before going to IWRM principles, maybe we can have a participatory discussion here. Why IWRM is important for water diplomacy in your opinion. I wanted to make it a breakout group, but as we are only five people, so maybe we can discuss why in your opinion. Also, there was a memo question on this, so maybe we can discuss here, discuss here why IWRM is important for water diplomacy. Well, I guess first, do you think it is? What is it about integrated management of water resources that makes it an important element of dealing with transboundary waters? This is a little bit of low-hanging fruit, but one of the readings observed that it's the dominant paradigm for water management globally, so it sort of is there for important diplomacy. But I think one of the other things that stood out to me, and I wrote a little bit about this in my memo is just sort of efforts to move beyond diplomatic silos. There was a example in the loop at all piece that like really stood out to me about biofuels and how like the development of biofuels sort of subsequently catalyzed or exacerbated existing problems with water and food scarcity. So the need for like a more integration |
a more integrated management approach felt sort of urgent and necessary as we as we move towards perhaps greater scarcity in certain water systems. But how would that work or theoretically how might that work in context in which we do have siloed entities responsible for things like water. And if you say, well, integrated management is the key to managing water in the future so that you can connect water with energy, with food, with land, but that's not how those entities are set up. Right. Yeah. Isn't aren't we basically setting up systems to fail if we say that they have to be integrated in order to do water management when we know that they're not, therefore what are we hoping for? That was a good question. I don't know if I have an immediate answer. I'll think about that though. I'm not sure there's a right answer. It seems to me that from a planning perspective, urban regional planning perspective, not a water perspective, there's always an argument for centuries that the way to plan cities effectively is to start with a clean, empty area and have a designer make a comprehensive |
integrated plan so that the land is used efficiently so that all the uses are appropriately laid out and separate from each other when that's appropriate and that you don't have to have holes in the plan where there's private ownership or other things that happen and you don't have to worry over time because you just started building in one corner and by the time it was done it was just a giant pattern that's of uncontrolled development. The idea has always been that you should plan whole cities in a comprehensive way. To me, IWRM has some of the same resonance. Okay? Now, we know in real life, there are very, very few planned cities where the whole city was laid out and all of its evolution was guided by or controlled by the original plan. And it's very hard to have in a democratic context and one in which this private land ownership, continuity with a single plan. And even in some parts of the world where historically there were efforts to plan whole new capitals, whole new cities, where they brought in a famous architect who made a beautiful plan for the whole place. Over decades, the place changes from what the original design was for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which people want to have choice about what things are going to look like and what it can do with what their land is and what say they have in a democratic context. So just for purposes of pursuing further, the question that I ask you, J Gemma, is do you imagine that people in a democratic context can live and work and build in a way that's comprehensive, integrated |
and planned when all the forces of democracy, privatization, individuality, and all the unexpected things that happen organically pull in the opposite direction. I mean, I think I have to say yes, but that's sort of my prerogative as a first semester urban planning student. Like, if you, I've already given up on the field, then it may be too late for me. Um, I think the some healthy skepticism isn't uncalled for, I guess. I mean, it's, I don't know. I guess it's what is sort of resonant about IWRM and like the water nexus approach and like sort of science policy interfaces more broadly is the kind of potential to reimagine existing diplomatic regimes, but I don't know whether that actually will work in practice. So maybe it's just an intellectual exercise, but I think it's a useful intellectual exercise. Well, it's only useful if it inspires something in practice that can be done, right? It's not useful if it alludes to something in theory that can't be done in practice and everybody's just thwarted and can't achieve what they're supposed to or the ideal. And just to loop back around again to urban planning, nobody in urban planning teaches about comprehensive, planned cities anymore except as an intriguing historical artifact. Nobody would imagine that you would build a place according to a plan at time one and expect at time two a decade, two decades, a century later |
that the place is going to have anything to do with what that original plan was. And yet they still think there's planning going on. The planning is about the process of adaptation. Yeah. The planning is to create the institutions to be able to modify what you're doing collectively. So it's still planning. It's not planning it to achieve a preordained comprehensive idea. And I would argue in the water realm we ought to be worried about IWRM as an ideal because it presumes there are institutions with the authority, the power, with the knowledge to integrate across all of these multiple dimensions in spite of the fact that we have created the silos that you alluded to and that there are contending interests trying to pursue and maximize different outcomes for from their standpoint that are good from their standpoint. So for the reasons I worry about comprehensive planning, I worry about IWRM. So any other thoughts regarding IWRM? I think something related to what we were just talking about is like the interesting fact that in some ways the IWRM is like very broad but then in other ways a lot of people criticize it for not being broad enough, saying that like the adaptive water management system, like needs to replace or augment the IWRM because that is moving toward that like can we not only create water management |
but can we make sure that this water management system is also going to be adaptable to the future because we have to assume that it's not constant when we look at these extreme weather patterns or like changes in the nature of a conflict, some of these IWRM like management scenarios are just not like actively trying to adapt and become better to adjust to these changes. So in a lot of ways people are saying like, oh, the IWRM's not enough, like what about the nexus? What about this like adaptive water management system? And so like in my memo I talked a lot about how, I think one of the readings tried to analyze whether or not like you could replace the IWRM and I thought it was really interesting that they touched on like the social value of the IWRM like it's taken a long time to be adopted because like a lot of the water policy water diplomacy sector is like if well respected water diplomats use a certain water management system then like it's more likely to be used somewhere else, not just, I guess, like how some business models or other like sectors might transfer a certain system. So I just think that the IWRM's value, the fact that it is water-centric is like, I think very, like a strength of the IWRM, and then the fact that in the nexus, water is not considered more valuable or important than these other like sectors that you're considering in the nexus |
whether or not it's like the food water energy nexus where like every sector needs to be treated equally. I think like the fact that the IWRM puts the water like as the most important entity even though it is maybe creating some boundaries that the nexus wants to like get rid of, I think it's still really valuable because if you like get too broad, it's hard to make any progress, but maybe I've misinterpreted. I don't know. It seems like the future needs to be like more understanding and expansive and multi-centric, but also like how do we make progress if we can't get all those people to sit at the table and make an agreement in any regard. Yeah, I think in terms of the theoretical aspect, of course, the IWRM is very interesting, but in terms of practice, this is the main limitations that to implement this theoretical framework in practice, this is highly criticized and this implementation through following the actual process of the framework. I haven't done, I haven't seen any studies that really went through the IWRM implementation. So that is the main challenging thing that the implementation of IWRM is very difficult and is one of the unassived goal of the IWRM. That's the main criticism. But in terms of the theoretical contribution that has been done, I think is highly valuable at the broader level. But for implementing, it needs kind of, yeah, some kind of implementation oriented approach. That's how I see. So, yeah. Any thought at the on? In practice, I guess, I mean, in practice |
I guess you would hope that negotiators would have enough or be able to bring enough, I mean, this is obviously very dependent on what the kind of initiating circumstances are of any negotiation, but have enough flexibility to draw upon kind of various frameworks as they, as needed and as beneficial to a specific dispute, whether or not, you know, they call it IWRM or not, you know, the limitations of the IWRM, or not, you know, the limitations of the IWRM, whether it's in terms of scale or in terms of kind of what's not included because of its water-centric focus, like, can be supplemented by drawing off some of the other nexus, some of the next approaches as, you know, the others have said already that if you kind of in the process of negotiating a dispute, you ideally should be able to kind of pick and choose to an extent and not not be totally didactic about about how you apply these frameworks. I mean, I guess I don't know how you analyze it then if you're looking at it so ballistically, but it's hard for me to imagine any one framework being able to wholly encompass kind of all the possibilities of a water dispute. I think starting with a dispute is going to into a corner you don't need to be in. Start with the fact that you need to manage water. There's not a dispute. You just, you have water and you have competing demands and you have competing interests and you have to manage the water. Okay, what would be a good way to manage the water? To involve entities with broad authority or multiple authorities or narrow, just water |
to involve only the most expert people to make the decisions or to engage the stakeholders affected by the decisions so there's support for whatever the decision is to go ahead with. Would it make more sense to look just narrowly at the water that you have responsibility for because you're within a political boundary? Or would it make more sense to look at the water system moving underground or above ground that affects the water that you have responsibility for? Because the answers to those three kinds of questions almost always lead to people saying broader, linked, more comprehensive, more participatory, more completely engaged, because it seems like a better way to manage water. Now, assume there's a dispute within that water management system, how would you expect it to be resolved? Well, if you had pulled in all of those actors and all of those interests and all of that knowledge and all of that authority to manage the water and there was a dispute within that, you'd probably have to engage all of those same elements in sorting out a dispute that emerged. It would be hard to say, oh, there's a dispute. Now, all of you were involved in the planning of this and the management of this, go away, and the three of us will solve this. It's not going to happen. So IWRM isn't a dispute resolution mechanism. IWRM isn't an approach to water management. And when disputes come up, it's all tangled up in the dispute resolution process because of what it took to do IWRM as the planning, as the management scheme. It's never |
it was never meant to be a dispute resolution strategy or mechanism, but it's tangled up with efforts at dispute resolution because it's kind of hard to shrink any of the dimensions, the parties, the interests, the scope of the problem, the institutional powers for purposes of resolving a dispute that's come up within the IWRM process. Are there models, I mean, could you, could you differentiate and say the, you know, the initial, as you said, any, you know, anyone who thinks through the three questions you asked is going to move out and say, you know, broader, more inclusive, greater scope for this. Could you differentiate and say, okay, the initial water management consider, like, you know, negotiations will kind of exist on this macro level and incorporate kind of many different kind of facets of of the economy and kind of secondary tertiary effects of water management. But then you say after that, you basically incorporate dispute resolution processes that are hyperlocal that are specific specific to kind of the area where the resolution or where the dispute is taking place and don't require, you know, completely remapping all of the old terra. That historically, that's what the law and regulation have in fact done. Gotcha. Right? We have a system of water rights that has nothing to do with IWRM. I'm just take California or take Western United States. IWRM, you plan that water in a certain way, but you can't in a system that's defined senior water rights where people who got there first, got the water |
and then nobody can tell them what to do with it and they can waste it they can do anything they want. It's completely contrary to the ideas of IWRM and until relatively recently the whole water law around the world is not connected to water management. The rules of water law come down almost in the way Aaron you're describing. It's just how can I localize this and situated in the way we deal with other property rights? And that's how we'll handle the dispute. But it doesn't fit with what we imagine is the broader scope and the need to take account of more interests and the desire to look at the interconnectedness of things and the need to look ahead, not back at who had what rights, but forward in terms of who has what needs. And yet we're stuck with it. So again, IWRM is a water management approach. It's easy to see how it evolved. And it seems perfectly logical. And it doesn't offer an obvious or easy way of handling disputes over water within systems that are managed by IWRM. And if you just try to solve this water disputes in a purely legal fashion that determines who has what senior rights and hey, that's it, it's property. But that doesn't take account of water as a shared human resource or as a human right. And now how do we solve disputes over the allocation of water? We can't use the property rights law. we need something else. Yeah, that makes sense. Anamesh, how do you react to what I just said? Yeah, I, so in terms of a relation with IWRM and water diplomacy, I see that IWRM says, according to IWRM principle or dimensions |