Nature’s Access to Water in Post-conflict Peacebuilding Efforts in South Sudan

Akhtarkhavari, Afshin; Lubett, Fiona

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-09390-1_12

Nature’s Access to Water in Post-conflict Peacebuilding Efforts in South Sudan

Afshin Akhtarkhavari⁴ &
Fiona Lubett⁵

Chapter
First Online: 01 January 2014

1860 Accesses
1 Citations

Part of the book series: Springer Series in Transitional Justice ((SSTJ,volume 4))

Abstract

This paper explores the role of environmental human rights in bridging gaps that often exist between immediate and short-term reactions of post-conflict nations to building their economy and long-term conservation and restoration efforts. Much has been said about the significance of environmental standards during war and conflict but not for peacebuilding efforts. This paper explores current internal and external tensions that exist in South Sudan to assess the potential value of environmental human rights in that context. Article 41 of the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan provides for the right to a healthy environment. These efforts come into conflict with other environmental human rights such as the right to water and sanitation but this paper will go on to argue that the rich tradition within the African Continent of providing for the right to a healthy environment will ensure that in the long-term South Sudan will be better served through this constitutional provision because it avoids the narrow interpretations of the right to water which will be damaging for long-term peacebuilding efforts in South Sudan. Given increasing evidence of climate change, peacebuilding efforts need to avoid additional pressures on the ecological integrity and resilience of landscapes that need access to water to survive and support vulnerable populations like those in South Sudan.

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Notes

1.
For instance, see Erika Weinthal, Jessical Troell and Mikiyasu Nakayama, “Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: Introduction” Water International 36(2) (2011): 151, where the authors discuss the impacts of climate change on peacebuilding initiatives.
2.
Salman M.A. Salman, “The New State of South Sudan and the Hydro-Politics of the Nile Basin”, Water International 36(2) (2011).
3.
See David Jensen and Stephen Lonergan, eds., Assessing and Restoring Natural Resources in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding (London: Earthscan, 2012); Siri Aas Rustad and Helgal Malmin Binningsbo, “A Price Worth Fighting For? Natural Resources and Conflict Recurrence”, Journal of Peace Research 49(4) (2012). United Nations Environment Programme, “From Conflict to Peacebuilding: The Role of Natural Resources and the Environment”, (Nairobi: UNEP, 2009).
4.
See, Siri Aas Rustad and Paivi Lujala, eds., High-Value Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding (London: Earthscan, 2012).
5.
Jensen and Lonergan, Assessing and Restoring Natural Resources in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding; Mara Tignino, “Water, international peace, and security”, International Review of the Red Cross 92 (2010): 647; Salman M.A. Salman, “International Water Disputes: A New Breed of Claims, Claimants, and Settlement Institutions”, Water International 31(1) (2006): 2.
6.
The phrase “water security” has often been used to describe this situation. See, Salman M.A. Salman, “The Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement: a peacefully unfolding African spring?” Water International 38(1) (2013): 17–29.
7.
See the 1976 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques; and also the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I).
8.
See United Nations General Assembly, Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 3–14 June 1992), UN Doc A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I) (12 August 1992) annex I (“Rio Declaration on Environment and Development”) which includes principle 24 providing that “warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development. States shall therefore respect international law providing protection for the environment in times of armed conflict and cooperate in its further development, as necessary”.
9.
Harvard Law Review Note, “What Price for the Priceless?: Implementing the Justiciability of the Right to Water” Harvard Law Review 120(4) (2007).
10.
Ashok Swain, “Challenges for water sharing in the Nile basin: changing geo-politics and changing climate”, Hydrological Sciences Journal 56(4) (2011): 687–702, 694.
11.
The Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011, available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/4e269a3e2.html.
Article 41—The Environment
(1) Every person or community shall have the right to a clean and healthy environment.
(2) Every person shall have the obligation to protect the environment for the benefit of present and future generations</Emphasis>.
(3) Every person shall have the right to have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations, through appropriate legislative action and other measures that:
(a) Prevent pollution and ecological degradation;
(b) Promote conservation; and
(c) Secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting rational economic and social development so as to protect genetic stability and bio-diversity.
(d) All levels of government shall develop energy policies that will ensure that the basic needs of the people are met while protecting and preserving the environment.
12.
See the opinion of Judge Weeramantry in Case concerning the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project (Hungary v Slovakia) (1997) ICJ Rep 7, 91–92, where he notes that “[t]he protection of the environment is … a vital part of contemporary human rights doctrine, for it is a sine qua non for numerous human rights such as the right to health and the right to life itself. It is scarcely necessary to elaborate on this, as damage to the environment can impair and undermine all the human rights spoken of in the Universal Declaration and other human rights instruments”. This has been more explicitly recognised by a range of United Nations General Assembly resolution including and in particular Resolution 19/10 which established in 2012 an “independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations relating to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment …” (United Nations General Assembly, A/HRC/RES/19/10, 19 April 2012).
13.
See the joint report prepared by Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) for the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, entitled Human Rights and the Environment: Rio + 20: 12.
14.
OHCHR and UNEP, Human Rights and the Environment: Rio + 20, 28–29.
15.
Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, UN Doc A/CONF.48/14, at 2 and Corr.1 (June 5–16 1972).
16.
Sumudu Atapattu, “The Right to a Healthy Life or the Right to Die Polluted?: The Emergence of a Human Right to a Healthy Environment Under International Law”, Tulane Environmental Law Journal 16 (2002).
17.
World Charter for Nature, GA Res 37/7, UN GAOR, 37th sess, 48th plen mtg, UN Doc A/RES/37/7 (28 October 1982).
18.
Atapattu, “The Right to a Healthy Life or the Right to Die Polluted”, 75.
19.
Atapattu, “The Right to a Healthy Life or the Right to Die Polluted”, 75.
20.
United Nations General Assembly, Resolution on the need to ensure a healthy environment for the well-being of individuals, GA Res 45/94, UN GAOR, 45th sess, 68th plen mtg, UN Doc A/RES/45/94 (14 December 1990).
21.
United Nations General Assembly, Resolution on the need to ensure a healthy environment for the well-being of individuals, GA Res 45/94, UN GAOR, 45th sess, 68th plen mtg, UN Doc A/RES/45/94 (14 December 1990).
22.
United Nations General Assembly, Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, 3–14 June 1992), UN Doc A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I) (12 August 1992) annex I (“Rio Declaration on Environment and Development”).
23.
Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Principle 1.
24.
Organization of African Unity (OAU), African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (“Banjul Charter”), 27 June 1981, CAB/LEG/67/3 rev 5, 21 ILM 58 (1982), article 24. Available at http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3630.html. Hereinafter referred to as “the African Charter”.
25.
Boyle, “Human Rights and the Environment”, 631.
26.
In the decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the case of the Ogoni Peoples of Nigeria, Decision on Communication of The Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC) and the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) v Nigeria (155/96), at paragraph 54 it was stated that Article 24 of the African Charter imposes clear obligations upon a government. The decision of the Commission was adopted at the 30th ordinary session of the African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, Banjul, 13–27 October 2001 (SERAC and CESR v Nigeria), available at http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/comcases/155-96b.html.
27.
See Karen Bakker, Privatizing Water: Governance Failure and the World’s Urban Water Crisis (London: Cornell University Press, 2013), 150, 152–153. The conclusion made by Gerber and Chen that the human right to water is “now recognised as part of international human rights law” is difficult to sustain given the difficulties inherent in defining what such a right entails: Paula Gerber and Bruce Chen, “Recognition of the Human Right to Water: Has the Tide Turned?” Alternative Law Journal 36(1) (2011): 21.
28.
Philippe Cullet, “Water Law in a Globalised World: The Need for a New Conceptual Framework” Journal of Environmental Law 23(2) (2011): 233.
29.
Bakker, Privatizing Water, 150, 152–153. See also Dinah Shelton, “Human Rights, Environmental Rights and the Right to the Environment” Stanford Journal of International Law 28 (1993): 109.
30.
Inga T. Winkler, The Human Right to Water: Significance, Legal Status and Implications for Water Allocation (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2012), 37; Malgosia Fitzmaurice, “The Human Right to Water” Fordham Environmental Law Review 18 (2006–2007): 540; Stephen C. McCaffrey, “A Human Right to Water: Domestic and International Implications” Georgetown International Environmental Law Review 5 (1992).
31.
McCaffrey, “A Human Right to Water”, 7.
32.
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, opened for signature 16 December 1966, 993 UNTS 3 (entered into force 3 January 1976).
33.
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, opened for signature 16 December 1966, 999 UNTS 171 (entered into force 23 March 1976).
34.
Erik B. Bluemel, “The Implications of Formulating a Human Right to Water” Ecology Law Quarterly 31 (2004) 968.
35.
Fitzmaurice, “The Human Right to Water”, 540.
36.
Gerber and Chen, “Recognition of the Human Right to Water”, 21.
37.
See Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, opened for signature 18 December 1979, 1249 UNTS 13 (entered into force 3 September 1981), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child opened for signature 20 November 1989, 1577 UNTS 3 (entered into force 2 September 1990).
38.
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, General Comment No. 15 (2002) The right to water (arts. 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), 29th sess, Agenda Item 326, UN Doc. E/C.12/2002/11 (11–29 November 2002). Hereinafter referred to as “General Comment 15”.
39.
General Comment 15, paragraph 1.
40.
The Human Right To Water And Sanitation, GA Res 64/292, UN GAOR, 64th sess, 108th mtg, Agenda Item 48, Supp No 49, UN Doc A/RES/64/292 (3 August 2010). Hereinafter referred to as “Resolution 64/292”.
41.
Resolution 64/292.
42.
Resolution 64/292.
43.
United Nations Human Rights Council, Human rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation, HRC Res 15/9, 15th sess, 31st mtg, Agenda Item 3, UN Doc A/HRC/RES/15/9 (6 October 2010).
44.
Edith Brown Weiss, “The Coming Water Crisis: A Common Concern of Humankind” Transnational Environmental Law 1(1) (2012): 158.
45.
Malin Falkenmark and Johan Rockström, “The New Blue and Green Water Paradigm: Breaking New Ground for Water Resources Planning and Management”, Journal Of Water Resources Planning And Management 132(3) (2006): 131.
46.
Winkler, The Human Right to Water, 30.
47.
Bakker, Privatizing Water, 30.
48.
McCaffrey, “A Human Right to Water”, 3.
49.
Bakker, Privatizing Water, 30.
50.
Peter H. Gleick, “Basic Water Requirements for Human Activities: Meeting Basic Needs” Water International 21(2) (1996): 86. For exceptions, see the response in Australia found in the Australian Government’s Water Act 2007 (Cth) where it provides that water which is not used for consumption according to a quota will be provided for the benefit of protecting the environment.
51.
Gleick, “Basic Water Requirements for Human Activities”, 86.
52.
Marcus Moench, Ajaya Dixit and Elisabeth Caspari, “Water, Human Rights and Governance: Issues, Debates and Perspectives” Water Nepal 9/10 (2003).
53.
Within this paper, reference to “South Sudan” denotes the newly created nation state, whereas references to “southern Sudan” refer to the southern region of Sudan pre-secession.
54.
Naomi Cahn, Dina Haynes, and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, “Returning Home: Women in Post-Conflict Societies” University of Baltimore Law Review 39 (2010): 339.
55.
Richard Nield, “South Sudan Faces up to its Water Challenge” Global Water Intelligence 12(3) (2011), accessed April 1, 2013, http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/12/3/general/south-sudan-faces-its-water-challenge.html.
56.
United Nations, “Member states of the United Nations”, accessed June 12, 2013 http://www.un.org/en/members/index.shtml#s: “The Republic of South Sudan formally seceded from Sudan on 9 July 2011 as a result of an internationally monitored referendum held in January 2011, and was admitted as a new Member State by the United Nations General Assembly on 14 July 2011.”
57.
The legacy of colonial rule meant that the northern provinces of Sudan were largely left under Egyptian control with the southern part of Sudan remaining under British control, which sheds light on the historical divisions within the country. See International Crisis Group, God, Oil and Country: Changing the Logic of War in Sudan (Report, International Crisis Group Press, 2002) 8 http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/africa/horn-of-africa/sudan/God%20Oil%20and%20Country%20Changing%20the%20Logic%20of%20War%20in%20Sudan.
58.
Salman M.A. Salman, “The new state of South Sudan and the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin” Water International 36(2) (2011): 154.
59.
International Crisis Group, God, Oil and Country.
60.
Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Sudan, and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Sudan People’s Liberation Army, available at http://unmis.unmissions.org/Portals/UNMIS/Documents/General/cpa-en.pdf.
61.
Ana E. Cascão, “Resource-Based Conflict in South Sudan and Gambella (Ethiopia): When Water, Land and Oil Mix With Politics”, in State and Societal Challenges in the Horn of Africa: Conflict and processes of state formation, reconfiguration and disintegration, ed. Alexandra Magnólia Dias (Lisbon: Center of African Studies & ISCTE-IUL, 2013), 143.
62.
International Crisis Group, God, Oil and Country, 99.
63.
Weinthal et al., “Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding”, 143.
64.
United Nations Environment Programme, Post-conflict environmental assessment (Nairobi: UNEP, 2007) http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/UNEP_Sudan.pdf.
65.
UNEP, Post-conflict environmental assessment, 8.
66.
UNEP, Post-conflict environmental assessment, 8.
67.
Government of the Republic of South Sudan (GoSS) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Environmental Impacts, Risks and Opportunities Assessment: Natural Resources Management and Climate Change in South Sudan (Published by the Government of the Republic of South Sudan Ministry of Environment with support from the United Nations Development Programme 2012), 16.
68.
GoSS and UNDP, Environmental Impacts, Risks and Opportunities Assessment, 16.
69.
Luke Patey, “Lurking beneath the surface: Oil, environmental degradation, and armed conflict in Sudan” in High-Value Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, Siri Aas Rustad and Paivi Lujala, eds., (London: Earthscan, 2012); Coalition for International Justice, Soil and Oil: Dirty Business in Sudan (Washington DC: Coalition for International Justice, 2006), 24.
70.
UNEP, Post-conflict environmental assessment, 84; Tignino, “Water, international peace, and security”, 650: “According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), climate change has reduced agricultural production owing to a decline in rainfall and this is a contributing factor for the conflict in Darfur.”
71.
Tignino, “Water, international peace, and security”, 652.
72.
Salman, “The new state of South Sudan and the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin”, 157.
73.
Salman, “The new state of South Sudan and the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin”, 157.
74.
Ana E. Cascão, “South Sudan—At the Nile’s Hydropolitical Crossroads”, Stockholm Water Front 2 (2011): 16.
75.
GoSS and UNDP, Environmental Impacts, Risks and Opportunities Assessment, 52; David Batali et al., No Time To Waste: Sustainable Environmental Management in a Changing Southern Sudan (Amsterdam: AWEPA International, 2010) 24, available at http://www.awepa.org/resources/no-time-to-waste-sustainable-environmental-management-in-a-changing-southern-sudan/.
76.
Cascão, “South Sudan—At the Nile’s Hydropolitical Crossroads”, 16–17; Salman, “The new state of South Sudan and the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin”; Harry Verhoeven, Black Gold for Blue Gold? Sudan’s Oil, Ethiopia’s Water and Regional Integration (London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2011).
77.
United Arab Republic and Sudan Agreement for the Full Utilization of the Nile Waters, signed at Cairo on 8 November 1959, 6519 UNTS 63.
78.
Salman, “The new state of South Sudan and the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin”, 159.
79.
Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda.
80.
In 1999, all ten riparian States set up the NBI to renegotiate the management of the Nile River Basin. Salman notes that the NBI has described its vision as achieving “sustainable socioeconomic development through the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources”. One of the goals of the NBI has been “to get the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) concluded by all the Nile riparian countries for regulating the sharing and management of the Nile Basin. However, despite intense discussions and negotiations on the CFA since 2001, the Nile riparian States have failed to reach a final agreement on the CFA”: Salman, “The new state of South Sudan and the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin”, 160.
81.
Abadir M. Ibrahim, “The Nile Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement: The Beginning of the End of Egyptian Hydro-Political Hegemony”, Missouri Environmental Law and Policy Review 18(2) (2011): 282.
82.
“South Sudan Cabinet Endorses Joining Nile Basin Initiative”, Sudan Tribune, August 16, 2013, accessed August 20, 2013, http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article47686.
83.
Elissa Jobson, “Hydropower politics: the struggle for control of the world’s longest river”, Africa in Fact 13 (2013): 15.
84.
Jobson, “Hydropower politics”, 16.
85.
Rebecca Yang, “The American Southeast and South Sudan: The Emergence of Environmental Factors in Transboundary Water Law”, North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation 38 (2012–2013): 233.
86.
Salman, “The new state of South Sudan and the hydropolitics of the Nile Basin”, 158.
87.
Paul Goldsmith, Lydia A. Abura and Jason Switzer, “Oil and Water in Sudan”, in Scarcity and Surfeit: The ecology of Africa’s conflicts, eds. Jeremy Lind and Kathryn Sturman (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2002) 204.
88.
Goldsmith et al., “Oil and Water in Sudan”, 204.
89.
See International Crisis Group, God, Oil and Country, 106: in 1983 the SPLA attacked a Chevron camp and rig who were involved in digging the canal, “sending a clear signal regarding its objection to the exploration of southern oil and water resources by the central government”.
90.
Egypt has been proactive in offering support by way of economic aid and also in the form of support for major infrastructure development. See Cascão, “South Sudan—At the Nile’s Hydropolitical Crossroads”, 17.
91.
Jemera Rone, Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2003), 376.
92.
There are also still unsettled border areas, for instance, the borders of the state of Abyei are yet to be formally agreed, despite the issue having been referred to the Permanent Court of Arbitration for a ruling in 2009: Jennifer McKay, “The Permanent Court of Arbitration and the Sudanese Peace Process: Legal Issues from the Abyei Arbitration in Reviewing the Mandate of an Ad Hoc Body”, Australian International Law Journal 16 (2009): 233; Salman M.A. Salman, “Water resources in the Sudan North-South peace process and the ramifications of the secession of South Sudan” in Water and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding, eds. Erika Weinthal, Jessica Troell and Mikiyasu Nakayama (London: Earthscan, 2013), 17.
93.
Coalition for International Justice, Soil and Oil, 6; Rone, Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights.
94.
See Elke Grawert and Christine Andrä, Brief No. 48—Oil Investment and Conflict in Upper Nile State, South Sudan (Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion, 2013); Coalition for International Justice, Soil and Oil.
95.
Patey, “Lurking beneath the surface”, 563–564.
96.
Patey, “Lurking beneath the surface”, 563–564.
97.
Grawert and Andrä, Oil Investment and Conflict in Upper Nile State, 8.
98.
GoSS and UNDP, Environmental Impacts, Risks and Opportunities Assessment.
99.
Rone, Sudan, Oil, and Human Rights, 49, 61.
100.
Patey notes that “[t]he GOSS [Government of South Sudan] has failed to manage the damaging political and economic effects of the resource curse. Instead, glaring examples of fiscal mismanagement and corruption have fed resentment among local populations as unprecedented amounts of oil revenue flow into GOSS coffers”: Luke Patey, “Crude Days Ahead? Oil and the Resource Curse in Sudan” African Affairs 109(437) (2010): 617.
101.
Patey, “Crude Days Ahead?” 632.
102.
See GoSS and UNDP, Environmental Impacts, Risks and Opportunities Assessment; Jason Hickel, “Constituting the Commons: Oil and Development in Post-Independence South Sudan”, in Exporting the Alaska Model: Adapting the Permanent Fund Dividend for Reform around the World, eds. Karl Winderquist and Michael W. Howard (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
103.
See Jutta Brunnee and Stephen J. Toope, “The Changing Nile Basin Regime: Does Law Matter” Harvard International Law Journal 43(1) (2002): 105, 120, citing John Waterbury and Dale Whittington, “Playing Chicken on the Nile? The Implications of Microdam Development in the Ethiopian Highlands and Egypt’s New Valley Project” Natural Resources Forum 22 (1998): 155, 162. This takes into account the agricultural sector across all countries within the Nile Basin at the time and is not an accurate figure for South Sudan, but it gives an indication of the relative demands of the industry on the Nile River waters.
104.
Brunnee and Toope, “The Changing Nile Basin Regime”, 121, citing Sandra Postel, “Saving Water for Agriculture” in State Of The World 1990: A Worldwatch Institute Report On Progress Towards A Sustainable Society, Lester Brown et al. (Washington D.C.: WorldWatch Institute, 1990) 39, 47.
105.
The term “virtual water” has been coined to describe “the water needed to produce agricultural commodities”. John A. Allan, “Virtual Water—the Water, Food, and Trade Nexus: Useful Concept or Misleading Metaphor?” Water International 28(1) (2003): 4, 5. See also John A. Allan, The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy (London: IB Tauris & Co Ltd, 2002); John A. Allan, Virtual Water: Tackling the Threat to Our Planet’s Most Precious Resource (London: IB Tauris & Co Ltd, 2011). See Stephen Merrett, The Price of Water: Studies in Water Resource Economics and Management (London: IWA Publishing, 2007) for a critique of this formulation and analysis of the “virtual water” concept.
106.
David Deng, Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa—Country Report: South Sudan (Oakland: The Oakland Institute, 2011).
107.
Deng, Understanding Land Investment Deals in Africa, 19. Deng notes that there was a surge in large scale land-based investment following the signing of the CPA in 2005, when “companies moved in fast to secure large concessions and land leases in some of the most fertile and water-rich regions of the country.” The deals for foreign investments (in industrial farms, plantation forestry, agrofuel projects, carbon credit schemes and ecotourism projects) were conducted quietly and largely “under the radar”.
108.
Brunnee and Toope, “The Changing Nile Basin Regime”, 119.
109.
Brunnee and Toope, “The Changing Nile Basin Regime”, 119.
110.
Margie Buchanan-Smith, Brendan Bromwich and Magda Nassef, Governance for Peace over Natural Resources: A review of transitions in environmental governance across Africa as a resource for peacebuilding and environmental management in Sudan (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, 2013) 6.
111.
See for instance the work of the Environmental Peacebuilding initiative (http://www.environmentalpeacebuilding.org/), a collaborative effort of the Environmental Law Institute, the United Nations Environment Programme, McGill University and the University of Tokyo.
112.
Mohamed A.R. Abdel Hamid, “Climate Change in the Arab World: Threats and Responses” in Troubled Waters: Climate Change, Hydropolitics, and Transboundary Resources, eds. David Michel and Amit Pandya (Washington DC: Stimson, 2009).
113.
Jon Bennett et al., Aiding the Peace: A Multi-donor Evaluation of Support to Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities in Southern Sudan 2005–2010 (Hove: ITAD, 2010), 30.
114.
Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, “On the Threshold: Environmental Changes as Causes of Acute Conflict” International Security 16(1) (1991): 76; Tignino, “Water, international peace, and security”; Patey, “Lurking beneath the surface”; Knut Bourquain, Freshwater Access from a Human Rights Perspective: A Challenge to International Water and Human Rights Law (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2008); Gabriel Eckstein, “Water scarcity, conflict, and security in a climate change world: challenges and opportunities for international law and policy”, Wisconsin Journal of International Law 27 (2010): 409.
115.
Fiona Flintan and Imeru Tamrat, “Spilling Blood Over Water? The Case of Ethiopia” in Scarcity and Surfeit: The ecology of Africa’s conflicts, eds. Jeremy Lind and Kathryn Sturman (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2002), 243.
116.
Flintan and Tamrat, “Spilling Blood Over Water?” 244.
117.
David Batali et al., No Time To Waste, 45.
118.
David Batali et al., No Time To Waste, 45.
119.
Bennett et al., Aiding the Peace, 14.
120.
UNEP, Post-conflict environmental assessment, 8.
121.
See the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan, 2011, art 41.

Acknowledgement

Portions of this paper are from an earlier publication which appeared as “When Interests Clash: The Right to Water in South Sudan” (2014) Vol 5 No 1 Journal of Human Rights and the Environment. We would like to acknowledge the helpful comments provided to us on this paper by anonymous reviewers as well as our colleagues and friends: Anna Greer, Louis Kotze, Evadne Grant, Natalia Szablewska, and Olivera Simic.

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Griffith Law School, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, 4111, Australia
Afshin Akhtarkhavari
Level 16, 95 North Quay, Brisbane, QLD, 4000, Australia
Fiona Lubett

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Southern Cross University School of Law and Justice, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Natalia Szablewska
University of Lincoln Law School, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Sascha-Dominik Bachmann

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Akhtarkhavari, A., Lubett, F. (2015). Nature’s Access to Water in Post-conflict Peacebuilding Efforts in South Sudan. In: Szablewska, N., Bachmann, SD. (eds) Current Issues in Transitional Justice. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09390-1_12

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