Strategic Water Resources in Central Asia: In Search of a New International Legal Order
Strategic Water Resources in Central Asia: In Search of a New International Legal Order

Author(s): Stephen Hodgson
Subject(s): Energy and Environmental Studies, International Law, Environmental and Energy policy, International relations/trade, Politics and law, Economic development, Environmental interactions, Geopolitics
Published by: CEPS Centre for European Policy Studies
Keywords: Water resources; Central Asia; international legal order; hydropower electricity; Central Asia rivers; environmental disasters; energy security;
Summary/Abstract: The allocation and use of the water resources of Central Asia is one of the most difficult issues to arise out of the break-up of the Soviet Union. In outline the question is simple: how should the waters of the great Central Asian rivers, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, be used? To generate much-needed hydropower electricity in the mountainous countries in which they rise? Or for irrigation in the energy-rich downstream countries? Added into the mix is the fact that due largely to over-use for irrigation, both rivers flow (notionally, at least) into the depleted wastes of the environmental disaster that is the Aral Sea. In Soviet times the situation was simple: major decisions were made by Moscow. Independence changed that. Now, beyond the issue of how the existing Soviet-era infrastructure should be operated (for irrigation or hydropower), tensions are rising over the proposed construction of significant new hydropower projects in the upstream countries. Indeed water issues are seen to pose a significant threat to regional security. In February 2009 Uzbekistan’s President Karimov told his cabinet that country’s water was under threat and invoked the need to safeguard the interests of future generations of Uzbeks.

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