Settling the Egyptian-Ethiopian Dispute over the Renaissance Dam Project: Between the Inadequacy of the Rules of International Law and the Impossibility of Implementation

Abstract

This article seeks to find a settlement to the Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict, by discussing and analysing a number of bilateral agreements regarding the Nile River, in light of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties 1969 and the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Treaties 1978. In addition, the researcher will address in this article the customary international law of international rivers. The researcher in this article concludes that it is difficult to find a settlement to the Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict, since the rules of international law related to the conflict are either insufficient to settle the dispute or they are not applicable to the conflict because of the States parties themselves. The researcher suggests in this article that any settlement of the Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict should be based on reconciling among the positions of the two parties of the conflict, and this compromise may find its way in the rule of "equitable utilization and not harming others", set forth in the Nile Basin Initiative adopted in 1999. However, this rule needs a number of criteria so that it can be applied to the Egyptian-Ethiopian conflict.

Keywords

• Nile River, third party, succession of treaties, equitable utilization.