ANU UN Society MiniMUN III Water Security in the Middle East, North Africa, and Caucasus regions The Arab League Founded in 1945 the Arab League is a regional organization with membership that spans the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. The League has 22 member states (Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan Syrian Opposition – takes the seat of the suspended Syrian regime – Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. There are also several observers including India, Eritrea and Brazil and Venezuela who have no voting rights. The Syrian regime was suspended following an ultimatum to ensure the end of violence against civilians in Syria. Following a government rejection of that call, amidst criticism of hypocrisy, the Syrian opposition was allowed to assume the vacated position with the corresponding voting rights. An additional current anomaly is the inclusion of the “legitimate” Hadi government of Yemen despite the fact that they weakly control parts of the country, essentially existing in exile in Saudi Arabia. The lack of recognition and in fact outright hostility to the de facto ruling Houthi group has also been the subject of membership contention. However, despite a motion to suspend their membership, Yemen maintains voting rights on the council.

Powers and responsibilities of the League Much like the United Nations, the Arab league was designed to improve integration, development and mutual support amongst member states. A special focus was put fostering mutual security, and independence in security matters from outside influences. The Arab League thus acts heavily against both local and pan-Arab security threats. Like the UN, the Arab League does not possess a military force to carry out and enforce its resolutions, however it has nonetheless frequently become a platform for engaging in military action. Plans and provisions for a joint defence force were put in place during the early Arab-Israeli wars,

however they bore very limited results. More recently in 2007 delegates convened and decided to reactivate the idea of joint defence force with the mandate to carry out peacekeeping missions in the region’s many hotspots. This was followed up in 2015 to create an elite joint military force to act on behalf of the region’s defence. This would be comprised of elite soldiers, warships and an air based component. While neither has come to fruition as of yet, African Union Summits have often seen the promise and delivery of force. Widespread action in the Saudi led campaign against the Houthi regime in Yemen primarily stemmed from the ability of Mansour Hadi to address the League despite his loss of national control. The resulting war clearly demonstrates the strategic importance of membership decisions, especially where decisions are made between two rival factions competing for state recognition as in Syria and Yemen. The Arab League maintains the powers to suspend and even excommunicate members in extreme cases and this is often a form of sanctions used against regimes such as Gaddafi’s in order as a part of soft peace building. Water Security as a threat to security in the Middle East and North Africa Water Security is defined by the United Nations both as a fundamental human right, and the “capacity of a population to safeguard sustainable access to adequate quantities of acceptable quality water for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being, and socio-economic development, for ensuring protection against water-borne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability”. It is considered to be the key Sustainable development goal due to its cascading effect on human security, development, education, economic stability and prosperity and health amongst other development indicators. Yet despite ongoing efforts by the UN and by almost every state to mitigate threats to water security, it remains a critical and pervasive issue. Water scarcity can have both economic and environmental causes. This can occur when there is plenty of water, but poverty prevents access to clean unpolluted water, or where the costs of obtaining prevalent water are prohibitively high. In some areas, there is a temporal or chronic lack of physical water caused by the natural climate, and drought event, overpopulation or desertification. Both economic and physical water scarcity is perhaps nowhere as severe as in Arab League Member states.

The Arab Peninsula dominated by the Arabian Desert, and North Africa dominated by the Sahara have always faced severe water scarcity, due in large part simply to a lack of rain. In the horn of Africa, the Sahel Yemen and the Levant water is relatively more abundant, but poverty and far higher population and land use pressures mean that often there is even less water to go around in these areas. This has been compounded by the growing incidence of extreme drought events and desertification. Unable to produce clean water from the sea or other cost intensive sources this has led to increasingly violent conflict over water, alongside a growing humanitarian catastrophe. Yemen, the Horn of Africa and the Sahel are generally considered to be the single most water insecure regions of earth, and all fall entirely or significantly under the jurisdiction of the Arab League. As of Early this year, famine has been declared in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia leaving millions vulnerable. This has led not only to economic collapse, but also to increasing armed violence. There has been a steady uptick in killing by nomadic tribes especially on Sudan’s borders. Not only is this causing a severe security lapse for Sudan, but these desperate often cross border raids are increasingly threatening to reignite the brutal conflicts between Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and South Sudan. In an already devastated region this threat is alarmingly severe. Yemen has long been both the poster child of a failed state, and how water insecurity can destroy a society. The threat here is so severe that estimates say that Sana’a, the capital of Yemen and a contender for the oldest continually inhabited place on earth, may become entirely uninhabitable within the next twenty years. This had led to pervasive small arms conflict over water fuelling both the ongoing civil and ISIL/Al Qaeda insurgencies. This has all has made the ongoing humanitarian disaster worse, and dramatically weakens future prospects for peace. Instability in Yemen is critically important considering its strategic location and impact as a lynch point between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. The insecurity heightens the risk of growing factional fighting with the potential to tear many Arab States and perhaps the league itself apart. One of the most well-known conflicts on earth, and a large raison d’etre for the Arab League is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, yet much less well known is the dimension water security plays. The control of headwaters long featured in the Zionist nation building plans, and the division of water resources between Palestine, Israel and Lebanon remained contentious until the Six Day War led to crippling Israeli takeover of freshwater sources. Palestinians have long complained that they are unable to access water reserves primarily on their land, and that illegally annexed from Syria, due to military pressure and an unjust water regime that leaves the occupied population with only 20% of the water. They are then forced to buy the water at inflated prices as a part of what the UN deemed an “apartheid regime”. The lack of water both for Palestinians as well as those in Jordan and Syria has created an existential threat for both permanent residents and those who were displace by conflict and are forced to reside in these regions. Water Security for the League is also tied to other states on its edge, another notable case being the current escalating fight for control of the Nile headwaters. The dispute between Egypt, Uganda and Ethiopia threatens the way of life for millions of people, especially for the millions of Egyptians who rely on the banks of the Nile. Ethiopia’s attempts to dam the Nile are vehemently fought by Egypt as a direct threat to their national security. Yet much as is the case for these other issues, there has been very little action by the UN or the Arab League to address this critical issue. Water Security as a threat to security in the Caucasus While not in the Middle East, the Caucasus countries are the closest geographic neighbours to the Middle East and North Africa where water politics could escalate the ethic tensions wildly and lead to war. When the USSR collapsed, however, the capital and technology-intensive water

infrastructure built by the Soviets in these countries fell into disrepair, causing water crises still not addressed to this day. The political friction in these countries is immense, stalling even the most basic level of cooperation. Azerbaijan, the downstream state in the main Caucasus basin, is the worst off in the stalemate, as it lacks access to sustainable groundwater resources and suffers from upstream pollution of the Kura-Araks basin. Both Georgia and Armenia dump huge volumes of pollutants including industrial chemicals and heavy metals into the rivers with little water monitoring or treatment. As a result, Azerbaijan struggles to find adequate water supplies that aren’t polluted. In Baku, the capital city of more than two million people, only a fraction of municipal water is safe to drink and available throughout the day. Meanwhile Armenia faces its own dilemma. The country is sandwiched between Turkey and Azerbaijan, allied countries that both resent Armenia’s existence and have long since closed their borders to it. The resulting economic isolation makes Armenia energy-poor vulnerable to frequent electrical outages and dependent on primitive fuel sources like timber and coal. Armenia uses so much local timber for heating that it now faces large scale deforestation which in turn leads to shrinking water tables and further erosion in the river basin. Armenia also has problems with water pollution; according to Azerbaijan, water flowing downstream from Armenia appears to be virtually untreated containing raw sewage, chemicals and pharmaceutical products. Georgia rounds out the Caucasus water troika – it depends on the Kura River, glacial runoff from the Caucasus Mountains, rainfall and underground aquifers for agricultural irrigation. Because of this wide availability of sources, Georgia is not water-poor or water-insecure like Azerbaijan or Armenia. However, its territory covers a large part of the Kura River basin and its economic activity contributes heavily to the degradation of the waters running downstream to Azerbaijan.





The League of Arab States Water Security in the Middle East, North Africa, and the Caucasus regions

The League of Arab States, Reaffirming the significant threat posed by water security to the Middle East, North African, and Caucasus regions, Recognising that access to water, ongoing water security, and satisfactory sanitation infrastructure is a fundamental human right that should be protected, Recalling Goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals and the pressing and urgent need to meet the goal to prevent needless deaths, Seeking to ensure the Sustainable Development Goals are met, Approving the widespread use of desalinisation plants as part of methods to ensure ongoing and continued access to fresh water, Deeply conscious of the negative impact environmental damage has on access to fresh water and thereby food security and sanitation, Expressing its appreciation for the efforts of UN Water in addressing these pertinent issues, Deeply concerned with the declared state of famine in Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, and Sudan, Convinced of the importance of political stability in Yemen for ensuring water security, Deeply disturbed by the outrageous, illegal, and disruptive actions of Israel, Turkey and Ethiopia, Accordingly, the League; 1.

Approves a change to the Arab Charter on Human Rights to recognise water security and continued access to fresh water as a fundamental human right;

2.

Demands Georgia cease degradation of its downstream water routes heading into Azerbaijan, and calls upon all Arab League states to place complete economic and diplomatic sanctions on Georgia until such a time as they comply with the League’s demand;

3.

Decides that all member states must spend 5% of their annual GDP by 2025 on water security and sanitation infrastructure to ensure Goal 6 of the Sustainable Development Goals is achieved;

4.

Supports the efforts by member nations to build desalinisation plants as priorityone infrastructure projects;

5.

Trusts that all member states will uphold the highest standards of environmental regulation to ensure sanitary water quality; a.

Declares accordingly that all member states must work closely with UN Water to ensure the highest environmental standards, including compulsory implementation of minimum sanitation standards set by UN Water;

b. Declares accordingly that all member states who fail to uphold such standards must have their membership suspended until they meet such standards; 6. Authorises the immediate distribution of food and water aid to all countries in, and only in, the Arab League who are currently suffering from a declared famine; 7. Expresses its hope that once the legitimate Yemeni government, lead by Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, is restored to full control, it will be able to ensure the water security of Yemen; 8. Condemns the behaviour of Israel, Turkey, and Ethiopia as threats to water security and access to fresh water, and as a threat to the stability of the Middle East and North African region; a.

Demands that all member nations boycott Israel until such a time when Israel consents to grant Palestinians full access to the waters of the River Jordan;

b. Demands Turkey to cease and desists all efforts to complete the South-Eastern Anatolia Project and further demands Turkey open the Armenian-Turkey border and resume trade with Armenia to lessen energy insecurity in that country; 9. Demands Turkey immediately enter into international arbitration with the goal of full compensation to Iraq and Syria for its wilful efforts to deprive Iraq and Syria of their rights to proper access to water.