Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Agreeing to Nothing? Exploring the Role of Ambiguity in International Water Treaties

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/ns064f42z

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  • Ambiguity is a typical element of treaty documents. Its success in accommodating divergent interests, creating boundary conditions leading to dispute prevention and facilitating the conclusion of agreements has been widely recognized, yet less is known whether or not intentional ambiguity or unintentional ambiguity, or perhaps both, lead to challenges or opportunities in water governance. Indeed, the role of intentional ambiguity and unintentional ambiguity is often overlooked. This research is focused on exploring the role of ambiguity in the dеsign of four water agreements. The 1994 water agreement within Israel – Jordan Peace Treaty, the 1960 Indus Water Treaty, the 1996 Ganges Treaty, and the 1996 Mahakali Treaty were used as case studies. This study attempted to determine the prevalence of intentional ambiguity and unintentional ambiguity in the selected treaties. I adopted the framework developed by Mirumachi (2015) to identify the extent to which ambiguity led to increased cooperation or conflicts over interpretations in a post-treaty period. The results show that the inclusion of ambiguity was mostly intentional in three cases (the 1994 water agreement within Israel – Jordan Peace Treaty, the 1960 Indus Water Treaty and the 1996 Mahakali Treaty). The analysis also demonstrates that this intentional ambiguity has brought high-intensity disputes over the Indus River Basin and low-intensity disputes over the Jordan River Basin and Mahakali River. Thus, intentional ambiguity is useful during treaty formation in regions with fragile settings, yet it is not useful in transboundary water governance after treaty formation, since it fails to lead to improved cooperation. The findings of this study carry crucial information for designing effective water agreements to prevent or mitigate conflicts over shared water resources and they contribute the literature on transboundary water conflict resolution.
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