Journal of International Affairs articles from March 2008

Journal of International Affairs archives from March 2008

Editors' foreword.
March 22, 2008... Water has been a considerable source of power throughout human civilization. Watercourses have served as natural boundaries between states, routes for trade and commerce, and as a necessary component in health, cultural and religious practices...

Water in the 21st century: defining the elements of global crises and potential solutions.(CAPSTONE ESSAY)(Essay)
March 22, 2008... Will we run out of fresh water in the 21st century? The media highlights the parched lands, dry riverbeds and springs and falling groundwater tables across the world daily. Over a billion people living in developing countries without access to...

Water wars: obscuring opportunities.(THE GLOBAL CONTEXT)(Report)
March 22, 2008... Speaking at the 2008 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon weighed in on water conflict: The challenge of securing safe and plentiful water for all is one of the most daunting...

Climate change and water resources: the challenges ahead.(THE GLOBAL CONTEXT)(Report)
March 22, 2008... Changes in water resource availability, water quality and the destructive potential of storms and floods will play a central role in determining how climate change will affect human well-being and the functioning of the natural systems on which...

Healing the enlightenment rift: rationality, spirituality and shared waters.(THE GLOBAL CONTEXT)(Report)
March 22, 2008... Water management, by definition, is conflict management. Water, unlike other scarce, consumable resources, is used to fuel all facets of society, from biologies to economies to aesthetics to spiritual practice. Moreover, it fluctuates wildly in...

The forgotten infrastructure: safeguarding freshwater ecosystems.(THE GLOBAL CONTEXT)(Report)
March 22, 2008... The water strategies of the 20th century helped to supply drinking water, food, flood control and electricity to a large portion of the human population. These strategies largely focused on engineering projects to store, extract and control...

The potential and promise of water pricing.(THE GLOBAL CONTEXT)(Report)
March 22, 2008... The claim is often made that more effective use of pricing and various water charges can remedy or completely solve problems of water scarcity, shortage or overuse. A common view is that users pay too little for water and, as a result, they use...

Water and gender: the unexpected connection that really matters.(REGIONAL ISSUES)(Report)
March 22, 2008... Since the mid-1990s, worldwide focus on water scarcity has exploded. Attention has moved beyond the technical dimensions of water provision to the political and social contexts in which water management occurs. In many places, especially where...

From universal prescriptions to living rights: local and indigenous water rights confront public-private partnerships in the Andes.(REGIONAL ISSUES)(Report)
March 22, 2008... With growing water scarcity and conflicts in many regions of the world, water rights and property relations have become a pivotal issue in water legislation efforts, policy debates and rural development programs. Still, there appears to be an...

Challenges and realities of water management of megacities: the case of Mexico City metropolitan area.(REGIONAL ISSUES)
March 22, 2008... Megacities--characterized as metropolitan areas of 10 million or more inhabitants--have become an important focus in terms of water provisions, sanitation services and the related impact of urban development on natural resources. While basic...

Water politics in South Asia: Technocratic cooperation and lasting security in the Indus Basin and beyond.(REGIONAL ISSUES)(Report)
March 22, 2008... Water, like religion and ideology, has the power to move millions of people. Since the very birth of human civilization, people have moved to settle close to it. People move when there is too little of it. People move when there is too much of...

The role of epistemic communities in offering new cooperation frameworks in the Euphrates-Tigris Rivers system.(REGIONAL ISSUES)(Report)
March 22, 2008... The Euphrates-Tigris region has faced significant political changes since the late 1990s. These changes can be attributed to improvements in bilateral relations, mainly in the security domain, between two of its major riparians, Turkey and...

Mission not yet accomplished: managing water resources in the Nile River basin.(REGIONAL ISSUES)
March 22, 2008... River runoff is widely accepted as one of the most important sources of available fresh water for human consumption. Worldwide, there are 263 major river systems that cross national boundaries and are responsible for 85 percent of the earth's...

A missed chance for peace: Israel and Syria's negotiations over the Golan heights.(REGIONAL ISSUES)
March 22, 2008... In the Middle East "no war is possible without Egypt, and no peace is possible without Syria, as suggested by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. From 1991 to 2000, Syria entered into extensive peace negotiations with...

An interview with Maude Barlow.(Interview)
March 22, 2008... Maude Barlow, author of the recently published Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, has been a social justice advocate for over twenty years, leading the fight for the right to water. She has been...

Watery sanitation and the millennium development goals.(POLICY UPDATE)
March 22, 2008... Increasing access to domestic water supply and sanitation services, while at the same time improving water resources management and development, are catalytic entry points for efforts to fight poverty and hunger, safeguard human health, reduce...

On thin ice: water rights and resource disputes in the Arctic Ocean.(ANDREW WELLINGTON CORDIER ESSAY)(Essay)
March 22, 2008... In August 2007, a Russian submarine surprised the world by planting the country's flag on the Arctic seabed, almost 14,000 feet below the North Pole. The titanium tricolor was the culmination of a scientific mission to demonstrate Russia's...

Developing global institutions for governing water.(Governing Water: Contentious Transnational Politics and Global Institution Building)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Governing Water: Contentious Transnational Politics and Global Institution Building Ken Conca (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2005), 466 pages. The problem is acute: how to develop global institutions to mediate competing demands on...

The specter of scarcity.(When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... When the Rivers Run Dry: Water--The Defining Crisis of the Twenty-First Century Fred Pearce (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006), 324 pages. British journalist Fred Pearce approaches the issue of global water scarcity from the point of...

The politics of water.(The Politics of Water Resource Development in India: The Narmada Dams Controversy)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Politics of Water Resource Development in India: The Narmada Dams Controversy John R. Wood (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2007), 284 pages. This wide-ranging, detailed and analytical book attempts to embed an analysis of the...

The Age of Commodity: Water Privatization in Southern Africa.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... THE AGE OF COMMODITY: WATER PRIVATIZATION IN SOUTHERN AFRICA David A. McDonald and Greg Ruiters, eds. (Sterling, Va.: Earthscan, 2005), 303 pages. Editors David McDonald and Greg Ruiters provide a comprehensive review of South...

Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the World's Water Crisis.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... WATER FOR SALE: HOW BUSINESS AND THE MARKET CAN RESOLVE THE WORLD'S WATER CRISIS Fredrik Segerfeldt (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 2005), 160 pages. Segerfeldt's motivations for writing Water for Sale are clear. The author is...

iCochabamba! Water War in Bolivia.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... iCOCHABAMBA! WATER WAR IN BOLIVIA Olivera Oscar and Tom Lewis (Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2004), 208 pages. iCochabamba! Water War in Bolivia is a fragmented compilation of essays, adapted speeches, reports and interviews...

Water Issues in The Middle East: Israel-Palestinian Water Issues--From Conflict to Cooperation.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... WATER ISSUES IN THE MIDDLE EAST: ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN WATER ISSUES--FROM CONFLICT TO COOPERATION Hillel Shuval and Hassan Dweik, eds. (Heidelberg, Germany: Springer, 2007), 454 pages. The papers presented in this volume are the...

Not A Drop to Drink: America's Water Crisis (And What You Can Do).(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... NOT A DROP TO DRINK: AMERICA'S WATER CRISIS (AND WHAT YOU CAN DO) Ken Midkiff (Novato, Calif.: New World Library, 2007), 212 pages. Increasing pressure on water levels in the United States is the next major bottleneck in America's...

The River Runs Black: The Environmental Challenge to China's Future.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... THE RIVER RUNS BLACK: THE ENVIRONMENTAL CHALLENGE TO CHINA'S FUTURE Elizabeth C. Economy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2005), 368 pages. In The River Runs Black, author Elizabeth C. Economy examines the environmental...

Gender, Water and Development.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... GENDER, WATER AND DEVELOPMENT Tina Wallace and Anne Coles (Oxford, England: Berg Publishers, 2005), 256 pages. In 1959 in a small town in Cameroon, a woman disrobed in the middle of a crowded political rally, standing naked to...

The Evolution of Markets for Water (Theory And Practice in Australia).(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... THE EVOLUTION OF MARKETS FOR WATER (THEORY AND PRACTICE IN AUSTRALIA) Jeff Bennett, ed. (Cheltenham, England: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005), 187 pages. To many economists, it is an article of faith that markets are the optimal...

Thirst: Fighting The Corporate Theft of Our Water.(FURTHER READING)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... THIRST: FIGHTING THE CORPORATE THEFT OF OUR WATER Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufman and Michael Fox (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 304 pages. Since the North American Free Trade Agreement defined water as a commodity, many...

The Law And Politics of The Caspian Sea.(FURTHER READING)(Brief article)(Book review)
March 22, 2008... THE LAW AND POLITICS OF THE CASPIAN SEA Bahman Aghai Diba (Charleston, S.C.: BookSurge Publishing, 2006), 172 pages. The Law and Politics of the Caspian Sea by Bahman Aghai Diba provides an overview of the political and legal...