Rivers of Dispute: Colonial Borders and Modern Politics in the Nile Basin
Figure 1: Aerial view of Bahr Al-Jabal (Mountain Nile) and Juba, South Sudan I am back! The dispute of the Nile Basin and its resources is a particularly striking example of bordering and of the intricate interplay of borders and territories. The Nile originates from two sources and traverses numerous state boundaries along its course (See Figure 2). Of the Nile’s 11 riparian countries many millions rely on the water from the Nile, especially as their exclusive access to freshwater. The ongoing dispute over the legitimacy of Nile Basin agreements highlights how historical and institutionalised borders continue to influence current international relations, and continue to act as relevant “institutions and symbols that are produced and reproduced in social practices and discourses” . Figure 2: Map of the Nile Basin, key riparian states, their borders, and the GERD/Aswan Dam. As you may have read from my previous blog posts, a series of treaties have come to define the contentious r
