Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to provide some reflections on pragmatic negotiation and the three enabling conditions presented in this volume. The reflections draw on my past work as well as ideas and approaches that my colleagues and I have generated as the collective work of the London Water Research Group. The London Water Research Group has built up scholarship over the past decade to consider the politics surrounding the allocation of transboundary waters with a heavy emphasis on understanding the power asymmetries between basin states that enable and hinder equity. Initially developing a framework to explain how some conflicts over water remain nonviolent yet detrimental to equitable allocation (Zeitoun and Warner 2006), the London Water Research Group has extended analysis to consider strategies and tactics to challenge and contest the status quo (Zeitoun et al. 2016). This analysis of transboundary water interactions involves consideration of the ways in which negotiations have occurred and generated outcomes. Insights gleaned from our body of work are used to provide useful perspectives to further deepen the practice of pragmatic negotiation. This reflection proposes ways to sharpen understanding of the role and effectiveness of enabling conditions. In so doing, it calls to attention the framing of transboundary water problems and argues for alternative framings that move away from state- centric analysis.

Principles of Transboundary Water Governance

As this volume argues, the principles of equity and sustainability are important foundations to the ways shared water resources are managed and governed. Global policy attention to address water issues has resulted in establishing core principles of efficiency, equity and sustainability, best exemplified in the 1992 Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development. Participatory, inclusive decision making and integrative approaches to dealing with the complex issue of water management have been promoted as well. The subsequent global drive towards putting in place integrated water resources management (IWRM) in national policies and transboundary basins took on board efficiency, equity and ecological sustainability as grounding principles and has spawned much policy literature and tools for their implementation.

However, IWRM has been critiqued as much too ambitious and ultimately unrealistic (Jeffrey and Gearey 2006; Biswas 2008). Institutions and regulatory mechanisms set up for water allocation often end up directly addressing efficiency bringing about trade- offs that impact equity and sustainability.