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As bipolarism was dissolving, in the 1990s, the perceived threat of nuclear war decreased, while the demand for a redefinition, or rather expansion of the term and comprehension of international security has increased. The concept of “ecological vulnerability” is a brainchild of this process and has significantly influenced the post-Cold War security debate.

According to this concept, the security risks deriving from ecologically generated instability were subject to intensive debate and examination in the early 1990s, triggering the evolution of research in environmental conflict. One seminal study concluded that the alleged nexus between environmental risk and the vulnerability of international security indeed exists, but is bound to a number of causal relations in its actual appearance. In the face of an increasing world population with growing per capita demands, however, future security risks resulting from scarce resources and ecological imbalances are still very likely to appear. Among the array of renewable resources, water has been repeatedly named as the most probable source of future violent interstate conflict. There are several reasons:

Water can be renewed but not substituted. Water is the basis for life and an obstacle to development. Approximately 20 percent of the world population does not have access to safe water, twice this amount lacks basic sanitation. Water-borne diseases and deaths account for 80 percent of all diseases and 35 percent of all deaths in developing countries.

Water ignores political boundaries, eludes institutional allocations and defies legal generalizations. Numerous studies confirm a global trend of growing demand, depleting ground- water tables and increasing climate variability that reduces the availability of local water via increased number of and more intense floods and droughts. Notwithstanding the contested water-war hypothesis, which will be discussed extensively, linkages between…

Schlagworte

Internationale Beziehungen, International Relations, Konflikte, Conflicts, Kooperation, Cooperations, Resources, Ressourcen, Wasser, Water, Umwelt, Environment, Südostasien, Ostafrika, Mekong River, Nil River, Politikwissenschaft