17Apr2015

Marina Tadić for the May issue of Međunarodna politika about the impact of water scarcity on the conflicts in the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris

Centre’s researcher Marina Tadic recently published an analyses about the impact of water scarcity on the emergence and dynamics of conflict in the Euphrates-Tigris basin. The analysis was published in the May issue of "Međunarodna politika” (International Politics), one of the oldest journals in Serbia that studies international relations, published by the Belgrade based Institute for International Politics and Economics.

The article is based on the Marina’s Master thesis "Water Scarcity as a Source of Conflicts in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin", deffended at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade in September 2014. Her Master thesis was done under the supervision of the assistant professor Nemanja Džuverović, and within the Module of International Sevurity.

The article "Water Scarcity and Interstate Conflicts in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin: Half a Century of Conflicts" deals with the confrontation over water in this basin between Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Conflicts in the basin so far remained at the level of diplomatic confrontation, but the relations between these states are far from stable, and the issue of water scarcity is a matter of a constantly sharpened rhetoric, alone or together with other unresolved interstate issues. This issue becomes especially important in light of new conflicts in the Middle East and the ISIS's strategy to establish control over water and food supplies.

The problem of the growing water scarcity and the possibility of development of direct armed conflicts over water supplies is one of the most debated issues in international relations, and often cited by analysts as one of the biggest problems for humanity in the 21st century.