Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment of Large Dams in the Euphrates–Tigris Region: An Analysis of International Law Binding Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey

• Date: 01 April 2016
• Author: Nicolas C. Bremer
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12145
• Published date: 01 April 2016

Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment

of Large Dams in the Euphrates–Tigris Region: An

Analysis of International Law Binding Iran, Iraq,

Syria and Turkey

Nicolas C. Bremer*

The Euphrates–Tigris river system is among the most

intensely developed freshwater resources worldwide.

At the centre of its development are large-scale dams

supplying extensive irrigation schemes and hydroelec-

tric power plants, which substantially impact the river

system’s dynamic and water quality. Due to the inter-

national dimension of the utilization of cross-border

freshwater systems, the impacts of the freshwater

developments of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey can only

be effectively addressed by environmental impact

assessment (EIA), which takes into account

transboundary effects. Since domestic EIA regulations

of the Euphrates–Tigris riparian States pay little

attention to transboundary effects, and no treaty

would commit them to transboundary EIA in respect

to the river system, such a requirement may only

derive from customary international law. This article

will show to what extent transboundary EIA is

required by customary international law and how far

these provisions bind the Euphrates–Tigris riparian

States.

INTRODUCTION

Mesopotamia – the land between two rivers – was his-

torically perceived as a freshwater-rich1region in the

arid Near East. Despite the intense fluctuations of the

flow of the Euphrates and the Tigris, their water

allowed the significant advance of the Neolithic and

Bronze Age civilizations. Thus, while not new to the

desert regions of the Middle East, freshwater scarcity is

a rather recent issue on the banks of the Euphrates and

Tigris, as is the international dimension of freshwater

distribution and utilization. Significant international

tension over the rivers’ water did not occur before the

first large dams were constructed in the river system.

Dams impact rivers unlike any other water develop-

ment. They change a river’s defining characteristic: its

flow. While early dams were too small to substantially

affect a river, technological advances in the early twen-

tieth century allowed for the construction of dams large

enough to fundamentally alter a river’s flow regime.

Dams of such scale are commonly referred to as ‘large

dams’.2

Construction of the first large dams in the Euphrates–

Tigris river system began in the 1950s, with the Iraqi

Dukan Dam being completed in 1959 on the Little Zap,

a Tigris tributary. Turkey followed shortly after with the

Keban Dam, the construction of which began in 1966 on

the Euphrates. Syria finalized its first large dam, the

Tabqa Dam, on the Euphrates in 1973. While neither

the Euphrates nor the Tigris ever enter Iran, significant

tributaries of the Tigris spring from the Iranian Zargos

Mountains, making Iranian developments on these

tributaries relevant in regard to the utilization of the

Tigris.3

Considering the river system’s intensive development,

there is demand for monitoring human impact. A

means to assess the effects of these developments could

be environmental impact assessment (EIA). EIA is a

rather new concept to many domestic legal systems and

* Corresponding author.

Email: nb@alexander-partner.com

1Freshwater is water with a salinity of less than 500 parts per million

(ppm). Salt water has a concentration of dissolved solids of

35,000 ppm or more; A. Covich, ‘Water and Ecosystems’, in: P.H.

Gleick (ed.), Water in Crisis. A Guide to the World’s Fresh Water

Resources (Oxford University Press, 1993), 40, at 44.

2‘Large dams’ are dams with a height of at least 15 metres or with a

reservoir capacity of over 3 million m3; World Commission on Dams

(WCD), Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-

making, The Report of the World Commission on Dams (2000), at 11.

3The Euphrates and Tigris spring from the mountains of south-

eastern Anatolia. The Euphrates then f‌lows through northern Syria

and Iraq, while the Tigris merely touches Syria on a short stretch

where it forms the border between Syria and Turkey before it enters

Iraq. In southern Iraq, the two rivers enter the aquifer of the Meso-

potamian Marshlands and join just north of Basra to form the Shatt

al-Arab, which becomes the border between Iran and Iraq before it

discharges into the Persian Gulf. Tributaries to the Tigris originate in

the Iranian Zargos Mountains, which is why this article will consider

Iran a riparian State of the Euphrates–Tigris river system. Food and

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Irrigation in the

Middle East. Region in Figures – Aquastat Survey 2008 (FAO, 2009),

at 65; D. Altinbilek, ‘Development and Management of the

Euphrates–Tigris Basin’, 20:1 Water Resource Development (2004),

15, at 18.

DOI: 10.1111/reel.12145

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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RECIEL 25 (1) 2016. ISSN 2050-0386

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Review of European Community & International Environmental Law