Use Environmental Diplomacy to Resolve the Sir Creek Dispute
Publisher: Stimson Center
Author(s): Saleem H. Ali
Date: 2017
Topics: Conflict Prevention, Governance, Land, Renewable Resources
Countries: China, India, Pakistan
Thus far, Sir Creek has been primarily viewed as a maritime dispute. However, given the significance of this region and the growing concerns of climate change impacting this vital ecosystem, I propose reconfiguring this dispute as an opportunity for joint environmental conservation and management. Re-framing the Sir Creek dispute as an environmental matter may help in making questions related to demarcation less biting. International mechanisms through wide-ranging environmental treaties already exist and could ensure that the transboundary nature of ecosystems like Sir Creek is respected by acrimonious states through joint conservation programs.
This dispute has an often-overlooked multilateral dimension that could provide an entry point for dispute resolution. Both countries are signatories to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as well as the Ramsar Convention on the Protection of Wetlands. Transboundary joint management and protection of these wetlands is part of the expected outcome of these conventions as well as the countries’ obligations under the UN Law of the Sea Convention. Under the program of activities that was approved by the signatories to the CBD in 2004, India and Pakistan were mandated to “establish and strengthen by 2010/2012 transboundary protected areas, other forms of collaboration between neighboring protected areas across national boundaries and regional networks, [and] to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.” Yet neither side has followed through on such an effort in spite of their international commitments.