Decolonizing and Reconstructing the Legal Discourse on the Nile River as sine qua non

Abstract

The Nile River is not only the longest river but is also endowed with fertile natural resources. Because of geo-political and economic advantages, Britain and its colonial allies had strategically occupied riparian states along the Nile River. The colonial powers have substantially contributed to setting precedents for colonial legal discourses in the Nile River basin. Examining the role of the colonial legal discourses along with their potential ramifications in the post-colonial era is thus significant. This article primarily seeks to examine the colonial legal discourse within the framework of the TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) scholarship. Two downstream riparian states clearly seek to maintain the colonial legal discourses and the colonial era inequitable benefits. The influence of downstream riparian states on the attitude of international financial institutions has indeed reinforced the pressure against upstream states. Although upstream riparian states have strived to reconstruct colonial legal discourses, the premises of the arguments forwarded by downstream states are clearly inconsistent with post-colonial realities. This author argues that there is the need to decolonize and reconstruct the colonial legal discourses in light of the TWAIL Scholarship.