ABSTRACT

The opening decade of the twenty-first century marked a slight regression in traditional positions of downstream Nile exhibiting certain scales of resilience in the definition of national user-right policies. This meagre flexibility in contemporary rights perceptions could be attributed to several factors. Upper riparian onslaught against existing use-regimes has been sturdy; the psychological impetus induced through progressive evolution of rules and principles of international watercourses law has been significant. But, most notably, a basin-wide diplomatic process, launched in February 1999 under the auspices of the Nile Basin Initiative has driven user-right dialogues to unprecedented heights.