Addressing conflict over dams: The inception and establishment of the World Commission on Dams

Authors
Schulz, Christopher  ORCID logo  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0206-2390
Adams, William M 

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Article
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Abstract

The World Commission on Dams (WCD) was active between 1998 and 2000. Despite the Commission’s short life, it left a lasting mark on the global debate on large dams, one of the most intractable and conflicted issues in environmental governance. Existing accounts of the Commission focus chiefly on its recommendations and their influence on dam planners, or the novelty of making global environmental policy through multi-stakeholder dialogue, not intergovernmental negotiation. This focus on technicalities, results, and institutional design underplays the Commission’s political significance. It was a bold and innovative attempt to find common ground between promoters and opponents of dams on which a new way of thinking about and planning dams could be built. In this paper, we focus on the emergence of the Commission, in response to the evolving conflict over dams, particularly between the World Bank and its critics. We explore the processes that led to the establishment of the Commission and its role as an attempt to transform conflict into cooperation by bringing together pro- and anti-dam communities.

Publication Date
2022-12
Online Publication Date
2022-11-01
Acceptance Date
2022-04-17
Keywords
Journal Title
Water History
Journal ISSN
1877-7236
1877-7244
Volume Title
Publisher
Springer
Sponsorship
Economic and Social Research Council (ES/P011373/1)