Author(s): Walaa Abdelrahman Fouda, Khaled Al-Kassimi
The following research is interested in analyzing the communicated political and legal reverberations of Ethiopia announcing in 2011 the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and the unilateral filling of the reservoir in July 2020 by ignoring the social consequences resulting from such unethical policy on Egyptian and Sudanese citizens. The primary question accenting the research paper is concerned in deconstructing how a realist approach to International Relations communicated by Ethiopia aggravates reaching a cooperative solution prioritizing the well-being of all parties in managing water scarcity. Since Ethiopia prefers adopting a realpolitik approach disregarding mutual cooperation reflecting ethical considerations between Egypt and Sudan, the research proceeds in revealing the attitude of Egyptian politicians and intellectuals through data obtained from 225 respondents (p=225) answering particular questions (i.e., preferred solution to the crisis and preferred news channel discussing GERD), including an analysis of Sky News and Alhurra news frames – between January 2020 until January 2021 – emphasizing either “negotiation”, “intervention”, or “internationalization” as solution to the GERD crisis. The research concludes by stressing that a realist approach to foreign relations informed by positivist law protracts the crisis since it necessitates framing parties involved using a self-other binary for ontological security thereby characterizing parties using a frame fueling a “cultural (security) dilemma” instead of prioritizing a principle of cultural cooperation.