Facilitating international agreements through an interconnected game approach: The case of river basins

International rivers are a substantial source of the world's freshwater supply. The resulting interdependence between nations leads to resource conflicts as upstream nations impose water quantity and quality externalities on downstream countries. As examples of international externalities, these conflicts can be analyzed using game theory. We show, however, that the predominantly unidirectional nature of these externalities produces art unsatisfactory "victim pays" outcome under a traditional game theory approach wherein the downstream country may need to bribe the upstream country into sharing water or improving water quality. Recognizing that nations in weak negotiating positions often try to improve their leverage by linking issues, we recommend using the interconnected game modeling approach for international rivers. To this end, we present two prospective case study examples of how the interconnected game can model issue linkages. The first is a study of tensions over a shared basin in Central Asia. The second is a study of shared water in the Euphrates and Orontes River Basins in the Middle East. An important innovation of the interconnected game is that it can generate outcomes that cannot be obtained when issues are modeled independently.