Ireland’s recent experience of the politics of water introduces us to a worldwide trend which is set to become one of the defining issues of the 21st century. Water is an essential element of life but it is a scarce resource, under pressure from transboundary conflicts, climate change and capitalist growth policies. In her book Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever , Canadian author Maude Barlow, identifies three major issues in the politics of water: diminishing freshwater supplies; inequitable access between richer and poorer states and peoples; and water justice especially for women and indigenous communities. Several compendiums of contemporary risks put water conflicts at the top of the international agenda. Some 50 per cent of the world’s usable water supply is transnational, running through two or more states. Last year a […]