Water 2020, 12, 340 20 of 28 7.2. Climate Change Suzanne Saleeby argues that in Syria, climate change alone is not to blame. Rather, it served as a critical push factor that exacerbated already boiling-over socioeconomic tensions [91]. Saleeby states, “Not only has the national government failed to adequately regulate agricultural activity in dry areas during the past decade, it has fomented irrigation practices which contribute to desertification”. Lack of regulation over drilling of illegal wells throughout Syria diminished groundwater reserves, forcing farmers to “rely on private contractors for water”—water that was not sufficiently purified. The water situation in Syria points out a desperate need for enforceable regulations over the privatisation of water to ensure that this water meets international safety standards for purity and safety—standards that do not exist in international law as demonstrated. The Syrian “environment of agricultural deregulation” cultivated under both dictator Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez al-Assad led to widespread overgrazing of “increasingly fragile and parched” lands [91]. Large-scale privatisation of the agriculture and water sectors led to “corro[sion] [of] customary law over boundary [and property] rights, facilitating overgrazing and leaving farmers deprived of their livelihoods”. Thus, the Syrian case highlights the need for international standards for ensuring equitable access to safe water when the state turns water and land rights over to the private sector. Even before the outbreak of major unrest in Syria in 2011, enforcing such international standards would have been difficult under the Assad regime, which had a direct interest in promoting privatisation at the expense of farmers in order to earn maximum profit on dwindling agricultural resources when crop production began to plummet (the majority of private contractors had regime ties). The establishment of an enforceable human right to water, if tied to an international monitoring system that regulates both state-delivered and private water distribution, has the potential to set the bar higher for international water regulatory standards. Resource “inequity as opposed to mere resource scarcity illuminates the ongoing social and economic stratification” in Syria [91]. Such inequity is enabled by a total lack of international regulation over water quality and access standards. The human right to water has for too-long been relegated to the humanitarian domain—portrayed as an obvious and seemingly simple goal—for all in the developing world to attain access to safe water in order to improve global public health and mitigate disease. The Syrian case, however, demonstrates how such an outlook is an over-simplification and how water rights have been confined to the realm of UN “froth” [26]—the practice of setting idealistic standards without a serious eye towards legitimate implementation or enforceability—for too long. Control over and state-sanctioned commodification of water is an international security matter of utmost importance. Water regulatory standards need to be treated with the same meticulous intensity and eye towards international security and global stability as matters such as regulation of nuclear materials and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Water manipulation does not have potential to cause devastation and social unrest as quickly as conventional WMDs, but the destabilisation of water access in Syria contributed to turmoil in a few years—not decades. The US has already identified climate change as a “threat magnifier”, and the G7 reported in June 2016 that climate change may soon contribute to violent conflict [92]. Climate change is anticipated to increase both water scarcity, and inequity that will most greatly impact already marginalised, vulnerable communities. However, water security concerns need to be delinked from climate change—climate change is one context in which water security concerns are becoming more pressing than ever before, but a long-existing lack of regulatory standards that enables manipulation of civilian water resources combined with climate change is what creates a perfect storm for water-induced conflict. Water security has not been sufficiently addressed internationally or within the MENA region. 8. Water in Refugee Camps Water access is one of the most significant public health threats impacting refugee camps today. Often host states are economically ill-equipped to provide sufficient levels of water to refugees within their borders, a common problem in Greek refugee camps.