The explicit recognition of the human right to water is a relatively recent development and the delineation of the scope and content of this right, and the attendant obligations, is still in its infancy. This thesis uses the right to water as a lens through which to explore the trans formative potential of human rights and examine the role of the court as a safeguard against majoritarian and neoliberal excess. The courts, despite their institutional limitations, have a significant role to play in facilitating the enjoyment of the full catalogue of economic and social rights. Water service provision creates a number of potential conflicts and this thesis examines the tension between the market forces governing water as an economic good, and the provision of water a basic social good. The economic model has been championed as a mechanism for ensuring secure and sustainable water use in a world of ever increasing demand; however it fails to take account of the devastating effect that the pay-per-use model can have on poor households, who are forced to unacceptable compromises in water use because they cannot afford to pay the market price for water, This thesis takes a comparative approach to understanding how the courts can, and should, intervene to ensure that water service providers embrace their human rights obligations. Using the experience o/the South African right to water litigation in particular.. this thesis argues that in order to realise their trans formative mandate, the courts need ensure that they are willing to engage with more than the procedural elements of the right to water. In order to have any real impact on the lives of the poor, the courts, and other institutions, need to substantiate the right to water as a form of resistance to the continued marketisation of water service provision.

Le droit au développement est une singularité du droit international contemporain. Désigné comme un droit fondamental inaliénable, il vise à garantir l’épanouissement des personnes et l’amélioration de la condition humaine. Ce droit polyvalent fournit à ses sujets un titre pour agir afin que la personne humaine soit à l’initiative, au centre et au bénéfice de toutes les activités de développement. Mais sa nature complexe, sa vaste finalité de justice sociale et les captations militantes rendent sa juridicité délicate. Il est souvent présenté comme une vieille lune ayant chu dans les limbes.Or, après une brève éclipse, le droit au développement resurgit par des voies inattendues, délié de l’idéologie antérieure, en relation avec les métamorphoses des concepts du développement. Sa résurgence lui fait gagner en densité et illustre la variété du law-making process. Des standards sont élaborés, des jurisprudences s’établissent et des pratiques naissent. Le phénomène commande une analyse nouvelle, axée sur l’effectivité. Celle-ci s’entend de son existence positive comme prérogative invocable par des titulaires identifiés, de son usage et de sa réception dans les ordres juridiques.Au-delà, son affermissement interroge les transformations à l’œuvre dans le droit des gens. Une symbiose se forme en effet entre les progrès d’effectivité du droit au développement et le processus d’humanisation du droit international. Cette interaction permet in fine la conciliation des droits de l’homme, des droits des peuples et des droits des États, dans la perspective d’un humanisme juridique pragmatique. / The right to development is a singularity in contemporary international law.It has been presented frequently as a inalienable and fundamental right : it aims to guarantee the personal fulfillment and the improvement of human condition. This multi-skilled and multi-purpose right gives to its subjects (human beings) a legal entitlement, enabling them to become the beginning, the center and the beneficiaries of all development activities. But its complex nature, its large purpose of social justice and political militancy make it juridicity difficult. The right to development is often summarized as an old idea in limbo.However, after a discrete periode, the right to development reappears by unexpected ways, free of its old ideologies, in connexion with the metamorphosis of the new concepts of development. Its resurgence is making itself stronger : it is an illustration of the variety of the law making process in international law. Some standards are elaborating, legal precedents and jurisprudences are coming, and certain practices of this right are emerging. This phenomenon requires a new analysis based on the effectivity of the right.Beyond its use as right per se, the consolidation of the right to development reveals current transformations in international law. A symbiosis exists between the effective progress of the right to development and the process of humanization of the international law. This connexion enable a reconciliation between human rights, peoples' rights and States' rights, in the perspective of a pragmactic legal humanism.