Wars fought over oil have characterized the latter half of the past century, the repercussions of which have been felt in every corner of the globe. Although war remains a constant, attention is transitioning away from oil to another natural resource. As we move through the 21st century, water wars are now at the forefront of global conflicts. Fighting over access to this vital resource is nothing new. Allen Snitow, a documentary filmmaker and journalist claims: “For thousands of years, the conflicts between towns and countries have been defined by the battle over who gets to use the stream. The word rival and river have the same root.”1 Disputes over access to water have been inevitable because of human’s dependence on this natural resource for sustenance. The lack of a substitution for water makes the world water crisis a threat requiring immediate attention and innovative solutions. The assumed responsibility of the government to provide sustainable solutions has proven ineffective in its failure to protect the human right to water. As a world water crisis, there is a need for a more cohesive management approach. Identifying and implementing effective and equitable approaches to water management is a highly debated subject across many disciplines. A common approach to combating issues of access to potable water involves the private sector and its reliance on the market. Alternatively, some advocate for treating water as a public or community good to avoid the commodification of an essential resource. Through various examples and a fleshed out case study, I illustrate how solutions to the water crisis are not determined by theoretical frameworks, but are shaped by the viability of the approaches in a given region. The factors that influence the feasibility of an approach include: the availability of water resources and other geographical or environmental circumstances; the political stability or corruption within the government; the degree of established infrastructure; determination of who the government is responsible for providing water services to; and the specific cultural needs of different groups. By analyzing the aforementioned theoretical perspectives on water management through a lens that considers each of these factors, I attempt to identify and analyze the context for which these approaches are appropriate and effective in providing equitable access to clean water. The political, economic, cultural and geographical contexts of a region are critical in considering how to best alleviate issues of access to potable water. In addition, I argue that across all of these diverse contexts in which we identify water access issues, it is invariably necessary to treat water as a public good in order to protect the human right to water. 1 Alan Snitow, Deborah Kaufman, and Michael Fox, Thirst: Fighting the corporate theft of our water, (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007), 3.

In South Africa, access to safe drinking water is a human right that is explicitly stated in the constitution. Most metro municipalities are meeting the drinking water quality targets, but the smaller rural environments are failing to provide water of acceptable drinking water quality. Reasons contributing to the high incidence of unacceptable water quality are the rural municipalities' inadequate institutional capacity and lack of management and monitoring of drinking water services. This study investigates the possibilities of supporting rural water service institutions to manage their remote water supply schemes better by addressing the challenge of distance monitoring. Through the creation of real-time information flow between the water service authorities and the water supply caretakers in remote villages, it is to be tested if better information can be received and the status of the rural water supply quality can be monitored. The improvement of information flow is based on introducing a mobile phone application. The hypothesis is that through improving the information flow, decisions on water supply management will be improved. Case study research was conducted in rural municipalities situated in the Northern Cape Province and Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. Four different municipalities were chosen to reveal the diverse municipal set-up and different challenges facing rural municipalities. Data was gathered through interviews conducted with the municipal mangers over a seven month period, as well as through field investigations. The findings reveal that the mobile reporting system has improved information flow from water supply caretakers to government service providers. The mobile application allowed for distance monitoring of rural water supply schemes. It has helped address the municipalities' institutional capacity problems by improving access to information relevant to decision making. Through the data records displayed on the mobile application, municipal mangers were able to track the supply caretakers' performance and subsequently hold them accountable. Through an increase in data availability, water quality failures were easily identified, resulting in improved confidence in the quality of rural water supply. The access to real-time information has improved the monitoring and communication of rural water quality. Early intervention and the management of non-compliance improved. The mobile technology provided the municipal managers with a tool to monitor their rural water supply schemes more regularly, but it also became apparent that the management of such schemes only improved if relevant action was taken based on the information received. Greater improvement was seen in municipalities where the tool was used consistently, where time was set aside to follow up on data warnings and protocols existed to follow up on non-compliance issues. Management of the resources did not improve in areas where management staff was severely overstretched and response strategies to problems were non-existent before the implementation of the tool.

O semiÃrido brasileiro tem caracterÃsticas prÃprias, com clima caracterizado pela baixa umidade, pouco volume pluviomÃtrico e rochas cristalinas de baixa permeabilidade. Conhecido como lugar de grandes secas e de difÃcil vivÃncia, hoje a realidade à diferente. O Nordeste passa por momento de transiÃÃo, que nÃo ousa falar em convivÃncia com a seca e, sim, em convivÃncia com o semiÃrido. Assim, o Nordeste comeÃa a refazer sua histÃria, despojando-se da indÃstria da seca e apostando no desenvolvimento a partir de tecnologias sustentÃveis que tragam autonomia e descentralizaÃÃo das polÃticas pÃblicas para as famÃlias. Neste contexto, as experiÃncias exitosas de sustentabilidade iniciadas na dÃcada de noventa, ganharam dimensÃo tal que algumas se tornaram polÃticas oficiais de governo, dentre elas, o acesso à Ãgua atravÃs das âCisternas de Placasâ em comunidades rurais. Estas cisternas sÃo uma forma de acesso aos recursos hÃdrico que fortalecem o desenvolvimento baseado na sustentabilidade e na preservaÃÃo dos recursos naturais para as geraÃÃes futuras. As cisternas de placas sÃo uma estrutura de concreto com a capacidade de acumular atà 16 mil litros de Ãgua, construÃdas ao lado das casas das famÃlias da zona rural, com o objetivo de armazenar a Ãgua da chuva, para uso no perÃodo de estiagem. Na presente pesquisa, foi realizada uma anÃlise da gestÃo feita pelas famÃlias das cisternas de placas construÃdas em suas residÃncias. Com os resultados obtidos das pesquisas e outras anÃlises, pretende-se avaliar os impactos da gestÃo nas cisternas de placas e propor aÃÃes que fortaleÃam seu manejo, para a obtenÃÃo de uma boa qualidade e quantidade de Ãgua armazenada nas mesmas. / The Brazilian semiarid region has its own characteristics, with a climate characterized by low humidity, short rainfall rates and crystalline rocks of low permeability. Known as a place of great droughts and hard experiences, the current reality is quite different. The Northeast region is going through a transition moment, which dares not to speak in dealing with drought but rather in coexisting with the semiarid. Therefore, the Northeast begins to retrace its history, waiving the so called drought industry, and investing in the development of sustainable technologies that will bring autonomy and decentralization of public policies for the families. In this context, successful experiences of sustainability started in the 1990s have gaining such a magnitude that some of them have become official government policies, including the access to water through the use of "Plate Cisterns" in rural communities. They are a form of access to water resources which strengthen the development based on sustainability and the preservation of natural resources for future generations. Plate Cisterns are a concrete structure with the ability to store up to 16,000 liters of water, built next to the homes of families in rural areas, in order to store rainwater for its use during the dry season. In this study, the authors carried out an analysis of the familiesâ management of the plate cisterns built in their homes. Using the results of surveys and other analyzes, the aim is to evaluate the impact of this management of plate cisterns, and to propose actions that may strengthen their management, in order to achieve a condition of good water quality and quantity stored in them.

Many private households spend considerable amounts of time accessing water, for instance by walking to and queuing at public access points, or by filling storage vessels at taps with low flow rates. This time has an opportunity cost, which can be substantial and may impact which water services and quantities of water households demand. In a novel form of diary study, we gathered detailed water consumption and time use data from 50 households in five informal settlements of the Indian metropolis Pune, accompanied by a household survey and in-depth interviews. With the data, we characterize water collection behaviors and assign monetary values to water procurement time. We statistically analyze the effects of time cost on consumed quantities in several two-level mixed effect models. Household members in our sample spend up to several hours each day filling storage vessels, even if a private connection to the piped network is available. Average time cost amounted to the equivalent of 4.23–13.81% of monthly household cash income. Our analyses indicate that procurement time reduces quantitative water demand in a significant way. The households incurring the highest per-unit time cost consumed water quantities below minimum levels recommended for human health. This substantiates that time costs can impede access to water and are a relevant issue for water management and policy.

Die vorliegende Arbeit versucht einen Begriff der Versorgungsgerechtigkeit im Kontext der Trinkwasserversorgung zu konturieren, der auf Nachhaltigkeit hin programmiert ist. Das bedeutet im Sinne des Drei-Säulen-Modells der Nachhaltigkeit, dass beim Verfolg dieses sozialen Zieles, sogleich die ökologischen und ökonomischen Bedingungen mit-gedacht werden sollen. Zugrunde liegt die Annahme, dass so auch das soziale Ziel bes-ser erreicht werden kann. Grundkonzept ist vor diesem Hintergrund, einen Begriff der Versorgungsgerechtigkeit zu entwickeln, der das Spannungsfeld der aristotelischen Unterscheidung von iustitia distributiva und iustitia commutativa umgreift. Erstere richtet ihren Blick auf den ein-zelnen privaten Haushalt mit seinen Bedarfen und Möglichkeiten. Hier stellt sich für diese Arbeit besonders und in erster Linie die Frage, welche Bedingungen seiner Was-sernachfrage jeweils für den Haushalt zumutbar sind. Letztere sorgt hingegen für einen (Interessen-) Ausgleich zwischen dem jeweiligen Wasserkonsumenten und all jenen Teilen der Gesellschaft (inkl. ökologischer Umwelt), die von dieser Wassernutzung be-troffen sind (stakeholder). Sie schlägt den Bogen zu den ökologischen und ökonomischen Nachhaltigkeitsbelangen. Dieses Spannungsfeld wird übertragen auf den Begriff des „Zugangs“, der in der Recht-auf-Wasser-Debatte Grundlage für eine Debatte zur Umsetzung ist. Richtet man den Blick – auf „Zugang“ – auf die Zugangshürden (z. B. der Wasserpreis), dann wird deutlich, dass diese Hürden (potenziell) Nachhaltigkeitsfunktionen erfüllen (z. B. Refinanzierung von Dienstleistungen, Schutz aquatischer Ökosysteme). Das zentrale Ergebnis lautet: Versorgungsgerechtigkeit, mithin ein „angemessener Zugang“, ist gegeben, wenn die Zugangshürden, denen sich der Nutzer gegenübersieht (nachhaltigkeits-)funktional, zumutbar und außerdem nicht-diskriminierend sind. Im weiteren Verlauf der Arbeit wird u. a. das Verhältnis von Funktionalität und Zumut-barkeit definiert, werden Messkonzepte zur Zumutbarkeit (affordability) betrachtet und werden Ansatzpunkte einer Politik der Versorgungsgerechtigkeit diskutiert.

A presente dissertação tem como tema o direito à água e objetiva compreender como se dá sua inserção no Direito Internacional. Para tanto, pretende-se analisar o tratamento dado pelo Direito Internacional do Meio Ambiente e especialmente pelo Direito Internacional dos Direitos Humanos às questões relativas ao acesso à água, assim como à prioridade na alocação dos recursos hídricos para a satisfação das necessidades humanas. Inicialmente, procede-se a uma investigação analítica das principais discussões a respeito do acesso e da preservação da água, notadamente aquelas realizadas em conferências internacionais de cunho ambiental e explicitadas nas diversas declarações da comunidade internacional. Dedica-se, ainda de forma analítica, a refazer o caminho que levou ao reconhecimento do direito à água no âmbito dos direitos humanos, com o intuito de definir as suas bases normativas e jurisprudenciais. Finalmente, visando fornecer parâmetros doutrinários, normativos e jurisprudenciais para a ampla compreensão da presença e dos contornos do direito à água no Direito Internacional, procede-se à análise de seu conteúdo em termos de direitos e obrigações, das implicações de sua afirmação como um direito humano, assim como dos diversos aspectos de sua natureza jurídica. / The subject of this academic work is the right to water and it aims to understand the insertion of this human right in International Law. With that in mind, the present study intends to analyze the ways which International Environmental Law and mainly International Human Rights Law deal with issues of water access, as well as with priorities in the allocation of water resources to supply the human needs. It initially proceeds to an analytical investigation of the main discussions with regards to water access and water conservation, mostly carried out at international conferences and announced in a number of declarations on environmental issues made by the international community. This study also commits to revise the path that led to the recognition of the right to water in the human rights field, aiming to determine its normative and jurisprudential basis. Finally, in order to provide doctrinal, normative and jurisprudential parameters for a better understanding of the presence and configuration of the right to water in International Law, this work subsequently focuses on the analysis of its content in terms of rights and obligations, on the implications of its formulation as a human right, as well as on the varied aspects of its legal nature.

A presente dissertação tem como tema o direito à água e objetiva compreender como se dá sua inserção no Direito Internacional. Para tanto, pretende-se analisar o tratamento dado pelo Direito Internacional do Meio Ambiente e especialmente pelo Direito Internacional dos Direitos Humanos às questões relativas ao acesso à água, assim como à prioridade na alocação dos recursos hídricos para a satisfação das necessidades humanas. Inicialmente, procede-se a uma investigação analítica das principais discussões a respeito do acesso e da preservação da água, notadamente aquelas realizadas em conferências internacionais de cunho ambiental e explicitadas nas diversas declarações da comunidade internacional. Dedica-se, ainda de forma analítica, a refazer o caminho que levou ao reconhecimento do direito à água no âmbito dos direitos humanos, com o intuito de definir as suas bases normativas e jurisprudenciais. Finalmente, visando fornecer parâmetros doutrinários, normativos e jurisprudenciais para a ampla compreensão da presença e dos contornos do direito à água no Direito Internacional, procede-se à análise de seu conteúdo em termos de direitos e obrigações, das implicações de sua afirmação como um direito humano, assim como dos diversos aspectos de sua natureza jurídica. / The subject of this academic work is the right to water and it aims to understand the insertion of this human right in International Law. With that in mind, the present study intends to analyze the ways which International Environmental Law and mainly International Human Rights Law deal with issues of water access, as well as with priorities in the allocation of water resources to supply the human needs. It initially proceeds to an analytical investigation of the main discussions with regards to water access and water conservation, mostly carried out at international conferences and announced in a number of declarations on environmental issues made by the international community. This study also commits to revise the path that led to the recognition of the right to water in the human rights field, aiming to determine its normative and jurisprudential basis. Finally, in order to provide doctrinal, normative and jurisprudential parameters for a better understanding of the presence and configuration of the right to water in International Law, this work subsequently focuses on the analysis of its content in terms of rights and obligations, on the implications of its formulation as a human right, as well as on the varied aspects of its legal nature.

A presente pesquisa partiu de uma compreensão sociológica da crise da modernidade para refletir acerca da constituição do grupo social denominado pessoas em situação de rua na tessitura da dinâmica urbana e seus desafios para vencer essa situação de vulnerabilidade extrema. Tendo como referência o município de São Carlos/SP, caracterizamos o perfil do grupo, debruçando-nos sobre os fatores limitantes relacionados às formas de acesso e uso da água doce. Valorizamos a experiência de sofrimento social na interação precária com o território da cidade como constituinte de um conhecimento empírico relevante, o qual pode, eventualmente, subsidiar a formulação e implementação de políticas urbanas socialmente includentes. / This research started from a sociological understanding of the crisis of modernity to reflect on the constitution of a homeless social group on the organization of urban dynamics and its challenges to overcome this situation of extremely vulnerable situation. Considering Sao Carlos as reference group profile was characterized and limiting factor related to freshwater access and use were adressed. Social suffering experience was taken into account on the poor interaction the town territory as a relevant empirical knowledge, which could eventually assist the formulate and implement socially inclusive urban policies.

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Les acteurs institutionnels du développement émettent des recommandations à valeur plusou moins contraignante pour les Etats dans le domaine de l’accès à l’eau potable. Les règles quiconditionnent la gestion de cette ressource sont, comme toutes les règles, de nature construite.S’interroger sur le référentiel théorique des règles promues en matière d’accès à l’eau et sur sonrapport avec le sens donné à la notion de développement soutenable permet de comprendre, au-delà dudiscours, les implications pratiques d’un tel référentiel. La gouvernance, et donc la règle, pose en effetla question de la coordination entre les individus et celle de l’action collective ; et le développementsoutenable, celle de notre rapport à l’environnement. C’est donc in fine la question du mode de sociétésouhaité et des moyens mis en oeuvre à cette fin qui est en jeu.A l’aide de la typologie systémique des normes de l’institutionnalisme historique et pragmatique et dela socio-économie morale et politique de l’environnement et du développement durable, nouscherchons à démontrer que les règles d’accès à l’eau potable promues par ces institutions s’inscrivent,malgré un changement de rhétorique, dans la vision du monde propre au référentiel orthodoxe néolibéral.Les fondements théoriques sur lesquels repose ce dernier empêchent de concevoir et donc deposer la question des relations de pouvoir – entre Nord et Sud, entre Etats et entre groupeséconomiques et sociaux – freinant toute réelle mise en cause de l’ordre existant. Nous évoquerons àtitre d’illustration la situation du Chili qui représente un cas emblématique pour notre propos. / Institutional actors of development use to express recommendations in the area of access todrinking water towards the governments. The rules that determine the management of this resourceare, like all rules, of constructed nature. Questioning the theoretical reference behind the rulespromoted on the access to water and its relationship with the meaning given to the concept ofsustainable development, allows to understand, beyond the speech, the practical implications of such areference. Governance, and therefore the rule, in fact sets the problem of coordination betweenindividuals and coordination of the collective action; and sustainable development, as well sets theproblem of our relationship with the environment. So, it is ultimately the question of the desired modeof society and the means used for this purpose which is at stake.Using the systemic typology of norms developed within the approach of historical and pragmaticalinstitutionalism as well as the moral and political socio-economy of sustainable development, we tryto demonstrate that the rules of access to clean water promoted by those institutions belong, despite achange in rhetoric, to the neoliberal orthodoxy. The theoretical foundations of the neoliberal referenceprevents from conceiving and therefore from putting forward the question of power relations –between North and South, between States and between economic and social groups – hindering anyreal questioning of the existing order. To illustrate this, we will discuss the case of Chile, whichtypically exemplifies our issue.