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Human Right to Water Obligations, Corporate Entities, and Accountability Mechanisms

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The Human Right to Water

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Abstract

Privatization can be placed in the wider context of globalization, a phenomenon which relates to the increased worldwide movement of finance and investment capital, goods, services, people, and information. Water is an important component that comes into the picture, both directly as through TNC-led water services, and indirectly, such as through virtual water trade. According to the opponents of globalization, this process has increased the power of transnational corporations (TNCs), international financial institutions (IFIs), the World Trade Organization, and some countries with strong economies, but the developing states have largely suffered, experiencing difficulty in asserting the full realization of the economic, social, and cultural (ESC) rights, wherein the human right (HR) to water is primarily seen to belong. The existing human rights legal framework is ill-equipped to deal with these actors. This chapter explores a way in which these actors may be held accountable for their impacts under the existing international human rights law (IHRL).

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  1. Prison Reforms Programme, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Kolkata, West Bengal, India

    Amrita Paul

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  1. Department of Sustainable Development Environmental Science and Engineering (SEED), Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden

    Nandita Singh

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Paul, A. (2016). Human Right to Water Obligations, Corporate Entities, and Accountability Mechanisms. In: Singh, N. (eds) The Human Right to Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40286-4_10

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