The human right to water has wide-ranging implications for the distribution of water. Examining these implications requires putting the right to water into the broader context of different water uses and analysing the linkages and competition with other human rights that depend on water for their realisation. Water allocation is a highly political issue reflecting societal power relations, with current priorities often benefitting the well-off and powerful. Human rights, in contrast, require prioritising the most basic needs of all people. The human right to water has the potential to address these underlying structural causes of the lack of access to water rooted in inequalities and poverty by empowering people to hold the State accountable to live up to its human rights obligations and to demand that their basic needs are met with priority.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Background: Water Availability and Competing Demands
3. Legal Foundations of the Human Right to Water
4. Legal Characteristics of the Human Right to Water
5. Human Rights Implications for Water Allocation
6. Benefits of Understanding Water as a Human Right
7. Conclusion and Outlook


Inga T. WINKLE, The Human Right to Water Significance, Legal Status and Implications for Water Allocation, Hart Publishing, 2012 (376 pp.)

Inga T. Winkler is a Legal Adviser to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation based at the German Institute for Human Rights. She is also a lecturer at the University of Düsseldorf, Germany.