Sustainable Development. Evaluation and Policy‐making: Theory, Practise and Quality Assurance, edited by Anneke von Raggamby and Frieder Rubik , published by Edward Elgar, 2012, xxii + 313 pp., £85.00, hardback.

• Date: 01 July 2013
• Published date: 01 July 2013
• Author: Jan De Mulder
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/reel.12027_4

Book Reviews

The Human Right to Water:

Signif‌icance, Legal Status

and Implications for Water

Allocation,byInga T.

Winkler, published by Hart

Publishing, 2012, 340 pp.,

£52, hardback.

Regardless which theme events on

water nowadays address, very likely

sooner or later one topic will be

raised and inevitably stir up discus-

sion: the human right to water.

Often enthusiastic support meets

unconditional rejection and not

seldom both views are based on

incomplete information about the

meaning of this right and its impli-

cations for domestic water manage-

ment. With this book, Inga Winkler

– since 2009 Legal Adviser to the

UN Special Rapporteur on the

Human Right to Safe Drinking

Water and Sanitation, Catarina de

Albuquerque – makes an important

contribution to clarifying the

meaning of this right and to inform-

ing the debate about it. It is the first

legal monograph on the right to

water released by an academic

publisher and offers a solid and

in-depth treatment of the subject

matter.

Winkler’s book is based on an

expansive review of primary mate-

rials, especially international and

regional human rights instruments

and documents, regional and inter-

national case law and domestic leg-

islation. In addition, it takes into

account extensively the relevant

academic literature. The book is

divided into seven chapters. After

an introduction (Chapter 1) and a

background chapter on water avail-

ability and competing demands

(Chapter 2), Winkler analyses in

detail the legal foundations of the

right to water in treaty law and also

considers carefully the right’s status

under customary international law

(Chapter 3). She moves on to

discuss the legal characteristics of

the right to water, including its legal

nature, State obligations and nor-

mative content and aptly reflects

the status quo of the debate in this

field (Chapter 4).

Winkler subsequently comes to the

most original part of her study

where she examines human rights

implications for water allocation.

She assesses how sectors other than

the household, such as food produc-

tion, production of clothing, sanita-

tion, power generation, cultural and

religious practices and indigenous

water uses, pose demands on water.

She then discusses how these other

uses relate to human rights and pri-

oritizes them using a rights-based

analysis. For the latter, she develops

and applies a framework that dis-

tinguishes between different levels

of realization: the survival level, the

core level, the level of full realiza-

tion and the level beyond human

rights guarantees. Instead of priori-

tizing any single water use over

others, Winkler suggests that the

most basic requirements as relating

to different human rights have to be

met first moving from the survival

level, to the core level, to the level of

full realization of human rights. The

extent to which human rights rely

on water for their realization is fac-

tored in as a second component of

this framework. The right to water

is singled out because its realiza-

tion, unlike the realization of other

human rights, is characterized by

three factors: it depends on direct

access to water and does neither

allow for water savings nor for

substituting the resource. Winkler

argues that besides water for the

realization of cultural, religious and

indigenous rights, water required

for the realization of the right to

water at survival, core and full real-

ization levels therefore enjoys

priority over other uses as long as

alternatives exist for the realization

of other human rights. Should such

alternatives not be available, she

suggests that priorities have to be

established according to the levels

of realization of human rights

giving priority to the core content of

the right to food, the right to cloth-

ing, the right to sanitation and

human rights obligations related

to energy, as well as cultural and

indigenous rights, before the full

content of the right to water is

realized.

In the following chapter, Winkler

discusses the benefits of under-

standing water as a human right

(Chapter 6). She considers the spe-

cific features of looking at water

through a human rights lens, which

turns basic needs into legitimate

claims and creates a relationship

between individuals as rights

holders and the State as primary

duty-bearer. This relationship is

based on legally binding and coher-

ent standards and crosscutting

principles such as participation,

non-discrimination and account-

ability, and demands a particular

focus on the most deprived and

marginalized. Being one of the

benefits of a rights-based approach,

Winkler also covers in detail

recourse to judicial enforcement

and accountability mechanisms

from the enforcement in domestic

courts to reporting and complaints

procedures at the international

level, including reporting proce-

dures under the International

Covenant on Economic, Social and

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Review of European Community & International Environmental Law

RECIEL 22 (2) 2013. ISSN 0962-8797

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