BOOK CHAPTER: "Water, Rivers and Human Rights"

Publication date: January 2024

Publication: Human Rights, the Environment and Climate Change (Vol 5)

Chapter title: Water, Rivers and Human Rights

Author(s): Carl Middleton

Editor(s): Azmi Sharom, Sriprapha Petcharamesree and Kalpalata Dutta

This chapter presents the human right to water and relates it to transboundary water governance. The chapter first introduces challenges and crises in access to water globally. It then details the human rights to water and sanitation (HRWS), which has been recognized by the UN since 2010. Given the importance of water and river-related resources to livelihoods, it then extends the HRWS to transboundary water governance and addresses the implications of large water infrastructure such as hydropower dams. The implications of the HRWS for legal pluralism, international water law, and the commons are also explored. Finally, extending the human rights approach, the ‘rights of rivers’ is introduced as a recent innovation. 

Please contact Dr. Carl Middelton for more information.

Citation: Middleton, C. (2024) “Chapter 7: Water, Rivers and Human Rights” in Sharom, A., Petcharamesree, S. and Dutta, K. (eds.) Human Rights, the Environment and Climate Change (Vol 5). ASEAN University Network - Human Rights Education (AUN-HRE) and Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies (IHRP), Mahidol University: Bangkok