Democratic water governance under a human rights-based approach

In previous reports, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation has advocated for water governance that prioritizes life-sustaining functions, as well as the coexistence and cohesion of human communities. On this basis, he believes that available fresh water should be considered a common good, accessible to all but not appropriable by anyone, in line with Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights general comment No. 15 (2002) on the right to water, in which the Committee rejects the consideration of water as merely an economic good. Furthermore, he argues that aquatic ecosystems, which provide renewable fresh water, must be managed sustainably as a common natural heritage for current and future generations.

To ensure the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems, it is necessary to move from managing water as a simple resource to adopting an ecosystem perspective that allows us to identify and respect sustainable limits.¹

1. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, The Ecosystem Approach (Monreal, Canada, 2004). Available at www.cbd.int/doc/publications/ea-text-en.pdf. ↩

The governance of freshwater and aquatic ecosystems, as commons, implies broad and open participation of those who depend on them. This requires structuring a nested governance framework, from the local governance of water available in each community to the governance at the basin level of rivers and aquifers, whose sustainability should be guaranteed.

The complexity of managing the multiple uses and interests of millions of people requires States to establish a public domain regime over waters and ecosystems, without forgetting that managing commons requires transparent, participatory and publicly accountable management.

Based on this coherence, States should respect and support existing community management and customary rights at the local level, both for Indigenous Peoples and for rural and urban communities.

Understanding freshwater and aquatic ecosystems as commons not only strengthens the participatory, responsible and sustainable approach that hinges on a governance model rooted in human rights, but also demands an integrated approach to the multiple uses and functions of water, including productive uses, as well as the development of the principles of equity, responsibility, efficiency and sustainability. In the view of the Special Rapporteur, these elements are needed for democratic water governance.

Building on all these ideas developed in previous reports, the Special Rapporteur will analyse the legal and regulatory frameworks for water tenure, the principles of democratic water governance, regulatory needs and financing strategies. He also addresses the risks of privatization, commodification and financialization in water management, concluding with a call for a water transition to tackle the climate emergency.

Water governance is shaped by legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks, as well as by customary practices that are often not reflected in these frameworks.

In most countries, freshwater and aquatic ecosystems are considered public goods. The public ownership of water and ecosystems sometimes allows for the establishment of concession systems, by which permits or rights of use are issued according to rules that prioritize the public interest. However, customary rights and practices, which still exist for some Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities, are often marginalized despite being rooted in the principle of the common good over individual interests. It is essential to recognize and integrate these cultural realities, as they offer valuable lessons for tackling the current challenges related to sustainability and democratic water governance.

The Special Rapporteur follows with great interest the Global Dialogue on Water Tenure of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), which considers water tenure as essential to the democratic governance of freshwater and aquatic ecosystems.

Traditionally, in Indigenous and rural communities, available water has been considered a common good to satisfy mainly vital needs, such as domestic supply and food production. From this approach, customary water tenure refers not only to rights of use, but also to obligations that include the care of the sources, assuming a holistic approach that emphasizes the interconnection between environmental sustainability and social well-being,² and in which human communities themselves are part of nature.

2. Rights and Resources Initiative and Environmental Law Institute, “Whose Water? A Comparative Analysis of National Laws and Regulations Recognizing Indigenous Peoples’, Afro-descendants’, and Local Communities’ Water Tenure” (Washington, D.C., August 2020). Available at https://rightsandresources.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/WhoseWater.pdf. ↩

In his reports on Indigenous Peoples and impoverished rural communities,³ the Special Rapporteur highlights the valuable lessons offered by their community-based management models, both in the sustainable management of rivers, lakes, wetlands and aquifers, and in the democratic governance of water.

3. A/HRC/51/24 and A/77/167. ↩

Colonization disrupted traditional water tenure as colonizers appropriated land and water from Indigenous Peoples. Today, customary rights are still undermined by land- and water-grabbing processes. International legal frameworks stress the importance of protecting traditional practices and customary rights over water, fisheries and the management of rivers, lakes and wetlands,⁴ intrinsically linked with the realization of human rights, food sovereignty, cultural practices and religious beliefs.

4. See United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples; International Labour Organization (ILO) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 1989 (No. 169); Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights general comment No. 15 (2002); and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. ↩

The transhumant ways of life of pastoralist communities require specific attention to their water rights and needs in the current climate emergency context. It is essential to respect their traditional rights and engage in negotiations with peasant communities, while also providing governmental support to address climate change-related scarcity.

In any case, beyond recognizing customary rights to water, States should assume their responsibility to provide the resources that communities need for the progressive realization of their human rights and the protection of ecosystems. Clear procedures need to be established by law for the recognition and support of the community management model by States, through the municipalities to which the communities are linked. The law initiative promoted in Colombia by the Communitarian Aqueducts Network, currently before parliament, offers a good example, based on a public-community partnership strategy.⁵

5. Colombia House bill No. 572/25; Senate bill No. 149/24. ↩

As the Special Rapporteur explains in his report on the water and economy nexus,⁶ through various historical processes, the aquatic ecosystems, available waters and, particularly, drinking water and sanitation services are today, in most countries, managed under the public domain.

6. A/HRC/57/48. ↩

The paradigm of nature’s domination has led to significant public investments in large hydraulic projects and the establishment of robust public institutions to manage water rights. These institutions have developed so-called “supply-side strategies”, based on the construction of large hydraulic works with massive public funding and subsidies, under the justification that these are works of general interest. In the United States of America, the Bureau of Reclamation was created in 1902, while the Corps of Engineers also promoted large projects in the name of national security. Similarly, Spain established the first basin management institutions, the hydrographic confederations, in the early twentieth century.

From the outset, the construction of large dams, which applied the paradigm of dominating nature, conflicted with the Indigenous vision of respecting Mother Nature. In addition, throughout the twentieth century, the influence of powerful private corporations in public institutions perverted the principle of public or general interest, by associating it with economic growth but without any sort of participatory strategy or social debate about the redistribution of wealth or the social and environment impacts of it, thus eroding social trust in general interest.

Today, it is imperative to redefine what the public domain and the general interest should mean, moving from the technocratic and even authoritarian approach that has presided over the development of these concepts, to the participatory approaches required for the management of common goods.

Concessionary rights, or water permits, are typically robust and can last for extended periods, functioning much like quasi-property rights. These rights are often held by powerful corporations and productive sectors. Generally, they are accompanied by heavily subsidized tariffs that do not cover the actual costs. However, this system has also improved access to irrigation for many small farmers and facilitated the expansion of water and sanitation services. This accounts for the model’s popularity throughout the twentieth century.

The regulatory standards governing concessionary systems, formally based on the principle of general interest, are highly varied, both in terms of the conditions and restrictions they impose. Concessions often prohibit the commodification of natural resources, while linking concessionary rights to the specific uses for which they are granted. The amount of water under the scope of such concessions may be fixed regardless of availability or depend on priorities and circumstances.

Initially, under the logic of supply-side strategies, the objective was to offer the maximum flows, regardless of how this might minimize or ignore the environmental requirements, customary rights and needs of the weakest. This is why Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities often refuse to recognize the public domain and the alleged general interest as arguments for expropriating or ignoring their rights.

In recent decades, the water permits granted to multinational companies have often been secured by bilateral investment treaties which hinder or prevent public oversight or the recovery of these concessionary rights, dispossessing local communities from their tenure rights, especially in the Global South, and imposing large payments on Governments over restrictions to or termination of permits, even in cases of water scarcity.⁷ Furthermore, the legalization of concessionary rights markets in some countries is also worryingly reinforcing this “private patrimonialization” of water.⁸

7. “Water property rights in investor-state contracts on extractive activities, affects water governance: An empirical assessment of 80 contracts in Africa and Asia”, in Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, vol. 31, iss. 2 (July 2022). ↩
8. See A/76/159. ↩

Reforms to address current challenges

The Special Rapporteur understands that, to the extent that community management prioritizes community interests above any particular interests, community domain over vital resources should be recognized and integrated into the concept of public domain.

The right to free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples, as outlined in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, should be legally recognized. Before any activities are undertaken that could have an impact on the aquatic ecosystems in Indigenous territories, these consultations must be agreed upon with the Indigenous Peoples.

In this context, recognizing customary rights in registers and concession systems would eliminate water-grabbing practices associated with the appropriation of community lands.

Furthermore, the emergence of serious problems of overexploitation and pollution, exacerbated by climate change, requires a transition from the paradigm of dominating nature to the paradigm of sustainability, by adopting new ecosystem-based management approaches.

Ensuring ecological flow regimes to preserve the good state of ecosystems has become a requirement for management, planning and, in particular, concession systems. These flows, in advanced legislations such as the European Union Water Framework Directive, are characterized as restrictions on possible uses, rather than as environmental demands that prevent such systems from competing with other demands.

The climate emergency calls for the application of the precautionary principle, increasing reserves in aquifers and reservoirs to manage future droughts and reducing the availability for productive uses in normal years. In this context, the frequent and unsustainable overallocation of concessionary rights becomes more evident, and rigorous concessional review processes are required. It is also urgent to end the overexploitation of aquifers, often due to the development of illegal but de facto permitted irrigation and wells.

By shifting from supply-side strategies based on technocratic approaches to water planning and management based on public participation, sustainability, economic rationality and the priority of fulfilling the human rights at stake, a new general interest approach emerges that demands changes in priorities of the concession system. As an example, in South Africa, the National Water Act prioritizes meeting basic needs for drinking water, food and hygiene, and the ecological reserve to maintain healthy freshwater ecosystems over any other use, while promoting participatory mechanisms for local water management.⁹

9. See www.gov.za/documents/national-water-act#:~:text=. ↩

Specific importance of the public domain over aquifers and groundwater

The management of aquifers deserves special attention. Since groundwater is invisible and is extracted from wells dug by the landowner, it has been considered private in many countries. This has led to individualistic management, without public oversight, which has caused serious problems of overexploitation.

Managing surface water as a public good and groundwater as private imposes a schizophrenic governance, in which the same flows must be considered public or private depending on the moment and the circumstances. In order to develop an ecosystem-based management, it is therefore necessary to promote the integrated management of surface and groundwater flows in each basin.

While in many countries, such as Cuba, Nigeria, Romania or Uzbekistan,¹⁰ surface water and groundwater come under the public domain, separate regulations affect the practical implementation of this approach. Transitioning the management of groundwater to the public domain usually involves political problems that can only be addressed through adequate information and public education, which allows us to understand groundwater as vital for society as a whole and not only for its direct users.

10. Call for inputs: submissions by Cuba, Nigeria, Romania and Uzbekistan. See www.ohchr.org/en/ calls-for-input/2025/call-input-states-democratic-water-governance-under-human-rights-based. ↩

Aquifers store and manage 30 times more water than flows on the surface; they are like the unseen part of the iceberg. Aquifers guarantee the base flows of rivers, as well as the existence of most lakes and wetlands. but they are also strategic natural infrastructures for storing flows that can allow us to manage the extraordinary droughts that climate change is making increasingly harsh and frequent.

Generally, aquifers offer not only the greatest guarantees of water availability, even in drought, but also the highest-quality drinking water to the population, as they enjoy the protection afforded by being underground against accidents or discharges. However, systematic diffuse pollution with nitrates, pesticides and slurry from intensive livestock farming and industrial agriculture, as well as salinization processes accelerated by the overexploitation of aquifers, destroy this quality, making it difficult to recover. Aquifers should be considered and managed under the public domain, as common natural heritage, integrating their management with the rest of the water bodies at the basin level.

Taking as a reference the Water Justice Manifesto, presented at the United Nations 2023 Water Conference in New York, signed by more than 500 social movements, non-governmental organizations and Indigenous and peasant organizations, the Special Rapporteur considers that the term “water justice” encompasses the principles and criteria for the governance of water and aquatic ecosystems as commons under a human rights-based approach.¹¹

11. See https://thepeopleswaterforum.org/2023/02/28/water-justice. ↩

The global water crisis is essentially a governance challenge that requires the shifting of priorities, reallocation of resources and development of participatory management approaches.

When the United Nations insists on the need to promote a human rights-based approach to water management, it is not simply referring to guaranteeing the minimum vital amount of water we need for a dignified life; it is referring to an integrated approach to water management that includes irrigation, industrial, urban and environmental uses and functions, based on coherence, priorities and management criteria to comply with the human rights at stake.

To establish the principles governing democratic water governance, the Special Rapporteur adopts a human rights-based approach and supplements it with principles that arise from viewing water and aquatic ecosystems as common resources.

A democratic water governance requires human rights to be placed at the centre of water governance, including the sustainability of freshwater ecosystems as part of the human right to a healthy and sustainable environment. The principles adopted by United Nations agencies in 2003 to implement a human right-based approach include participation, accountability, non-discrimination and equality, empowerment, and legality.

Furthermore, managing water as a common good requires prioritizing collective interests over individual ones. Regarding the water used for productive activities beyond basic needs, it is essential to apply equity criteria in the allocation of rights and duties, as well as measures that encourage responsible and efficient use.

Making progress in the fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goal 6 requires restoring the health and sustainability of the aquatic ecosystems on which we all depend, particularly the billions of people without guaranteed access to drinking water.

Special attention should be paid to the increasing levels of pollution with heavy metals and other toxins, from mining, pesticides and uncontrolled industrial dumping, which progressively poison hundreds of millions of people. As the Special Rapporteur previously recommended,¹² such crimes should be typified as crimes of ecocide when they condemn entire regions to be sacrificed zones and should motivate the expansion of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court to include ecocide as a crime against humanity.

12. See A/HRC/54/32. ↩

Tackling the global water crisis essentially as a technological challenge is a mistake. We should bear in mind that the vast majority of the billions of people without guaranteed access to safe drinking water live in extreme poverty. Viable options involve restoring the health and functionality of aquatic ecosystems, which is essentially the sophisticated natural technology of the natural water cycle, powered by free solar energy.

Indigenous ecocentric worldviews go even further, adopting a hydro-social approach that integrates society and nature. However, the anthropocentric vision tends to converge with this ecocentric worldview insofar as it embraces the principle of sustainability, the human right to a healthy and sustainable environment and the concept of One Health.13 12 See A/HRC/54/32. 13 See www.who.int/health-topics/one-health.

Adopting a human rights-based approach to water management requires developing participatory management of water sources, a requirement reinforced by considering water and aquatic ecosystems as commons. From a human rights perspective, we are all entitled to participate in decisions that affect our rights as rights holders, not as clients or stakeholders. We often talk about promoting dialogue with stakeholders, but that is not enough. Specific and priority attention must be paid to rights holders, considering the enormous power asymmetries that exist.

Access to information and transparency are essential for meaningful participation, as they empower rights holders and communities to assert their rights. Based on this principle, States and responsible institutions are obligated to disclose all relevant information in a way that is understandable to everyone, using the native language of the population. Furthermore, access to information must be accompanied by capacity-building efforts, both technical and financial, to ensure that people’s participation is truly effective and not merely formal. In addition, communication should be a two-way process. State institutions should listen actively to communities, engage with their needs and respect the ancestral knowledge and practices of Indigenous Peoples and peasant cultures.

Transparency and access to information also strengthen efficient governance at the institutional level, avoiding bureaucratic inefficiencies, overlapping responsibilities and accountability gaps, while also preventing and combating potential abuses and corruption.

It is necessary to promote multi-criteria decision-making processes if we truly want to foster participatory governance. Decision-making processes on complex issues, both in the public and private spheres, involve monetary valuations alongside many other values that lack a consistent monetary price but are fundamental to the final decision. In water planning and management, there are undoubtedly important investments, costs and benefits at stake; however, other values linked to human rights, environmental sustainability, public health, equity, cultural values and many others that cannot be measured in monetary terms must also be considered.

Moreover, participation should not only be considered on an individual basis but also encompass collectives representing rights holders in an organized manner. Providing understandable information on all these values is essential to promote participatory decision-making processes, which must inevitably be multi-criteria.

Among the binding international agreements on access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters, and particularly in water management, the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention), Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean (the Escazú Agreement) and Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (the Protocol on Water and Health) are worth mentioning.

The constitution of participatory spaces in the public institutions responsible for water planning and management at the basin level is a consequence of these participatory guidelines. France and Spain, with their water agencies and hydrographic confederations, respectively, and their corresponding basin committees and councils, undoubtedly offer a reference in this respect. However, there is still a long way to go to ensure effective social participation, particularly in overcoming the prevalence of large users and institutions and expanding the powers of these participatory bodies.

For years, citizen water observatories have proliferated in many countries and cities, working towards the transparent and participatory management of drinking water and sanitation services. The Terrassa water observatory in Spain is a good example.¹⁴ Institutional recognition of this type of observatories is essential, as is the legal obligation of local institutions and operators to provide the information requested. Unfortunately, in most cases, these Observatories do not enjoy the legal recognition and support that States should give them. In France, the Lyon metropolitan area offers another interesting example of social participation, with the creation of the water users’ assembly, which has access to all the information it requests and four representatives on the board of directors of the public water utility “Eau du Grand Lyon”.¹⁵

14. See www.oat.cat/es/index/. ↩
15. See www.eaudugrandlyon.com/mon-service-public/qui-sommes-nous/assemblee-usagers-eau/. ↩

The principle of accountability, closely linked to that of participation, means guaranteeing people the right to know and control the results of water and aquatic ecosystems management. It should also ensure the public’s capacity to monitor complex issues, such as public budgets and the ability to compare services in similar cities using standardized benchmarking parameters. There must be clear and effective accountability mechanisms at all levels, clarifying who is accountable, to whom and under what circumstances. The lack of effective and understandable accountability leads to mistrust between communities and the general population on the one hand, and government institutions on the other. In the context of water management, while States are the primary duty bearers, other actors – whether public or private – may be accountable insofar as their influence, decisions, actions or inaction directly affect the realization of the rights to water and sanitation.¹⁶

16. See A/73/162. ↩

Applying this principle to water governance implies guaranteeing everyone, by law, the minimum amount of drinking water necessary for a dignified life, including those who, due to living in poverty, struggle to pay; therefore, water cut-offs or penalties for non-payment should be prohibited for those living in vulnerable conditions.

Developing this principle requires special attention to gender equality. According to the report published in 2023 by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women) and UN-Water, out of 170 countries evaluated, only 26 achieved high levels of gender mainstreaming in water resource management and related laws and public policies.¹⁷ Approximately 1.8 billion people collect drinking water from sources located off-premises, and in 7 out of 10 households, women and girls are responsible for water collection.¹⁸

17. UN-Women and UN-Water, From commodity to common good: a feminist agenda to tackle the world’s water crisis, available at www.unwater.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/from_commodity _to_common_good.pdf. ↩
18. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO), Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000–2022: special focus on gender (New York, 2023). ↩

The menstrual hygiene needs of women and girls, as part of the human right to sanitation, are often neglected. Their specific needs for toilets with adequate privacy 14 See www.oat.cat/es/index/. 15 See www.eaudugrandlyon.com/mon-service-public/qui-sommes-nous/assemblee-usagers-eau/. 16 See A/73/162. 17 UN-Women and UN-Water, From commodity to common good: a feminist agenda to tackle the world’s water crisis, available at www.unwater.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/from_commodity _to_common_good.pdf. 18 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO), Progress on household drinking water, sanitation and hygiene 2000–2022: special focus on gender (New York, 2023). and safety conditions, both at home and in public facilities, such as schools and health centres, are often underestimated or ignored.

Despite this, the exemplary action of women water defenders around the world is growing their leadership in this field every day. For example, in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the Chu-Talas Water Commission, one of the most successful transboundary basin bodies in Central Asia, with agreements on sensitive issues, is led by women in both countries.¹⁹ In Peru, the Kukama women obtained legal recognition of the rights of the Marañón River, including the creation of basin committees and the establishment of the figure of river guardians.²⁰

19. UN-Women and UN-Water, From commodity to common good. ↩
20. See img.lpderecho.pe/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Expediente-00010-2022-0-1901-LPDerecho.pdf. ↩

The principles of empowerment and legality are closely linked. Empowering all people to demand the fulfilment of their rights depends largely on ensuring water management laws and regulations that clearly recognize these rights. It is also essential that people have the necessary means to report any irregularities or failures to meet objectives and obligations by the State or service providers.

Unfortunately, in most cases, the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation are not formally recognized. In cases where these rights are constitutionally recognized, there is a lack of laws and even regulations that effectively implement them in the day-to-day management of water and aquatic ecosystems.

Considering that this is a matter of managing common goods, the accountability of those who manage the rights of the population must also be complemented by the responsibility of those who enjoy those goods and services. A community-based approach to management implies rights and obligations for all. Among these, undoubtedly, it is important to share equitably cost recovery, through non-profit tariffs and appropriate public subsidies in support of those living in vulnerable conditions, or for large-scale investments that exceed local capacities. The principle of responsibility justifies taking measures and strategies that promote good water use.

Efficiency is often linked to market logic, through competition. However, market logic is not the only tool to incentivize efficiency. In a community approach to water management, the good use and in particular the efficient use of water are linked to the principle of responsibility. Promoting an adequate tariff system can be an effective tool to enhance efficiency.

The Special Rapporteur insists on not mythologizing efficiency, for example, as the supposed key to ensuring sustainability and advancing the fulfilment of human rights. Efficiency undoubtedly allows the same uses to be met with less water, but if the savings generated encourage new uses, then in the end, even with efficiency, unsustainability levels still skyrocket. Examples of this are found in many irrigation systems that use groundwater, which, although generally efficient and very profitable, often generate unsustainable growth that ultimately overexploits aquifers. It is necessary to install meters and establish community control, under public supervision (beyond the direct users), to ensure the sustainability of the aquifer. In surface water irrigation, setting tariffs proportional to the water used, rather than to the irrigated area, as is often the case, provides incentives for good irrigation practices.

Similarly, when there are no effective regulations that guarantee human rights, efficiency can coexist with the overexploitation of workers without access to drinking water, hygiene and sanitation. Efficiency, while positive, definitely does not guarantee sustainability or human rights.

Equity in taxation, for example, means that everyone pays taxes not equally but according to each person’s earnings. The management of a common good requires the application of the principle of equity. Establishing tariff systems by consumption blocks, with increasing prices, is a way to distribute costs equitably, with cross-subsidies from luxury to basic uses, while penalizing abusive consumption. If we manage these services according to market logic, prices would be lowered for good customers to encourage consumption and increase profits. However, the proposed tariff model does the opposite, because the aim is not to make a profit but to offer a service that reaches everyone, even those who cannot pay, covering overall costs and minimizing the water footprint.

To address the climate crisis as a shared global responsibility, we must acknowledge the significant obligation of the primary countries that consume fossil fuels. In addition, we should consider each country’s wealth as a foundation for a fair energy transition. In the equitable management of drought shortages, a lower percentage of flow restrictions should be applied to family farms than to large producers, thereby ensuring that everyone can overcome the shortage crisis.

Preserving the social fabric of rural areas can be considered not only fair but also in the interest of society as a whole. In this regard, it is often necessary to ensure not only human rights at stake but also access to water for the productive activities on which the lives and development of these rural communities depend.

In short, governance based on the principle of equity requires prioritizing ethical values, identifying uses and functions for the common good and applying social justice criteria when assigning rights and duties.

Although this principle could be understood as subsumed under the principles of empowerment and legality, the Special Rapporteur believes it is appropriate and necessary to make it explicit as essential to promoting a human rights approach to water governance.

The ethical considerations underpinning the democratic governance of water, as discussed earlier, necessitate the establishment of priorities in managing water’s various uses, functions and values. Instead of adhering to a market-oriented approach that allocates water to those who can afford to pay the most, we must prioritize, from a human rights perspective, the guarantee of access to safe drinking water and sanitation for the entire population. This commitment should also include ensuring the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems.

Guaranteeing the minimum vital requirement for a dignified life and fulfilling these human rights represents less than 5 per cent of the water we withdraw from rivers and aquifers. If we prioritize this use, even in severe droughts, there would be no shortage to fulfil these human rights. As for financial priorities, even the scarcity of resources in developing countries does not justify failing to ensure budgetary priority for the progressive fulfilment of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation for the entire population.

Not even wars in transboundary basins justify ignoring the primary obligation to respect, among others, the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. However, unfortunately, water is part of war strategy. For instance, for decades, water was used by Israel as an apartheid strategy toward the Palestinian people, which has recently escalated in Gaza to a genocidal strategy.²¹ In its general comment No. 15, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights clearly states that water can never be used as an instrument of economic or political pressure, and States have the duty to refrain from “limiting access to, or destroying, water services and infrastructure as a punitive measure”.

21. See communications to Israel: ISR 3/2025; ISR 25/2024; ISR 18/2024; ISR 2/2022; ISR 13/2020; and ISR 8/2011. See also www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/11/israel-must-stop-using-water-weapon-war-un-expert. ↩

Undoubtedly, the need to expand, maintain and renew water supply and sewage systems, build sanitation stations and strengthen systems to address the risks arising from climate change imposes significant investment needs. However, not all of these costs should be covered by tariffs.

First of all, it is worth noting that a growing proportion of such costs comes from the water purification process. However, by rigorously applying the “polluter pays” principle, or as the Special Rapporteur prefers, the “polluter restores” principle, the costs of services would be significantly reduced. The slogan that “water should pay for water” is often used to make sacred the need to cover costs through tariffs. However, it is often the case that water tariffs cover not only the strict costs of the service but also the costs of purification that should have been paid by polluters.

Water pollution by pharmaceuticals, considered hazardous pollutants under the new European Union Drinking Water Directive, can serve as a reference. According to the impact assessment published by the European Commission, the cost of quaternary treatment to remove these contaminants is estimated at €1.186 billion annually, jeopardizing the affordability of water and sanitation services for impoverished families. If pharmaceutical companies were to assume these costs, they would have two options: increase the price of their products by a maximum of 0.59 per cent; or reduce their profit margins by a maximum of 0.7 per cent.²²

22. See https://environment.ec.europa.eu/document/download/0c65f57a-9db0-4665-b5e4-e2ba671de95d_en?filename=Impact%20assessment%20accompanying%20the%20proposal.pdf. ↩

Major investment challenges, which overwhelm local capacities and threaten tariff affordability for the poorest, must be addressed with soft public financing and/or State subsidies. Addressing the challenge of sanitation, as well as urban reforms to minimize flood risks arising from climate change, can serve as examples. Even in the case of non-reimbursable investments to build basic infrastructure, the Special Rapporteur draws attention to the need to include infrastructure depreciation in annual budgets, which, over the average lifespan of these infrastructures, can amount to a form of soft financing with long amortization periods.

In many countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Togo, despite large investments in hydraulic infrastructure, communities often abandon these due to insufficient funds allocated to provinces and municipalities for their maintenance.²³ In any case, it is immoral to require full cost recovery from developing countries and the Global South, when most developed countries finance their basic infrastructure with non-repayable public investments or soft public funding.

23. “Gestion inclusive des ouvrages hydrauliques et difficultés d’accès à l’eau potable dans le Kpendjal (Togo)”, in Revue Nigérienne des Sciences Sociales, No. 001 (2020). See also www.ohchr.org/en/calls-for-input/2025/call-input-non-state-actors-democratic-water-governance-under-human-rights. ↩

Promoting non-profit public-public partnership strategies, within the framework of the nested management strategy explained above, with territorial pooling of water and sanitation services in rural areas, can save costs and strengthen local capacities. In countries where the community water management model works, public-community partnership strategies should be promoted. The Green Climate Fund supports public-communitarian management in rural and Indigenous territories, with participatory planning and evolving community funds to support maintenance.

States should strengthen the technical capacities of rural municipalities and communities and can reduce the cost of spare parts and materials by organizing purchases at the supra-municipal level, with the support of national Governments. During his visits to Peru and Tunisia, the Special Rapporteur noted the need to organize networks of technical service and spare parts centres in rural areas.

Regarding the financial capabilities of States, everything depends on the level of priority assigned to the investments at stake. The Special Rapporteur insists on the need to prioritize the human rights to drinking water and sanitation of the population in public budgets with the available funds. This is, in fact, the priority of women from the poorest families: bringing water to their homes. Governments should follow their example when it comes to budget priorities.

It is true that public subsidies may be inefficient. According to published studies, in low- and middle-income countries, subsidies for water and sanitation, which represent between 1.5 and 2 per cent of their gross domestic product, do not reach the poor, but rather the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population.²⁴ Therefore, public subsidies must be targeted towards social objectives and ensure sustainability, both financially and technically. They must be managed openly and transparently and be subject to comprehensible and publicly accessible performance indicators.

24. World Bank, “Doing More with Less: Smarter Subsidies for Water Supply and Sanitation” (Washington, D.C., 2019). ↩

The private sector has a role to play in supporting the public provision of services, but within clearly set boundaries – temporal, financial, etc. – and under strong public supervision. A reference in this regard is provided by the public consortium Promedio,²⁵ in the province of Badajoz, Spain, which provides technical support to rural municipalities, including the supervision of contracts with private companies and operators.

25. See https://promedio.dip-badajoz.es/. ↩

States must offer financial advice to municipalities and promote financing platforms to address the challenges of water and sanitation, both with public budget funds and even by negotiating funds in the capital markets, leveraging the negotiating strength that Governments have, so that municipalities have adequate soft credit options. In developing countries, financial institutions, such as the World Bank or regional development banks, should focus their efforts on strengthening local institutions by promoting subnational financing strategies under results-based incentives, rather than opening business opportunities at the national level to large private financial corporations.

It is worth recalling, as a negative experience, the so-called “austerity measures” implemented in response to the 2008 crisis. The restricted credit available to municipalities meant they were often forced to hand over the management of their services to private corporations that had free access to credit markets, which unduly raised rates and broke local autonomies.

The Special Rapporteur suggests reflecting on the absurd and suicidal arms race currently under way, for which there does not seem to be a lack of public financial capacity, but rather a priority in budgets for purchasing weapons over basic needs.

To the extent that managing water and sanitation services entails objectives that go beyond the territorial scope of the local community, municipalities, and communities – such as the sustainability of an ecosystem, human rights, and the values of equity, transparency and public participation – it becomes necessary to establish supra-municipal regulatory systems for water and sanitation services. The institutions responsible for managing these services, which in most countries are municipalities, cannot be both judge and jury in the supervision and regulation of the services.

From a human rights-based approach, regulatory systems must serve to oversee the application of the principles outlined above: defining and enforcing quality standards that guarantee the safety and reliability of the water supply, ensuring non-discriminatory access to services, monitoring and ensuring affordability through tariff regulation and promoting transparency, accountability and public participation.

It is also essential to promote unified, meaningful and publicly understandable management indicators, which all local operators must develop and publish. In this way, everyone can compare management among similar municipalities, enabling healthy competition through transparency. Another important function is to regulate adequate local financing of services, offering criteria on the costs to be covered, tariff policies, and appropriate credit and subsidy strategies, with special attention to rural municipalities.

The Special Rapporteur pays special attention to regulatory institutions such as the Regulatory Commission for Potable Water and Basic Sanitation of Colombia, which promotes universal access to drinking water and sanitation in impoverished rural communities by supporting the current community-based management model and developing a public-community partnership strategy.²⁶

26. Regulatory Commission for Potable Water and Basic Sanitation of Colombia. See www.cra.gov.co. ↩

In any case, regulatory systems must be open to social participation and potential complaints, whether individual or collective, from neighbourhood associations or citizen water observatories.

Among the numerous international initiatives and platforms of regulatory institutions, the Special Rapporteur pays particular attention to those that prioritize the development of human rights-based regulatory approaches, such as the International Water Management Institute and the Water Integrity Network, which integrate transparency, accountability and human rights into regulatory frameworks.

Although the concepts of privatization, commodification and financialization are distinct, in practice they are intertwined as different ways of making water management a business.

As both the Special Rapporteur and his predecessor have argued in their reports, such strategies are in clear contradiction with the human rights-based approach demanded by the United Nations.

The priority assigned to the productive uses of water in neoliberal approaches leads to the justification that water management should be governed under a market logic, relegating the environmental and social values at stake, or, at most, integrating them into a market logic by monetizing these values using the methodologies offered by so-called environmental economics, although such monetization is often profoundly inconsistent.

From the neoliberal viewpoint, there is an enormous interest in monetizing the goods and services that nature provides, in order to ultimately promote their commodification. Water is valued essentially through the economic value of its productive uses; the concept of natural capital is introduced; the value of ecosystem services, which nature offers us for free, is monetized; and projects based on nature are valued in monetary units to compare their profitability with other projects. From the Special Rapporteur’s perspective, the problem lies not so much in projecting these values into monetary units but in promoting their management through commercial relationships. The objective fact that water and aquatic ecosystems generate significant economic values should not be used to justify their management based on market logic.

Even the impacts generated by productive activities, such as pollution, considered as externalities, are valued in monetary units, thus establishing the costs to be paid for them. The market is therefore what establishes legitimate pollution limits, provided that someone is willing to pay. The principle of sustainability established by the laws and balances of nature disappears, while the obligation of the State to guarantee the sustainability of ecosystems or the human rights at stake is relegated or ignored.

As the Special Rapporteur has reiterated in his reports, the importance of the productive uses of water, which undoubtedly have a consistent expression in monetary terms, cannot lead us to manage the values at stake, such as those linked to human health, the sustainability of ecosystems or human rights, on the basis of the logic of the market, using inconsistent monetary valuations. As explained above, it is necessary to integrate the monetary valuation of productive activities into multi-criteria management models.

In his report entitled “Water and economy nexus: managing water for productive uses from a human rights perspective”,²⁷ the Special Rapporteur deployed a wide range of tools and strategies to encourage efficient, responsible and sustainable water uses that are not based on market logic and can be consistently integrated into a human rights-based approach to water and aquatic ecosystems management. These include enforcing restrictions to ensure sustainability, the “no deterioration” principle and, complementary to this, the principle of “who harms restores”; applying cost recovery complemented with the subsidization of social objectives; promoting tariff systems such as that based on increasing tariffs by consumption blocks; employing competitive and transparent benchmarking strategies; developing public-public and public-community partnership strategies, financing strategies and platforms to protect local autonomy in the management of water and sanitation services; and developing hydrological, land-use and urban development plans, with broad public participation as the basis for climate change adaptation plans.

27. A/HRC/57/48. ↩

Over the past few decades, the alleged inability of public institutions to adequately manage water and sanitation services has been used to justify the need to privatize their management through strategies such as public-private partnerships. Both the Special Rapporteur and his predecessor presented their criticisms of these strategies in their respective reports to the General Assembly, offering recommendations on the matter.

New arguments have emerged in recent years to justify the financialization of water and sanitation services. This line of argumentation begins by magnifying the need to develop and implement sophisticated technologies, with significant investments; it continues by considering the financial inability of public institutions to cover these investments; and it ends by proposing the resort to large financial corporations through public-private partnership strategies.

As argued in previous reports, there is empirical and historical evidence that the policies promoting blended strategies – financialization and water privatization – in the form of public-private partnerships risk undermining human rights principles in terms of availability, quality and safety, cultural acceptability, accessibility, affordability, equality, non-discrimination, access to information and transparency, participation, accountability and sustainability while also incurring social costs, such as tariff increases, water poverty and access barriers, among other consequences.

In March 2024, the World Bank and its private sector branch, including the International Finance Corporation, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency and the 2030 Water Resources Group, which promote public-private partnerships, created the Strategic Framework for Scaling Up Finance for Water, whose purpose is to catalyse financing and innovation for the water sector, establish enabling conditions for investment and bring in private sector expertise. The consortium calls upon Governments to establish “enabling conditions and reforms” which could serve to “develop a pipeline of bankable projects” to attract private capital, emphasizing the private sector’s role as an off-taker, financier, investor and operator.²⁸

28. See www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/publication/scaling-up-finance-for-water-a-world-bank-strategic-framework-and-roadmap-for-action. ↩

The Special Rapporteur calls for reflection and for empirical verification of the results of these policies by public financial institutions, with a view to promoting a broad social debate on the issue. As for new technologies, and while they undoubtedly provide great help, we should not forget that nature-based solutions are often the most cost-effective. Restoring the health of aquatic ecosystems can and should help to mitigate a significant portion of these costs.

The financialization of water is part of the broader agenda of financializing nature. As an example, water funds are financial mechanisms that operate through public-private partnerships involving corporations such as drinks manufacturers, banks and public institutions. The objective is to promote water conservation by assigning an economic value to a watershed and managing it through market logic, which can even escalate into the speculative logic of futures markets, offering business opportunities to powerful economic and financial actors instead of promoting transparent and participatory regulation to achieve social objectives and environmental sustainability under the ultimate responsibility of States. Beyond the goodwill of those who promote these funds, the Special Rapporteur insists that such approaches contradict the human rights-based approach promoted by the United Nations and induce perverse perspectives.

In the face of growing pressures to financialize water management, the Special Rapporteur calls upon governments, NGOs and social movements to reflect on the need to strengthen municipal and community capacities in the management of these essential services, as well as the sustainable management of aquatic ecosystems through river basin institutions open to broad social participation.

The general consensus on the role of carbon dioxide in generating climate change has consolidated the need to base mitigation strategies on the energy transition. However, the main impacts of climate change are water-related, through droughts, floods or rising sea levels. This should lead us to develop adaptation strategies based on the water transition, an issue that receives little attention.

Undoubtedly, the energy transition raises economic and financial interests. However, adaptation strategies, aimed at protecting those living in the most vulnerable situations, often take a backseat as a democratic challenge to be addressed by States. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur has been calling upon States and international public institutions to pay greater attention to adaptation strategies by promoting changes in the governance of water and aquatic ecosystems

The water transition must strengthen, on the one hand, the resilience of aquatic ecosystems, restoring their health, particularly that of aquifers, wetlands and riparian ecosystems, which are the most inertial components of the water cycle. Aquifers, which are in fact the water lungs of nature, can and should be managed as strategic reserves for managing the extraordinary droughts that climate change is exacerbating. Wetlands are not only reservoirs that store and regulate large surface flows, but, together with riparian ecosystems, they also allow for the expansion of river floods, reducing their kinetic energy and destructive capacity.

On the other hand, the water transition must strengthen social resilience, on the basis of guaranteeing the human rights to drinking water and sanitation and promoting adequate hydrological planning at the basin level and territorial and urban planning in order to reduce the population’s vulnerability to drought cycles and flood risks, with special attention to those living in situations of greater vulnerability and poverty.

Water planning must curb demands, especially in water-intensive sectors such as irrigation, certain tourism developments, or the newly emerging megadata centre sector, which demands a level of growth that exceeds the limits of sustainability and foreseeable availability during drought cycles in the context of the ongoing climate change.

The climate emergency poses specific challenges for cities, such as preventing urban development in flood-prone areas and promoting the design of so-called sponge cities, fostering the permeability of urbanized surfaces while designing urban spaces where flooding does not cause damage or risks.

Addressing these challenges also requires reflecting on the financial strategies to be promoted. For example, instead of charging the rising costs of stormwater drainage to sanitation fees, the Special Rapporteur suggests promoting specific fees linked to the impermeable surface area for which each individual, institution or company is responsible, in order to encourage shared and participatory strategies to make the urban surface permeable. Such a fee will be negligible in terms of costs for a family living in an apartment; however, it will encourage, for example, a large commercial space to make its parking space permeable and store or infiltrate rainwater. What is clear is that, in the face of climate change, we need appropriate public policies and prevention strategies that are open to social participation, rather than managing water in the speculative spaces of futures markets.

While mitigation strategies must necessarily be articulated at the global level, promoting adaptation plans is an inescapable responsibility of States, closely linked to their territories, river basins and aquifers. It is also important to highlight the magnitude of the adaptation challenges in impoverished countries and in arid regions where the prospects of uninhabitability and mass migration are growing. This will require global commitments, which must include plans for voluntary displacement and dignified resettlement of climate refugees, as advocated by the former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, in her speech to the Human Rights Council in 2021.

The Special Rapporteur recommends considering the nature of the global water crisis, which leaves billions of people without guaranteed access to safe drinking water. To effectively address this issue, appropriate strategies must be promoted. The billions of impoverished and marginalized individuals lacking access to drinking water do not represent a business opportunity: they present a global democratic challenge. Therefore, countries and multilateral institutions must tackle this crisis as a democratic issue by adopting a human rights-based approach.

The Special Rapporteur argues against the notion that we are facing a crisis of scarcity that can be resolved solely through technological solutions. Instead, he emphasizes that billions of people are not simply dry individuals lacking access to water in their neighbourhoods. Rather, they are impoverished and marginalized individuals living near rivers or on polluted aquifers, or whose water sources are dominated by powerful entities for economic gain. Consequently, the Special Rapporteur recommends prioritizing two key challenges to achieve the following:
(a) Make peace with the rivers and aquifers on which the billions of people depend by restoring the sophisticated natural engineering that manages the natural water cycle on the basis of the energy that the sun offers us for free;
(b) Promote democratic water governance, understood as a common good, accessible to all but not appropriable by anyone, and therefore not as a commodity.

The Special Rapporteur recommends that water governance be founded on principles that enable ethical prioritization among the various uses and functions of water. The highest priority must be given to water for life, ensuring the protection of human rights and the sustainability of ecosystems. The second level of priority should be assigned to uses and functions that serve the common good of society. Finally, the third level of priority should be allocated to water for economic purposes, focusing on productive uses that extend beyond basic needs.

Valuing water as the essential element of life and a key factor for the co-existence and cohesion of human societies, the Special Rapporteur advocates recognizing the freshwater resources available in each community or territory as a common good. Aquatic ecosystems should also be viewed as a shared natural heritage that must be sustainably managed. On the basis of this perspective, the Special Rapporteur recommends establishing participatory governance that operates from the local level up to the basin level, including coordinated management in transboundary basins in accordance with the Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes.

To ensure effective and democratic governance, the Special Rapporteur recommends promoting public ownership of water resources and aquatic ecosystems. This should be done while respecting existing management models used by indigenous peoples, rural communities and even urban areas. It is essential to implement participatory, transparent and accountable governance, particularly when managing shared resources. This approach should be non-discriminatory and promote the equal participation of women.

The scarcity of water or public funds does not excuse the neglect of the obligation to fulfil the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. The Special Rapporteur recommends that governments:
(a) Preserve the highest quality, most reliable and most affordable water sources to supply the population;
(b) Prioritize the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation in public budgets.

From the perspective of water management as a common good for productive purposes, it is essential to develop the principles of efficiency, responsibility and equity in a complementary manner. Instead of adopting a market-based approach, the Special Rapporteur recommends implementing and developing a range of tools, strategies, measures and public policies that are aligned with the governance of water as a common good, viewed through the lens of human rights.

Since the main impacts of climate change are caused by extreme water-related events, the Special Rapporteur recommends developing adaptation strategies based on water transition, just as the energy transition serves to guide mitigation strategies. To this end, the Special Rapporteur recommends the participatory development and implementation of hydrological plans at the basin level, as well as territorial and urban planning based on the precautionary principle, strengthening the environmental resilience of aquatic ecosystems and the social resilience of the population, with special attention to those living in situations of greater poverty and vulnerability. The Special Rapporteur recommends integrating this water transition as a key to democratic water governance in the face of current climate change.