La The UN General Assembly Resolution on the Human Right to Water a Decade Later

Abstract

In the ten years since the UN General Assembly recognized an international human right to water, that right has remained largely unenforceable in both international and domestic law and efforts to implement it have proven mostly ineffective or even counterproductive. The UN General Assembly"™s Declaration in 2010 could have catalyzed progress in achieving the UN"™s Sustainable Development Goals aimed at improving access to water and sanitation. Nevertheless, scholars, activists, and practitioners can reimagine the international human right to water as a civil and political right, rather than as a substantive guarantee of water, in ways that would make the implementation of the human right to water more sustainable, equitable, and enforceable.