Skip to content

The no significant harm principle and the human right to water

Spijkers, Otto. 2020. The no significant harm principle and the human right to water. International Environmental Agreements.

Abstract

Access to water has been recognized as an international human right at least since 2010, when both the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council adopted resolutions to this effect. The no significant harm principle can be found in the UN Watercourses Convention, and in numerous other global, regional, and watercourse-specific treaties. This paper provides an explanation of how the no significant harm principle and the human right to water supplement each other, by jointly protecting both the State and the individual from significant harm done, by another State, to a watercourse on which they depend. The dispute between Chile and Bolivia relating to the status and use of the Silala waters is used as a case study, to illustrate the way in which these two international legal regimes (international water law and international human rights law) supplement each other.

Full article available here

You might like these publication categories

Recent publications

2022 Annual Report

Curious to know about the various parts of the Earth System Governance Project, and what has been achieved in 2022?…

Global Shifts: Business, Politics, and Deforestation in a Changing World Economy

What global shifts in markets and power mean for the politics and governance of sustainability. In recent years, major shifts…

Earth System Governance – Volume 16

We are delighted to present the sixteenth volume of Earth System Governance, the new open-access journal for all those interested…