Human Rights to Water: Does national law recognize the human right to water?

Transboundary Due Process: 

Does any treaty require that all potentially impacted water users are notified in advance and consulted with respect to decisions or proposed developments that could adversely impact their water rights?

Do all water users have the right to appeal decisions/actions that impact water users’ freshwater rights?

Women’s Rights: Within each CWTR analyzed, does national law explicitly and affirmatively acknowledge the water use and/or governance rights of women within Indigenous, Afro-descendant, local communities, and/or water user groups?

Use: Domestic purposes are those satisfying basic human and household needs, including for drinking water, washing, food preparation, and sanitation necessary for subsistence/survival.

Use: Livelihood purposes are small-scale and household-level productive uses such as irrigation for agriculture, fisheries, brickmaking, or similar that satisfy needs beyond subsistence/survival.

Use: Commercial purposes are those where water is an input for generating income at a level higher than that necessary to maintain livelihoods.

Transferability is the right of communities to sell, lease, or otherwise transfer any of their rights to freshwater.

Exclusion is the right of communities, under CWTR-specific laws, to exclude any third parties from freshwater resources, except under circumstances related to the exercise of the human right to water.

Governance: Rulemaking is a community’s right to establish rules determining who can access, use, develop, or otherwise impact freshwater and freshwater resources under the communities’ control.

Governance: Planning and management is a community’s right to make decisions about or implement plans concerning freshwater use, development, protection, allocation, and infrastructure, in accordance with community-based rules.

Internal dispute resolution is a community’s right to utilize community-based mechanisms or rules to resolve internal freshwater conflicts within the community.

External enforcement is a community’s right to impose penalties on external actors outside the community who violate community-based rules.

Domestic Due Process addresses whether national law guarantees communities prior notice and consultation if decisions or proposed developments could impact their freshwater rights, as well as rights to appeal a government’s decisions or actions to extinguish all or some of these rights.

Domestic compensation evaluates whether communities are entitled to compensation from the government and/or private entities responsible for infringing upon or extinguishing their freshwater rights.