Water Justice: Rights, Access and Movements (PLAH044) – 15 credits
a) Description
This module examines ‘water justice’ in the global South from a combined Law and Development Studies perspective. The three main themes in the course are water rights/right to water, the modalities of access to water, and social movements on water issues. The course discusses examples from Asia, Africa and Latin America, and selected examples from the global North. It seeks to provide students with a broad understanding of the multi-faceted issues arising in the water sector from the local to the international level.
Content of the module
Rights: The first part of the module introduces the notion of water justice and elaborates water law by looking at water rights and the human right to water. It distinguishes between sovereign rights, individual use rights and common heritage. It elaborates on the globally adopted ‘human right to water, and discusses the ‘right to sanitation’ in that context. Lastly, recent ideas on ‘river rights’ are discussed.
Access: The second part of the course focuses on access relations, or ‘distributive justice’, in different domains of water use, management and governance (irrigation, watershed management) and from different angles (gender relations, depoliticization).
Movements: The third part of the module focuses on social movements pursuing ‘water justice’, including social movements opposing large dam building and movements opposing the privatisation of urban water privatisation. The module is concluded by revisiting the notion of water justice.
Learning outcomes
Students will be able to demonstrate the ability to understand and analyse issues concerning water law and policy, conflicts and governance from a broad perspective encompassing their economic, social and environmental dimensions.
Students will acquire knowledge of basic concepts and principles underlying the regulation, management and conservation of water, focusing on national, regional examples in the international context in which governance evolves and the increasing importance of conflicts in the water sector.
b) Indicative syllabus (subject to change)
1. Governing water in the 2020s: Framing concepts
I: Rights
2. Water rights: sovereign rights and public trust doctrine
3. Individual use rights and land
4. Human right to water
II: Access
5. Access and right to sanitation
6. Privatisation and remunicipalisation
7. Participation and depoliticization
III: Movements
8. Social movements around water
9. Groundwater rights and conflicts
10. International water governance
c) Assessment (subject to change)
Assessment comprises two different elements:
Book/film review: 1,000 words (30% of the total mark)
Essay: 2,500 words (70% of the total mark)
d) General Reference Books Related to the Course
Jeremy Allouche, Carl Middleton & Dipak Gyawali, The Water–Food–Energy Nexus – Power, Politics, and Justice (London: Routledge, 2019).
Madeline Baer, Stemming the Tide: Human Rights and Water Policy in a Neoliberal World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
Andrea Ballestero, Water: A Future History of Water (Duke University Press 2019).
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Fresh Water in International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd ed 2021).
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes et al. eds, The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses: A Commentary 428-50 (OUP, 2020).
Ken Conca & Erika Weinthal eds, Oxford Handbook of Water Politics and Policy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Venkatesh Dutta ed, Water Conflicts and Resistance - Issues and Challenges in South Asia (London: Routledge, 2022).
Gabriel Eckstein, The International Law of Transboundary Groundwater Resources (Routledge, 2017).
David Groenfeldt, Water Ethics - A Values Approach to Solving the Water Crisis (Routledge, 2nd ed 2019).
Léo Heller, The Human Rights to Water and Sanitation (Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Itzchak E. Kornfeld, Transboundary Water Disputes: State Conflict and the Assessment of their Adjudication (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Rhett B. Larson, Just Add Water – Solving the World's Problems Using its Most Precious Resource (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Elizabeth Jane Macpherson, Indigenous Water Rights in Law and Regulation: Lessons from Comparative Experience (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Jeremy J. Schmidt, Water : Abundance, Scarcity, and Security in the Age of Humanity (New York: New York University Press, 2017).
Farhana Sultana & Alex Loftus eds, Water Politics – Governance, Justice and the Right to Water (London: Routledge, 2019).
Mark Zeitoun, Reflections – Understanding Our Use and Abuse of Water (OUP, 2023).