Analysis of Right to Water Needs Further Depth

Abstract

Water resources are the source of all life, and yet the increase in demand for water resources is challenging the world’s finite supply. Growing populations, urbanisation, industrialisation, environmental degradation and climate change all have a negative impact on water resources. Increasingly, the human right to water has been recognised, and in 2010 the United Nations (un) General Assembly declared safe and clean drinking water and sanitation a human right.1 This book, Water Rights in Southeast Asia and India, is a timely account that explores the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation in nine Asian countries: Myanmar, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, China, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The account provides the reader with the general situation of access to clean water and sanitation in each of these countries as well as the applicable national policies and laws regulating the protection of this human right. The book adopts a consistent format for each chapter, providing in respect of each country an overview and discussion of health and human rights challenges, environmental challenges, water policy and law, a water development case study and an interview with a stakeholder. While the author highlights the salient points of water policy for each juridistion, he does not provide holistic analyses of the socio-economic and political