scholarly journals The EU and The Human Right to Water and Sanitation: Normative Coherence as the Key to Transformative Development

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harlan Koff ◽  
Carmen Maganda
Keyword(s):  
Human Right ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Transformative Development ◽  
The Eu

Water for Life

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeline Baer
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Water Policy ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
National Level ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Right

Chapter 5 provides a case study of the human rights-based approach to water policy through an analysis of the Bolivian government’s attempts to implement the human right to water and sanitation. It explores these efforts at the local and national level, through changes to investments, institutions, and policies. The analysis reveals that while Bolivia meets the minimum standard for the human right to water and sanitation in some urban areas, access to quality water is low in poor and marginalized communities. While the Bolivian government expresses a strong political will for a human rights approach and is increasing state capacity to fulfill rights, the broader criteria for the right to water and sanitation, including citizen participation and democratic decision-making, remain largely unfulfilled. This case suggests political will and state capacity might be necessary but are not sufficient to fulfill the human right to water and sanitation broadly defined.

International Aspects of Investment Liberalization in the PRC: A Case of EU-China Cooperation

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-224
Author(s):  
D. A. Potapov
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Investment ◽  
World Order ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Foreign Investments ◽  
Eu Member States ◽  
International Aspects ◽  
The Eu

The paper examines the role of investment cooperation and national foreign investment regime as a means to promote China’s economic and political interests and to respond to new global challenges that the country faces nowadays. To this end, the author examines the main stages of China’s liberalization of the legal regime for foreign investment from the end of the 1970s with a special focus on a new foreign investment law. In doing so the author attempts to link the evolution of investment regulation in the PRC with the dynamics of international relations development and the changing role of China as a regional and global actor. The author emphasizes that a trend towards the emergence of a polycentric world order not only provokes the rise of international tensions but also provides new incentives to promote dialogue and enhance cooperation between states and non-governmental actors, particularly by encouraging foreign investments. At the same time, there is a growing need to improve regulatory mechanisms for direct foreign investments. All these contradictory trends have directly affected China’s foreign investment regime reform. In this context the investment cooperation between the PRC and the European Union is of particular importance. The EU possesses a set of innovative technological solutions and competencies that are of particular interest to the Chinese leaders in the context of their efforts to modernize the country’s economy. The paper examines the volume, dynamics and key directions of investment flows between China and the EU member-states. The fact that after seven years of difficult negotiations, the EU and China managed to develop a special bilateral regulatory mechanism — EU-China Comprehensive Agreement on Investment — underscores again the importance of this cooperation for both parties. Even though the EU has suspended the ratification of this deal on the pretext of human right violations in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the author concludes, that in the future this agreement will come into force, since the very logic of the emerging polycentric world order urges for deeper cooperation between the EU and China. In this context, the investment regulation appears not only as a means to protect the Chinese economic interests, but also as an instrument to strengthen China’s international positions in the changing global context.

The Development of European Data Protection Law and Regulation

2019 ◽  
pp. 35-54
Author(s):  
David Erdos
Keyword(s):  
Data Protection ◽  
Legal Status ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Working Party ◽  
Advisory Council ◽  
Human Right ◽  
General Data Protection Regulation ◽  
European Data ◽  
Regulatory Data ◽  
The Eu

This chapter explores the development of European data protection, both as a codified form of regulation and as a human right, from its inception to the present day. In contrast to more ʻclassicalʼ rights, such as freedom of expression and even privacy, data protection only emerged as a discrete concept with the rise of computer power in the 1970s. The focus in Europe from this time has been on elaborating a progressively more detailed and harmonized regulatory code to govern the processing of personal data across the EU and wider European Economic Area (EEA). Advisory Council of Europe Resolutions in the 1970s led to a binding but optional Data Protection Convention in the 1980s, to a mandatory Data Protection Directive in the 1990s, and finally to a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the 2010s which is directly applicable across the EU. In addition, data protection has increasingly been recognized as a fundamental right and, in particular, was included within the EU Charter that was drafted in 2000 and acquired pan-EU legal status in 2009. These developments have dovetailed with the emergence of a significant body of relevant Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) jurisprudence. However, the regulatory Data Protection Authorities (DPAs) also remain critical interpretative actors and have issued a number of important opinions including through the Article 29 Working Party that under the GDPR has become the European Data Protection Board.

Global Goal Setting and the Human Right to Water

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristy Clark
Keyword(s):  
Goal Setting ◽  
Universal Access ◽  
New Delhi ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Sanitation Services ◽  
Human Need ◽  
Global Goal ◽  
Development Goals

Since the 1970s, global goal setting to increase access to safe drinking water has taken a number of different approaches to whether water should be primarily understood as a “human right” or a “human need.” In the Mar del Plata declaration of 1977, states both recognized a human right to water and committed themselves to achieving universal access by 1990. By the 1990 New Delhi Statement, with universal access still out of reach, the goal was renewed with a new deadline of 2000, but water was described as a human need rather than a human right. This approach was coupled with an emphasis on water’s economic values and the need for increased cost recovery, which in turn increased the focus on, and uptake of, private-sector participation in the delivery of water and sanitation services across the Global South. A similar needs-based approach was adopted at the start of the new millennium in Target 7 of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but during this decade a consensus on the recognition of the human right to water also emerged in international law. As the normative status and content of this right came to be better articulated and understood, it began to influence the practice of providing water and sanitation services, and by the end of the MDG process a rights-based approach featured more prominently in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of 2015. While the provision of water and sanitation services is multifaceted, the evidence of global achievements from the 1970s onward indicates that a rights-based approach increases the priority given to the social values of such services and focuses attention on the need to go beyond technical solutions to address the structural issues at the heart of water inequality. Going forward, approaches to the provision of water and sanitation services and the human right to water will need to continue to adapt to new challenges and to changing conceptualizations of water, including the growing recognition that all living things have a right to water and that water itself can have rights.

Urban homelessness and the right to water and sanitation: experiences from India's cities

Water Policy ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 755-772 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vicky Walters
Keyword(s):  
Homeless People ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Significant Development ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
Access To Water ◽  
The Right ◽  
Indian Cities

Improving access to water and sanitation for vulnerable groups has been a significant development priority in recent decades and this has been coupled with calls for water and sanitation to be recognised as fundamental human rights. However, to date there has been very limited attention on the right to water and sanitation for homeless people, despite their high vulnerability to a range of water and sanitation insecurities. Drawing on empirical data from the Indian cities of Delhi and Bangalore, this paper examines homelessness and the right to water and sanitation. It highlights the everyday practices and experiences of homeless people in their efforts to access water and sanitation, and sheds light on some of the factors that contribute to their water and sanitation insecurity. It concludes that addressing the human right to water and sanitation for homeless people will require going beyond a technical and sector approach, to the more challenging task of tackling the complex factors that create and sustain their vulnerability and marginality in urban spaces.

Time for Implementation of the Right to Water and Sanitation—e.g. The Missing Implementation in Germany

2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-179
Author(s):  
Silke Ruth Laskowski
Keyword(s):  
Political Development ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Water And Sanitation ◽  
Environmental Goods ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Legal Enforcement ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Basic Sanitation ◽  
Degraded Ecosystems ◽  
The Right

Access to safe water supplies and basic sanitation are necessary for maintaining public health, and water is needed to support healthy ecosystems, which in turn provide critical environmental goods and services. As water demand and availability become more uncertain, all societies become more vulnerable to a wide range of risks associated with inadequate water supply, including hunger and thirst, high rates of disease and death, economic crises, and degraded ecosystems. This endangers the enforcement of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation. Against this background the paper reviews the current political development to strengthen the legal enforcement of the Right to Water; describes the importance of its legal implementation regarding poor populations in Europe; exemplifies the need for implementation and legal action in view of Germany; and addresses to strengthen enforcement of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation with a view to Environmental Justice.

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