Amanda Cahill-Ripley in this book examines the legal status of the human right to water, its features, and the obligations that it imposes, especially in relation to other economic, social, and cultural rights. As a specific case-study of a possible application on the ground, she investigates the water supply situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPTs). The Palestinians living within the OPTs face daily problems relating to an insufficient supply of water which in any case is of poor quality and to which access is restricted both physically and economically. The book explains how the Israeli occupation, with its security policy of closures and curfews, and the existence of a separation wall, profoundly affects the ability of all who live within the OPTs to enjoy any right to water. Indeed, the author accepts that, without ownership and control of both water resources and land, it would be impossible to guarantee a right to water for the Palestinians on the West Bank. The wider implications of the case-study findings are then considered with a view to strengthening the right legally, in terms of its status and codification, and to discovering a remedy for any violations of the right, both within the OPTs and elsewhere. It concludes that a human-rights-based approach can result in the enjoyment of minimum core elements of the right, thus at least alleviating some of the most serious problems that currently exist.

The book has seven chapters, the first three of which cover the history of the human right to water, how it has developed as a matter of policy, its legal sources, and its normative content. Cahill-Ripley explains the relevant obligations that the right imposes on states parties while considering also the possible impact of new developments in international human rights law such as extra-territorial obligations. The chapters conclude that a right to water firmly constitutes an integral part of recognized human rights provisions.

In the remaining four chapters of the book, the author seeks to apply the principles of the legal and normative instruments concerning the human right to water in the specific context of the OPTs. The author gives a brief overview of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of the current water situation in the OPTs, and examines the international legal provisions relating to the right to water that apply specifically to the West Bank. The chapters then continue the legal analysis at bilateral and national levels by considering the provisions for a right to water under the bilateral agreements between Israel and the OPTs that are commonly known as the Oslo Accords, together with those applicable under the domestic laws of Israel and Palestine. To gain further insight into the water situation on the West Bank, Cahill-Ripley has applied the legal basis for the human right to water to a case-study on the West Bank itself. Although only a small-scale empirical research project, it nevertheless established that the right to water could not adequately be realized short of the Palestinian people having some control over the available water resources. Moreover, it found that Israel had failed to meet the minimum requirement for the supply of water that was well within its capability. Consequently, until the occupation ends, and the Palestinians have control over their borders and territory, their human right to water cannot be fulfilled. The author then offers recommendations aimed at strengthening and developing further the human right to water.

As with all social, economic, and cultural rights, the very nature of the human right to water is critical in determining obligations, and to what extent they should be imposed on states at national or international level. The right is aspirational: its fulfilment must depend on available resources. Whether having access to sufficient and clean water is truly a human right or not is still open-ended. Further development of the theoretical understanding of the right to water as a human right is needed in order to help stakeholders assess the options for a progressive realization of the right. The book needed a deeper analysis of the normative framework in terms of the concept and content of the human right to water, and at the same time a more in-depth analysis of the interrelationship between the body of human rights norms and the right to water itself. It should also have mentioned water privatization, which certainly has implications for human rights. As the private sector has increasingly become involved in water supply management across the world, anti-privatization campaigns based on the human right to water have spread in recent years. This raises the big question concerning the role that human rights discourse should play in deciding how best to meet the water needs of an ever-growing global population. Is private sector provision totally incompatible with the human right to water? Can the latter generate corporate obligations? If so, what would be the mechanisms? The book should have considered these issues.

The limited global supply of water, together with ever-continuing population growth and ever-increasing water demand through urbanization and industrialization, is inevitably expected to create or exacerbate interstate conflict. The right to water as a prerequisite for the fulfilment of other key human rights certainly adds a new perspective. We may still be at only the early stage in the serious study of the human right to water as an independent human right, but this book manages to fill some of the remaining conceptual, legal, and practical gaps on the subject. Despite a lack of some clarity in dealing with certain concepts and practical issues, the book is nevertheless well worth reading. It is very useful for researchers, professionals, and students of international law, human rights law, and international relations. Certainly anybody interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should read it.