The Human Right to Water at the Global Level: Too Familiar to Ignore, Too New to Recognise? (Muito familiar para ignorar, muito novo para reconhecer: a situação do direito humano à água em nível global)

Only after the General Comment on 15, the United Nations Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) on the human right to water, access to safe drinking water and sanitation was mandatorily defined in 2002 as a human right. The CESCR registered the right to water and other related rights, an approach that has been criticized as revisionist. Some argue that the CESCR invented a right "new" and non-existent in a way that goes beyond the state of practice, to remedy a gap that states should fill through amendment to treaties. This chapter argues that the CESCR articulated a pre-existing law, which had earlier autonomous existence, although latent in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - ICESCR). It is suggested that the approach of the CESCR in the analysis of the human right to water the ground right on a narrowly defined legal basis, since it limits its analysis to the regime prevailing human rights. The chapter argues that a significant analysis the normative basis of the human right to water should read the ICESCR in conjunction with the rules and principles of environmental law and international law on water. This combined use of the three legal systems reveals that the right is not new, but one "discovery", as both have been recognized in relevant standards international treaties as increasingly supported by a practice of state.