The progressive realization of human rights to water: the legal basis, policy implications, and monitoring challenge

Abstract

Since 2010, the United Nations General Assembly had explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation and obliged States to provide for its progressive realization and entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for essential personal and domestic uses. This paper scrutinizes the legal basis and the policy implication for human right to water in Indonesia, before and following the annulment of the Water Resource Law 7/2004. This paper considers that one of the greatest challenges is to find an appropriate and internationally-comparable methodology in measuring the progressive realization of human rights to water and sanitation. We also highlight the importance of composite indicators and concludes that single variable indicators are insufficient to capture the range of issues involved in the realization of the human rights to water.