Congratulations to Mathilde Thorsen and Sara Ekblom on their master theses! The Water-rights’ project team is really proud of you!
Water & Power (2017-2018). Mathilde Thorsen (UiB, Department of Comparative Politics, Supervisor: Siri Gloppen). Has the elevation of the right to water to an independent human right, strengthened opportunities for those that have their rights violated in India? In this thesis, I attempt to explain the development of the international human right to water, and how this has affected opportunities for those that have their rights violated. As the right to water was elevated to an independent human right in 2010, some mechanisms were created to monitor and protect the human right to water. One of the main tools for monitoring the right is the establishment of a Special Rapporteur on Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation. This thesis applied a theoretical framework based on social mobilization and lawfare to investigate how the development of the right has affected opportunities for those that have their rights violated in India.
Recognized but not protected? The human right to safe drinking water & Protection of Foreign Investments in Water Utilities (2018). Sara Ekblom (UiB, Faculty of Law, Supervisor: Kristoffer Svendsen, UiT). The thesis asks how investor-State Tribunals addresses the relationship between the Argentine Governments’ international duty to realize the human right to affordable drinking water through regulation and policy, and its international duty to accord foreign investors in privatized water utilities protection against regulatory changes. The primary focus is on the gap between arbitral Tribunals recognition and enforcement of the human right to water.