October 2014: Catarina de Albuquerque, UN Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, launched a handbook outlining the legal foundations and recognition of human rights to water and sanitation.

The handbook gives guidance on how to implement the human rights to water and sanitation, which are treated as separate rights, and provides examples of good practice. Concrete examples on slum settlements, ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees, women living in rural areas, and people living in extreme poverty feature in the handbook.

The authors examine links between the human rights to water and sanitation, and other rights, including those enshrined in the Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). For example, they note that lack of adequate sanitation in schools hinders girls’ access to education.

The handbook aims to help states meet their human rights obligations, based on principles of non-discrimination and equality, access to information and transparency, participation, accountability and sustainability. It explores how states can be held to account in this area, and provides checklists to assess compliance status.

The position of Special Rapporteur on human rights to water and sanitation was created in 2008. The UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council recognized the human rights to water and sanitation in 2010. The Optimal Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which entered into force in 2013, created a mechanism whereby individuals or groups can file formal complaints. [Publication: Realizing the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation] [International standards on rights to water and sanitation] [Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) Webpage on MDGs, Water and Sanitation]