[MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] The rights of individuals and communities and their consideration within the management and protection of transboundary water resources are linked to an "evolutive" interpretation and application of international water law. The right to water was acknowledged, was affirmed, was defined in General Comment No. 15 adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2002. Which elements constitute the right to water? First, there is availability. This means that water must be sufficiently and constantly available to individuals and local communities. Next we have water quality. The quality must be safe, must not affect the health of the population. And a third element is accessibility. Accessibility is linked to the fact that a well should not be too far from workplaces, schools or homes. In the context of accessibility, there is also economic accessibility, linked to the price of water. The State is therefore asked to protect its poorest people and to guarantee access, to exercise the right to water. The third element of accessibility is about access to information. Individuals and the local communities must have access to information on water quality. So, as I said, the original definition of the right to water, was found in General Comment No. 15. However, access to water is also included in other human rights conventions including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women the Convention on the Rights of the Child or the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. So if we look at access, the protection of water rights within the framework of human rights, it is clear that the recognition of the right to water within the resolutions of the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council in 2010 was very significant. In addition to this, the right to water was recognised in the original human rights law instruments and the right to water is also part of international water law instruments. In particular, the 1999 Protocol on Water and Health makes reference to water supply access and to access to sanitation services without endangering health or the environment. We also have the water charters adopted in West Africa. The charters on the Senegal River, the Niger River and on Lake Chad explicitly include the right to water. If we analyse the universal framework, especially the 1997 Convention, there is no reference to the right to water however, in the event of a conflict over use, special attention must be given to the protection of vital human needs. The same reference is also found in the Draft Articles on the Law of Transboundary Aquifers where vital human needs are listed as one of the criteria to be taken into account when sharing transboundary aquifers. What are the obligations of States related to the right of water? First of all, there are obligations « to respect ». States must not do anything to prevent the right to water being exercised and positive steps must be taken to protect the right to water. Secondly, the obligations « to protect » where States ensure that third parties do not interfere with the right to water and finally, there are the obligations « to fulfill» that require States to put in place national legislation which supports, or does not not prevent, the exercise of the right to water. An analysis of economic, social and cultural rights shows that there are immediate obligations for States. In particular, I must mention the principle of non-discrimination. The State must guarantee access based on the principle of equity and universality for the entire population, and must protect the most vulnerable sectors of the population. There is also an element of progressive realization, the realization of the right to water often requires important financial resources in order to allow access to water especially in certain places such as rural communities. There is also an element of justiciability to the right to water. Indeed, the right to water has been affirmed by regional human rights courts. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights linked the protection of the right to water with the rights of indigenous communities. There are national cases in South Africa but also in Botswana where access by indigenous peoples, the Bushmen population, was recognised by the Court and access to their ancestral lands and their right to water resources were protected. So there is a clear link between the right to water and public participation. There is a clear link between the right to water and the right to public participation, and this is included in procedural safeguards, particularly related to information access, but also access to justice in environmental matters, and therefore the right of the population to be part of the decision-making process for projects which may have an impact on the water or on the health of the population, is recognised. And in that context, I would like to mention Principle 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration, which affirms the principle of public participation. This principle of public participation was also codified in the 1998 Aarhus Convention on Access to Information. Public participation was included in the decision-making process and in the access to justice over environmental issues. Another dimension of the principle of public participation is the importance of the opinions of the local population on projects which may affect water resources, namely the obligation to conduct an environmental impact assessment study and to mention the population in this study. The opinion of the population must be taken into account. And this can also prevent the risk of conflicts, because the traditional knowledge of the population can mean that water resources are saved from pollution or new sites can be found to locate a project. A third element in our analysis of the principle of public participation relates to dispute settlement mechanisms. Certain cases taken on by arbitral tribunals show how the legal framework applicable to the dispute is linked to human rights considerations. This shows just how important human rights and the right to water are in the context of international economic law. MUSIC