Development Cooperation and Extraterritorial Obligations

Development cooperation can play an important role in progressively realizing the right to water in countries with limited financial and other resources. Some bilateral and United Nations development agencies have now included the promotion of human rights in their programming efforts. However, a critical element often missing from such efforts is an analysis by development agencies of their legal human rights obligations when they are engaged in development cooperation outside their borders. In practice, people whose human rights are affected by development agencies, directly or indirectly, rarely have access to legal mechanisms to hold such agencies accountable for their decisions. This chapter assesses the extraterritorial obligations binding States in regard to the right to water, seeking to determine how specific these obligations are and what matters are left to State discretion. It commences by assessing the legal basis for extraterritorial obligations in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The chapter then examines the obligation of bilateral development agencies to refrain from interfering with the right to water in other countries including by carrying out water projects that deny the right to participate in decision-making affecting their rights and imposition of water service delivery models that undermine the right to water. It examines State obligations to ensure compliance with the ICESCR by multilateral development agencies of which they are members, focusing in particular on the World Bank. The chapter then examines State obligations to engage in financial and technical cooperation to help realize the right to water of people outside their borders, considering both the quality and quantity of aid for this purpose, and the means by which State obligations can be assessed. This chapter shows that by applying the ICESCR to policy making and practice in the field of development cooperation, it is possible to ascertain standards of conduct that allow for greater accountability of donors to rights-holders and that are feasible to implement