A Human Right to Water? The South African Constitutional Court's Decision in the Mazibuko Case

Peter G. Danchin, University of Maryland School of Law

Abstract

Is there a human right to sufficient or adequate water? If so, what is the right’s normative basis, its scope and content, and how might this differ in international law, constitutional law, and the domestic law and policy of States? These were the questions recently before South Africa’s Constitutional Court in Mazibuko v. City of Johannesburg (also known as “the Phiri case”) decided on 8 October 2009, the country’s first test case on the right to water.