Browsing by Author "Mäkelä, Lotta"

In recent years, the human right to water has gained more prominence in public debates as water is being considered an ever-scarcer resource. For the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), the lack of access to adequate, safe, and clean water has been a longstanding problem. Yet, limited attention has been given to the human right to water in the OPT in the academic literature.  This thesis examines the human right to water in the context of the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories under the doctrines of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) that are seen to form the law of occupation. Particular attention is paid to the inclusion of human rights law to the law of occupation and on the relationship between IHL and IHRL. Hereby the analysis focuses on the benefit of the human rights approach to water for the people living under occupation, in this particular case the Palestinians. The thesis examines the possible challenges and obstacles that are encountered when the two branches of law, IHL and IHRL, are applied in parallel in an occupation context, and assesses the benefit of the human rights approach to water from this angle. The thesis finds that IHL is no longer considered to be a self-contained legal regime and that also IHRL continues to apply during occupation. Both IHL and IHRL contain elements of the right to water, but the right to water has principally evolved under IHRL following the adoption of the General Comment No. 15 ‘the Right to Water’ by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Although the right has been recognised at least as an emerging international human right that exists implicitly in international treaties, it has not yet been explicitly recognised as a self-standing independent right in international treaties. The thesis finds that there are large-scale water related violations taking place in the West Bank of the OPT. Particularly, violations of the right to water availability and accessibility as well as the discriminatory allocation of water are visible. Israel is considered to have breached its obligations under both IHL and IHRL and the principles that underlie the right to water. Furthermore, the thesis finds that the exact relationship between the two legal regimes, IHL and IHRL, remains unclear. There are conceptual differences between IHL and IHRL, and they may take different approaches to ‘the parsing of legal problems’, or may even be contradictory. The inclusion of IHRL to the context of occupation brings with it an additional language of legal norms. This might not be optimal or even desired if it weakens the legal protection provided for by IHL to ‘the protected persons’, in this case the Palestinians. Although further research is required, it is questionable how beneficial the human rights approach to water can be for the Palestinians living under occupation in the West Bank of the OPT. The thesis brings forward the need to clarify the relationship between IHL and IHRL in times of occupation, in order for the laws to better serve the people they seek to protect.