Water tenure - the relationship, whether legally or customarily defined between people as individuals or groups with respect to water resources, - is increasingly recognized as a critical dimension of equitable water governance. In response to mounting global challenges including water scarcity, climate change, and inequitable access to water threatening food security, the FAO Committee on Agriculture (COAG) in 2022 mandated FAO to organize a Global Dialogue on Water Tenure. This multi-stakeholder process aims to build consensus on a set of voluntary principles to guide the responsible governance of water tenure.

Drawing on lessons from the Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests (VGGT), the Dialogue promotes inclusive, equitable, and sustainable water allocation and use. The Dialogue is informed by water tenure assessments conducted in diverse country contexts, which have revealed significant gaps between formal legal frameworks and the functioning of water allocation systems on the ground. The Dialogue process is structured in six phases: strategic planning, technical support, consultations, drafting, political endorsement, and implementation of the principles. The first regional dialogues will take place in Latin America, West Africa and Asia in 2025.

The Draft Principles for the Responsible Governance of Water Tenure articulate normative guidance grounded in international human rights law, environmental law, and customary legal systems. The Principles will address enabling legal and institutional frameworks, dispute resolution, climate resilience, gender equality, ecosystem health, and responsible investment, and will be adaptable across governance scales. They emphasize recognition and protection of legitimate tenure rights—including those held by Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant communities, pastoralists, fisherfolk and women, while promoting integrated governance across land, water, and other natural resources.

Ultimately, the Principles aim to support countries in realizing the human rights to water and food, enhancing climate resilience, and fostering social justice through equitable water allocation.

This paper examines how South Africa’s post-apartheid legal reforms translate the constitutional right of access to sufficient water and sanitation into practice through a coherent tripartite framework: (i) a constitutional-statutory architecture embedding the rights; (ii) institutional and regulatory tools giving them effect; and (iii) enforcement and participatory mechanisms ensuring accountability. The hypothesis advanced is that bare declarations of rights, though symbolically powerful, achieve substantive realisation only when integrated within such an interconnected reform matrix.

Section 27(1)(b) of the 1996 Constitution guarantees “everyone the right to have access to sufficient water.” The Water Services Act 108 of 1997 operationalises this by affirming the right to basic water supply and sanitation, imposing duties on water services institutions to take reasonable measures toward its fulfilment. Complementarily, the National Water Act 36 of 1998 re-conceptualises water as a public-trust resource, providing for equitable and sustainable allocation through instruments such as licensing and catchment management. Together these statutes constitute the blueprint through which the human right to water and sanitation acquires normative and operational meaning.

Drawing on Mazibuko v City of Johannesburg, the paper analyses reform tools including the Free Basic Water Policy, decentralised service delivery under municipal Water Services Development Plans, and judicial oversight through reasonableness review. Evidence of progress norms for service standards and judicial affirmation of access rights is juxtaposed with persistent deficits: infrastructural backlogs, fiscal constraints, and unequal distribution.

Ultimately, the paper argues that realising the right to water and sanitation depends less on further rights-proclamation and more on the sustained functioning of legal, institutional, economic, and participatory instruments. South Africa’s experience offers a model and a caution for jurisdictions seeking to align constitutional aspirations with implementable water-sector reform amid the global pressures of climate change and resource scarcity.

The nation’s hydrology, which covers nearly 20 percent of the surface area of Malawi, supports over a thousand species of fish. The fisheries industry is vital to Malawi’s food security, as well as for livelihoods and economic growth. Yet overfishing, pollution and climate change increasingly threatens the sector, in turn imperilling biodiversity, water security and human health. Climate-driven changes in water temperature, precipitation patterns and extreme weather events act synergistically with environmental stressors of human origin affecting aquatic ecosystems to further threaten food and nutrition security. This article explores how water law and governance in Malawi, especially the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, moderate between competing aims of maintaining biodiversity, promoting equitable access to water and permitting water use.

This article argues, drawing on feminist political economy and by critically analyzing how neutrality at law is framed and constituted within text, that the neutrality of the fisheries and associated governance frameworks masks highly entrenched structural gender inequalities. It also obscures the crucial yet undervalued work that women do along the fisheries value chain, from processing and trading to resource management. International human rights and climate governance standards urge states to take proactive, inclusive steps that enable participation, acknowledge differential vulnerabilities and hold the state responsible for due diligence in tackling gendered impacts of environmental and climate stressors. Such an oversight constitutes a governance failure, but also a violation of basic human rights.

The paper contends that mediating between water use and protecting biodiversity in the Anthropocene demands a revolution in the way we think about water law and governance. This involves incorporating criteria of ecological integrity, gender justice and human rights into hydrologic governance systems. Sustainable water governance in Malawi and elsewhere in Africa must therefore transition from technocratic control to inclusive, gender-sensitive, ecologically rooted stewardship that reconciles human use with the conservation of aquatic life.

As the world approaches the end of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030, growing climate variability, rapid urbanization, and competing water demands from agriculture and industry have intensified pressure on shared freshwater resources. Despite numerous treaties and policy initiatives, current governance arrangements remain fragmented and often fail to address the complex interlinkages between climate change, water justice, and urban sustainability. Against this background, this paper examines how international along with regional water law, climate change law, and emerging environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks can support more equitable and sustainable freshwater management in C40 cities that depend on transboundary river systems.

The study adopts a comparative approach, focusing on five C40 cities like Dhaka, Buenos Aires, Vienna and Los Angeles which are situated within major transboundary basins. Through legal and policy analysis, supported by field research and stakeholder engagement, the paper will assess how international and regional legal frameworks, such as the UN Watercourses Convention, the Paris Agreement, and basin-specific treaties, influence local water governance and adaptation strategies. Landmark disputes, including the Indus and Colorado River cases, provide critical insight into the challenges of equitable allocation under climate stress.

The paper aims to propose a post-2030 governance model for urban freshwater management that integrates principles of equitable and reasonable use, the duty to prevent significant harm, and climate justice. By bridging international legal norms with local governance and business practices, the paper seeks to advance new pathways for cooperation between governments, cities, and the private sector.

Access to safe and clean drinking water is a human right recognised at international and various domestic levels, such as in India and South Africa. The ongoing SDG 2030, through its Goal 6, also calls upon the States to focus on this human right, emphasising equity and inclusiveness. However, the water sector worldwide hasn’t been equitable and inclusive but rather reflects several structural and socio-economic inequities in access and allocations, influenced by factors such as property rights, religion, caste, and gender. Climate change can exacerbate these inequities and concerns about water insecurity, hindering the realisation of the right to water. Unfortunately, the existing water governance patterns and the conceptual framework of water rights and the right to water, based on property rights and human rights, fail to consider this ‘climate factor’. This structural deficit can exacerbate inequities and injustices in benefits and burden sharing in the water sector, particularly issues faced by women, necessitating a re-evaluation of our current water governance. This paper, relying on the theoretical frameworks of climate justice and decoloniality, examines the intersection of climate change and water access and allocation. It shall use India as a case study to analyse climate justice aspects in the water sector and argue that it is essential to integrate indigenous knowledge, intersectional equity and ecological justice in water governance to balance development and water conservation.