Access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation is essential for human survival and for maintenance of a decent quality of life. Currently, more than a billion people do not have access to safe drinking water and more than 2 billion people lack proper sanitation. In 1992, the United Nations proclaimed that water should be considered to be a human right. This position, however, has not been accepted by many developed and developing countries. This book systematically and comprehensively analyses the legal development of the concept of water as a human right: òImplications for national governments, and international and national organisations; òProgress made on this front in different Middle East and North African countries; òObstacles to universal access to water-related services and how they can be overcome.