WATER ON TAP

Introduction: The field of global water policy: struggles over redistribution and recognition 1

0.1 The global water policy field 4

0.1.1 Transnational institutions 5

0.1.2 Private sector participation: the wax and wane of multinational corporations 7

0.1.3 International financial institutions and regulatory frameworks 9

0.1.4 Transnational advocacy networks and the trajectory of the human right to water 10

0.2 Research questions, approach and context 12

0.3 Summary of chapters 17

1 Rights, regulation and disputing: a conflict-centred approach to transnational governance 22

1.1 Introduction 22

1.2 Rights and regulation 24

1.2.1 Shifting politics of rights and regulation 24

1.2.2 Decentred transnational legality 27

1.2.3 Combining two triads 28

1.3 Competition for the rules 31

1.3.1 Managed liberalisation 33

1.3.2 Public participatory governance 39

1.3.3 Moving away from nested governance: feedback loops and hybridity 44

2 Managed liberalisation and the dual face of French water services provision 49

2.1 Introduction 49

2.2 The story of water in Grenoble 52

2.3 Regulation 54

2.3.1 Regulation: the internal face of the French model 54

2.3.2 Regulation: the external face of the French model 63

2.4 Rights 72

2.4.1 Rights: the internal face of the French model 72

2.4.2 Rights: the external face of the French model 78

2.5 Conclusion 81

3 'Another world is possible': Bolivia and the emergence of a participatory public provision model for access to urban water services 85

3.1 Introduction 85

3.2 The Cochabamba dispute 88

3.3 A clash of models 89

3.3.1 The public participatory model 89

3.3.2 Managed liberalisation in Bolivia 93

3.4 Micro-level outcomes of the public participatory model 98

3.4.1 Social control of SEMAPA: the Achilles heel of the public participatory model? 99

3.4.2 Legislative drafting and the transformation of Law 2029 by Laws 2066/2084 102

3.4.3 The managed liberalisation model persists: regulatory gaps, international arbitration and the 'GTZ model' 105

3.5 Macro-level outcomes 111

3.5.1 Human right to water 112

3.5.2 Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Latin America (ALBA) 114

4 Regulatory arbitrage and popcorn politics: contrasting disputing pathways in Argentina and Chile 118

4.1 Introduction 118

4.2 Regulatory agencies in comparative contrast: Chile and Argentina 120

4.2.1 Structure and genesis 120

4.2.2 Consumers, rights and activists compared 125

4.3 Two disputing pathways 126

4.3.1 Argentina: background 126

4.3.2 Chile: background 128

4.3.3 Regulatory arbitrage in Chile 130

4.3.4 Popcorn politics in Argentina 133

4.4 Transnational dimensions 138

4.4.1 Argentina 138

4.4.2 Chile 139

4.5 Conclusion 140

4.5.1 Chile 140

4.5.2 Argentina 141

5 Moonlight plumbers in comparative perspective: electoral v.constitutional politics of access to water in South Africa and New Zealand 146

5.1 Introduction 146

5.2 Two stories 148

5.3 Regulation in South Africa and New Zealand 151

5.3.1 Autonomous localism in New Zealand 151

5.3.2 Tensions in South Africa 152

5.4 Rights in South Africa and New Zealand 155

5.4.1 Direct action 155

5.4.2 Socio-economic rights 159

5.4.3 Civil and political rights 163

5.5 Rendering justiciability operable 165

5.5.1 Electoral politics 167

5.5.2 Constitutional politics 168

5.6 Conclusion 170

6 Law's work: legality and identity in transnational spaces 172

6.1 Introduction 172

6.2 Supporting and securing market relations 174

6.2.1 International investor arbitration 175

6.2.2 Transnational identities 181

6.3 Keeping political space open 183

6.3.1 Uncivil disobedience 184

6.3.2 Patchwork legality 187

6.3.3 Rendering justiciability 188

6.3.4 Transnational identities 192

6.4 Law as (ambiguously) constitutive of partnership 194

6.4.1 Community-based approaches 195

6.4.2 Social enterprise approaches 196

6.4.3 Law, community and partnership 197

Epilogue 201

References 204

Index 215