Environmental Rights and Municipal Accountability: Water Supply and Sanitation in South Africa

This legal review looks at strategic interventions for upholding the constitutional rights to water and sanitation and a better use of the law in improving the delivery of water services. Of course, use of law is not the only way of reaching such goals. The review therefore also looks at interventions that use public participation and social mobilisation to ensure that communities are actively involved in asserting their rights inside and outside the legal environment.The use of the law however when properly used, enables poor and marginalised communities to achieve impact and success where other efforts have failed. This requires a closer look at available legal interventions and a strategic analysis of how these interventions can have the greatest possible impact on the delivery of water services.