Comparing Experiences of Constitutional Reforms to Enshrine the Right to Water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru: Opportunities and Limitations

Côrtes, Lara; Gianella, Camila; Páez, Angela M.; Vallejo Piedrahíta, Catalina

doi:10.3390/w13243519

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Comparing Experiences of Constitutional Reforms to Enshrine the Right to Water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru: Opportunities and Limitations

Lara Côrtes

¹,

Camila Gianella

^1,2

Angela M. Páez

^3,*

and

Catalina Vallejo Piedrahíta

^4,5

Centre on Law & Social Transformation (Law Transform), Chr. Michelsen Institute, N-5892 Bergen, Norway

Department of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima 15088, Peru

Department of Public Administration, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN 37203, USA

⁴

Faculty of Law, Universidad Autónoma Latinoamericana, Medellín 050015, Colombia

⁵

Faculty of Law, University of Bergen, N-5020 Bergen, Norway

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Academic Editor: Anas Ghadouani

Water 2021, 13(24), 3519; https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243519

Received: 18 October 2021 / Revised: 30 November 2021 / Accepted: 6 December 2021 / Published: 9 December 2021

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Water and Sanitation as Human Rights: Have They Strengthened Marginalized Peoples’ Claim for Access?)

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Abstract

In this paper we compare recent efforts towards the constitutionalization of the right to water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru to understand the opportunities and limitations related to the attempts to enhance access to piped water to the highest normative level. Peru passed a constitutional amendment in 2017 while Brazil and Colombia have seen much right-to-water activism but have not succeeded in passing such reforms. We explore the role of the existing domestic legal frameworks on drinkable water provision and water management towards the approval of constitutional amendments. We find that all three countries have specialized laws, water governing institutions, and constitutional jurisprudence connecting access to water with rights, but the legal opportunity structures to enforce socio-economic rights vary; they are stronger in Colombia and Brazil, and weaker in Peru. We argue that legal opportunity structures build legal environments that influence constitutional reform success. Legal opportunity structures act as incentives both for social movements to push for reforms and for actors with legislative power to accept or reject them. Our findings also show that in some contexts political cost is a key element of constitutional reforms that enshrine the right to water; therefore, this is an element that should be considered when analyzing these processes. View Full-Text

Keywords: right to water; constitutional reform; legal opportunity structure; water legal framework; socioeconomic rights; Brazil; Peru; Colombia; social movements; political cost

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

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MDPI and ACS Style

Côrtes, L.; Gianella, C.; Páez, A.M.; Vallejo Piedrahíta, C. Comparing Experiences of Constitutional Reforms to Enshrine the Right to Water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru: Opportunities and Limitations. Water 2021, 13, 3519. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243519

AMA Style

Côrtes L, Gianella C, Páez AM, Vallejo Piedrahíta C. Comparing Experiences of Constitutional Reforms to Enshrine the Right to Water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru: Opportunities and Limitations. Water. 2021; 13(24):3519. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243519

Chicago/Turabian Style

Côrtes, Lara, Camila Gianella, Angela M. Páez, and Catalina Vallejo Piedrahíta. 2021. "Comparing Experiences of Constitutional Reforms to Enshrine the Right to Water in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru: Opportunities and Limitations" Water 13, no. 24: 3519. https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243519

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