F E S Private Sector Participation in Water Services Provision PHILIPP TURRI Introductory remarks 1 Well over a third of the world’s population today lack sanitation and more than one bil ‐ lion people has no access to safe water. From a normative human rights(HR) approach, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in its General Comment No. 15(GC 15), derives a possible right to water from Ar ‐ ticle 11 of the International Covenant on Eco ‐ nomic, Social and Cultural Rights, mentioning the“right to an adequate standard of living ‘including adequate food, clothing and hous ‐ ing’.” Also, the International Bill of Human Rights which postulates the right to life and human dignity might be cited in this context. As States as the primary duty ‐ bearers have apparently failed in too many cases to pro ‐ mote and facilitate people’s access to this ba ‐ 1 Some arguments and ideas depicted in this paper have been inspired by a conference held by the FES on the subject in February 2010 in Geneva. However, they have been taken out of their origi ‐ nal context and may not represent their authors’ views in the way they are used here. sic human right, the question arises to what extent the private sector(PS) can fill this va ‐ cuum. All around the world countless models of ser ‐ vice provision have been established and tested, ranging from partly integrating small independent providers(SIPs) into the national system to corporatizing the national network provider to fully privatizing water and sanita ‐ tion services. States have experienced success as well as failure in doing so, regardless of their geographic, political, and economic situ ‐ ation or the supply model they chose. There ‐ fore, a central premise to mention here is that from a HR perspective there is no specific model of service provision to be favored and that in any case providing a legal framework or regulation mechanisms remain State re ‐ sponsibilities. The challenge in this context is weighing the benefits and risks of private sector participa ‐ tion(PSP); a non ‐ exhaustive set of major is ‐ sues includes the decision ‐ making and con ‐ tract ‐ negotiating processes; the problems of