ABSTRACT
The emerging climate disruption will change precipitation patterns around the world (IPCC/TEAP 2007). The changes will have far reaching effects on innumerable aspects of the lives of humans and other living things (UNECE 2009; Roy et al. 2010; Wilcove 2008). The resulting challenges to water management institutions and to water law regimes occur in a world in which those systems are already under stress because of growing populations and growing per capita demand (Dellapenna 2010). The resulting stresses, moreover, arise in a world dominated by the “Washington consensus.” Pro-market dogmas – the view that markets are the best way to manage resources and the economy and should be used both to allocate resources and to distribute wealth within society (Stiglitz 2002) – formed the “Washington consensus” embraced by the US Treasury Department, the World Bank group, and the International Monetary Fund. From the 1980s onward, the three institutions promoted market systems for water, including privatizing water utilities, treating water as a commodity, and relying on markets as the primary management tool (Dellapenna 2008; Dinar 2000). The resulting controversy raises serious questions about the utility of markets as a tool for addressing the growing global water crisis or for managing water generally. This section considers whether markets can work for water resources, drawing upon legal and economic theory, on the actual effects of the privatization of water utilities, and the consequences of treating water simply as a commodity.
