ABSTRACT
Many essential public services (EPSs) are provided by private businesses rather than the public sector. This may be for several reasons. It could be that the State has never been involved in the provision of a service, but it is still considered essential. Alternatively, a State may delegate provision because it feels that it has inadequate resources to provide the service on its own, because it may be cheaper than providing the service itself, and/or because the expertise of private companies within a particular sector is of a kind that public entities do not possess.1 Regardless, private actor involvement in EPS raises several important questions of international human rights protection, since many public services correspond very strongly to particular internationally protected human rights (examples being the right to water and housing).
