Julie Aubriot: Activist uses of the right to water in South Africa: from the Gcin’Amanzi project to the Mazibuko case

At the end of apartheid in 1994, hopes for political, economic and social renewal began to emerge in South Africa. Among the new ANC government’s priorities were reducing inequalities and ensuring universal access to basic services. Realising the right to water, as enshrined in the new Constitution, thus became one of its key priorities. The City of Johannesburg, which had been engaged since the late 1990s in a process of reforming its water policy, launched the Gcin’amanzi (OGA) project in 2003 in its largest township: Soweto. From the outset, it was the subject of much controversy and led, in 2006, to a court case:

‘the Mazibuko case’. Spurred on by activist groups and with the support of a human rights organisation and a renowned constitutional lawyer, five residents of Soweto are challenging two aspects of the OGA project: the installation of prepayment meters, and the free water policy, the volume of which is deemed insufficient.

This thesis aims to trace the history of this ‘case’ and to examine the impact of the militant use of the law by a group of disadvantaged city dwellers on municipal water policy. Furthermore, this work examines the potential effects of the right to water and helps to understand the effectiveness of the justiciability of the right to water and, more generally, of social rights.