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In recent years, the Chinese government has made huge efforts with the objective of finding a solution for the growing water problem. Indeed, the state has invested huge amounts of money into projects aiming at the protection and the good management of freshwater resources in the light of the increasing water scarcity, especially in the context of climate change. A such, one must as a first step acknowledge the big changes that took place as a result of the efforts made by the government in the last decade and which have affected positively the lives of millions of Chinese citizens that lacked access to fresh water in general. Yet, even if the Chinese government has heavily invested in this sector, still there is a lot of work to be done. Chinese people are still in need of access to water supplies for several reasons: mainly the absence of a proper infrastructure and the pollution of water resources. But to be fair, one can understand the reasons for which the Chinese government was unable to satisfy the needs of all its citizens in terms of fresh water as the transformation of the Chinese economy from agriculture to industry-based has led to rapid urbanization. In this context, the Chinese government was not equipped for dealing with the sudden changes that took place. Indeed, the government was not capable of making huge and immediate investments in water infrastructures in the growing cities and in the same time, the migration from the rural areas to the cities have made the government to also invest in water infrastructure in the rural areas. In the chapter “China and the Recognition and Protection of the Human Right to Water,” the author Roberto Soprano examined this matter while trying to emphasis on the huge advancements that were made in recent years by the Chinese government in order to guarantee the access to water to the Chinese citizens. In this regard, it is important to mention the big steps that was taken by the Chinese government towards guarantying the right to water to all the Chinese citizens by voting for the adoption of the right to water and which was eventually adopted in 2010 through a United Nations (UN) resolution and constituted a new milestone for the international community specially since the right to water was not mentioned expressly in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) when the latter was adopted. As such, by approving the UN resolution, China has officially acknowledged that its citizens have the right to water and that the government has the obligation of providing the latter source. The Chinese government has taken enormous steps in recent years towards the realization of the right to water.
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