Water 2020, 12, 340 11 of 28 of what is flawed in current treaties within international water and humanitarian law? What precedents do international justice offer for alternatives to the current landscape of international law when it comes to water access for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations? 3.5. Political Impacts of Non-Binding Opinions The 2004 ICJ Advisory Opinion on the West Bank separation wall is non-binding. (Note that ICJ Advisory Opinions are legal recommendations, generally non-binding, provided by the ICJ to the UN or a specialized agency.) Iain Scobbie notes, It is perhaps not surprising that the . . . Opinion gave no tangible guidance regarding the material steps that should be taken by the [UN]—or indeed by states—to discharge their responsibilities . . . the Court is loathe to dictate courses of conduct to litigant states when the methods of compliance with its rulings are essentially at the parties’ discretion. [65] Ultimately, Israel proceeded with completion of the separation wall. The Opinion has contributed to the Palestinians’ quest for legal legitimacy, however, and paved the way for Palestine’s 2015 accession to the Rome Statute. Though non-binding, Ardi Imseis notes that the Opinion made clear that “the construction of the wall . . . violates . . . international law and that violation is not vitiated by the law of self-defense or necessity” [66]. Restricted water access was repeatedly cited as illegal—the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories occupied by Israel since 1967 stated, “Much of the Palestinian land on the Israeli side of the Wall consists of fertile agricultural land and some of the most important water wells in the region”. Other concerns included that the wall will “effectively annex most of the western aquifer system (which provides 51 percent of the West Bank’s water resources) . . . With the fence/wall cutting communities off from their land and water without other means of subsistence, many . . . Palestinians . . . will be forced to leave” [67]. The ICESCR and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) were both cited as legal bases for the Court’s Opinion on the wall’s illegality—both documents include an implicit recognition of the human right to water. The UN classification of widespread water disconnections in the United States (US) city of Detroit in 2014 as a “violation of the human right to water and other international human rights” [68] drew on UNGA Resolution 64/292. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a statement declaring the actions of Detroit’s government illegal—placing political pressure on the city to cease illegal activities—but did not have any direct power to force an end to illegal activity. On Detroit, Albuquerque noted, “Disconnections due to non-payment are only permissible if it can be shown that the resident is able to pay but is not paying. In other words, when there is genuine inability to pay, human rights simply forbids disconnections” [68]. Both cases involved the illegality of barriers to water (in the former case, physical, and in the latter, economic) recognised by the UN, but the UN’s influence did not consistently lift the barriers. A promising possibility is for violations of the right to water to be “house[d]” [26] within the context of international criminal law. The history of international criminal tribunals offers numerous precedents for the successful prosecution of war criminals, including the ICTY, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The UNWC “emphasise[s] mediation” and views referral to the ICJ or ad-hoc tribunals only as a “last resort” [8]. ICJ cases have not sufficiently addressed water rights for stateless people. International criminal law is a comparatively under-studied area regarding water, deserving of analysis. 4. The Human Right to Water and International Criminal Law Criminal tribunals have long been subject to debate regarding limitations when prosecuting individuals for what may be more accurately understood as collective crimes [69]. Gerry Simpson writes that this debate can be connected to concerns about the “performative” nature of criminal