Water 2020, 12, 340 10 of 28 right to water appears to facilitate “de-development”, a concept pioneered by Sara Roy. Roy defines de-development as the following: [T]he deliberate, systematic deconstruction of an indigenous economy by a dominant power. It is qualitatively different from underdevelopment, which by contrast allows for some form, albeit distorted, of economic development. De-development is an economic policy designed to ensure that there will be no economic base, even one that is malformed, to support an independent indigenous existence. [59] De-development is compelling when applied to numerous cases involving manipulation of water resources either by design or as a consequence of conflict, such as IS’s systematic destruction of water infrastructure in Iraq and Syria and in cases in which force is deployed by outside powers as part of the stated aim of defeating terrorists, which consequentially leads to de-development. This latter description may apply to the Saudi-led coalition’s use of force in Yemen—force that is ostensibly targeting Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Houthi rebels but consequentially has a de-developing impact on the civilian population. A key—perhaps most critical—component of this de-development in Yemen is lack of safe access to water, which has overwhelmingly been the most significant factor leading to the devastating cholera crisis—over 1.2 million cases and over 2500 deaths from the waterborne disease as of December 2018 [60]. It appears that Yemen, experiencing “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” [16,61], is a weakened state [62] en route to lacking an “economic base, even one that is malformed” [59]. The concept of water restriction for de-development begs the question: If international agreements have questionable track records for facilitating development and ameliorating conflict—even when the agreements in question are designed to be binding and maximally enforceable—is it problematic to assert that an expansion or revision of existing international water law could address pressing conflicts centred on lack of water access? The next section addresses this counter-argument, demonstrating that while international law certainly has a mixed track record when it comes to enforcing respect for human rights and carrying out punishments for those who violate these rights with impunity, there are successful models that can serve as partial templates for how an independent, enforceable human right to water could be developed and why the absence of enforceability actively contributes to denial of water access for vulnerable groups, including the stateless, displaced, and inhabitants of armed conflict zones. 3.4. Law’s Triumphs and Types of Documents That Could “House” an Enforceable Human Right to Water As demonstrated, the human right to water is on shoddy legal ground and lacks a permanent legal “home” [26]. A lack of “precise norms for actually guaranteeing” this right [63] contributes to the weakness of laws and agreements addressing water access during international conflict—the UNWC, and Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. This section comparatively examines historical examples in which international interventions—ranging from a non-binding International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion and non-enforceable opinions of UN Special Rapporteurs to formal, binding convictions handed down by international courts and tribunals—have attempted with both successes and failures to ameliorate international conflicts. Deliberately, not all examples explicitly address water, allowing for analysis of how the right to water functions as one of many in a body of human rights. Legal cases involving the human right to water in a humanitarian context are limited—the majority of case law regarding water at the ICJ and Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) addressed territorial disputes. Hersch Lauterpacht famously stated, “If international law is, in some ways, at the vanishing point of law, the law of war is, perhaps even more conspicuously, at the vanishing point of international law” [64]. Much has changed since Lauterpacht’s tenure as an ICJ judge in the 1950s. However, his point about “vanishing” international law still resonates. What can be gleaned from these prominent examples from the international justice sphere—how can analysis of these examples inform a sound examination