Declaring water a human right is easy. But to actually secure that right, the best method—surprisingly—is bureaucratic sleights of hand.

Andrea Muehlebach
Andrea Muehlebach is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Toronto. Author of The Moral Neoliberal: Welfare and Citizenship in Italy (University of Chicago Press, 2012), she is currently completing a book manuscript on protests against the financialization of public water infrastructures in Europe.