A/HRC/6/3 page 5 I. THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK A. Introduction 4. The mandate entrusted to OHCHR by the Human Rights Council limits the sources of international law the study may address to international human rights instruments. These are understood as including international and regional treaties, as well as human rights-related declarations, resolutions, principles and guidelines. While these instruments do not have the same binding force as treaties, they may contain elements that already impose or may come to impose obligations on States under customary international law. They also highlight social expectations and commitments expressed by States and provide useful guidance for interpreting States’ obligations under human rights treaties. International plans of action and documents adopted by United Nations treaty bodies will be used as sources of interpretations for these instruments. Other bodies of international law, such as international watercourse law, will not form part of the study. Although falling outside the sources outlined by Human Rights Council decision 2/104, the study will address the intersection between humanitarian and environmental treaties and human rights instruments and refer to these two other bodies of international law insofar as they help clarify the scope and content of human rights obligations in relation to access to safe drinking water and sanitation.3 B. Instruments referring to safe drinking water and sanitation 5. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation are referred to in a range of instruments which can be grouped as follows: (a) Explicit reference in human rights treaties: explicit references to safe drinking water or sanitation are included in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the recently adopted Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 161 of 1985 on Occupational Health Services. At the regional level, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa include specific provisions on access to water. Annex I provides further details on these treaties and the obligations they entail. (b) Implicit reference in human rights treaties: the close connection between access to safe drinking water and sanitation and a range of other human rights is implicitly addressed in various treaties, notably in relation to the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to health, the right to education, the right to adequate housing, the right to food and the right to an adequate standard of living. 3 For the relationship between human rights and humanitarian law, see Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, International Court of Justice, Reports 2004, p. 136, available at: http://www.icjcij.org/docket/files/131/1671.pdf .