A/HRC/10/6 page 6 rights dimensions of this matter for the international community. As mentioned above, the High Commissioner has suggested that it is time “to consider access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right”.7 15. In 2002, five years before the High Commissioner’s study was conducted, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued general comment No. 15 (2002) on the right to water (arts. 11 and 12 of the Covenant), which is defined therein as “the right of everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses”.8 According to the Committee, the right to water is consecrated in article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights “implicitly”, since that provision uses an open formulation as it guarantees the “right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions”.9 The word “including” would mean, according to the Committee, that the catalogue of rights contained in article 11 was not intended to be exhaustive. To justify this assertion, the Committee remarks that “the right to water clearly falls within the category of guarantees essential for securing an adequate standard of living, particularly since it is one of the most fundamental conditions for survival”.10 16. Other binding international human rights instruments refer to access to safe drinking water and sanitation explicitly, as for example the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and International Labour Organization Convention (ILO) No. 161 (1985) concerning 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. International humanitarian law, particularly the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, also refers to the obligation to provide drinking water for prisoners of war and internees. Moreover, in Additional Protocols I and II to the Geneva Conventions it is prohibited, both in international and non-international armed conflict, “to attack, destroy, remove or render useless for that purpose, objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as … drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works”.11 7 See footnote 1 above. 8 Para. 2. 9 Art. 11, para. 1. 10 General comment No. 15 (2002) on the right to water (arts. 11 and 12 of the Covenant), para. 3. 11 Additional Protocol I, art. 54, para. 2, Additional Protocol II, art. 14. Para. 3 of art. 54 of Protocol I entails some exceptions to the said rule.