Toronto, ON – September 16, 2026 – In 2010, the United Nations declared access to clean drinking water a human right. Fifteen years later, billions of people still lack reliable access, while the water that is available is wasted, polluted, and undervalued. Water on Wall Street: Human Rights, Pricing, and Trading (University of Toronto Press, September 8, 2026, $39.95) by economist Marcel Boyer and water finance researcher Maria Kouyoumijian confronts this paradox by challenging the conventional divide between water as a human right and water as an economic resource. Treating water as only a right, they argue, has left it unmanaged; treating it only as a resource has left it unprotected.
Drawing on economics, law, policy, history, and technology, Boyer and Kouyoumijian examine the forces reshaping global water demand, from population growth and economic expansion to climate pressures and the rapid development of artificial intelligence. Data centres and advanced computing systems require substantial volumes of water for cooling, adding a growing industrial demand for freshwater at a time when accessible supplies are already under pressure. The authors offer a rare dual lens spanning water engineering and finance, at the very intersection the book argues policymakers keep treating as separate.
The book makes a case for tools that are often missing from discussions of water rights: efficient pricing, regulated water markets, and transparent institutions designed to encourage conservation while protecting equitable access. Rather than viewing markets as incompatible with the human right to water, they argue that well-designed economic mechanisms can help make that right sustainable in practice. The book examines water-trading institutions in Australia, the United Kingdom, Chile, California, and Alberta, drawing lessons from different approaches to pricing, allocation, and governance.
“We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it,” the authors write, citing former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker to capture the political paralysis at the heart of the crisis. Water on Wall Street offers the tools we have been missing—not another reason to panic.
Water on Wall Street: Human Rights, Pricing, and Trading is available for purchase at utpublishing.com and major book retailers.
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