A/68/264 76. A range of accountability mechanisms can be used, not limited to the formal court system. Quasi-judicial and administrative mechanisms (including regulators) can play an important role in ensuring accountability by monitoring compliance with rights, reporting violations, and receiving complaints. Service providers should also establish grievance mechanisms or platforms to discuss user satisfaction so as to respond to complaints and concerns. The same holds true for companies whose water use has potential impacts on communities. 77. In some instances, applicants have successfully used litigation, before both national courts and international bodies. A community in Córdoba, Argentina, was affected by an overstretched sewage treatment plant that allowed raw sewage to flow into the local river. The court ordered the city both to provide the community with alternate sources of water in the short term and to reduce the contamination of the river. 48 A court in South Africa decided that a mining company was obliged to continue dealing with acid mine drainage and bear the costs for remediation even after it had sold the mine. 49 The European Committee on Social Rights found Greece in violation of the right to health owing to the country’s failure to implement measures and enforce regulations to reduce the harmful impact of industrial pollution in the River Asopos. 50 The Colombian Constitutional Court ordered a pig farm that caused pollution to stop operations based on the applicants’ right to health. 51 3. Improving the data situation 78. Reliable and adequate data provides the basis for planning, monitoring and accountability. However, water quality is not sufficiently tested and monitored (see report on mission to Bangladesh (A/HRC/15/55, para. 68); and report on mission to Slovenia (A/HRC/18/33/Add.2, paras. 63 and 64)). Even where data is collected, it is not always made available (see A/HRC/15/31/Add.3, para. 36). 79. Figures on wastewater treatment are difficult to interpret, as statistics often measure only the percentage of collected wastewater that is treated, leaving aside wastewater and resulting pollution that are not collected in networks, as well as large volumes of groundwater that users extract in a private manner which then contributes to wastewater production. Systematic monitoring of small wastewater treatment systems, including cesspools and septic tanks is challenging (see A/HRC/18/33/Add.2, para. 21). Moreover, wastewater from diffuse sources is almost impossible to quantify and monitor. 80. However, efforts are under way to improve monitoring of water quality in various countries (see report on mission to Senegal (A/HRC/21/42/Add.1, para. 64)), including groundwater monitoring (see A/HRC/18/33/Add.2, para. 9; and A/HRC/24/44/Add.3, para. 42). In addition, the Joint Monitoring Programme also seeks to improve water quality monitoring at the global level. __________________ 48 49 50 51 20/23 Yamile Najle, “Human rights to water and sanitation in courts”. Prepared for consultation with civil society organizations on good practices, Geneva, September 2010. Harmony Gold Mining Company Ltd v. Regional Director: Free State Department of Water Affairs and Others (68161/2008) [2012] ZAGPPHC 127 (29 June 2012), para. 39. European Committee on Social Rights, International Federation for Human Rights v. Greece, Complaint No. 72/2011, 23 January 2013, paras. 149-154. María de Jesús Medina Pérez and others v. Alvaro Vásquez, Seventh Chamber of Review of the Constitutional Court, Case No. T-34561, 22 November 1994. 13-41825