A/71/302 responses that were taken into consideration as part of the broader analysis of States and multilateral funders, which is presented in this section and other sections below. 30. States must respect, protect and fulfil the human rights to water and sanitation in the development cooperation projects they finance, at both the national and extraterritorial levels. However, the human rights-based approach still has not been well incorporated by policymakers, sector experts or practitioners in development cooperation in the water and sanitation sector. 31. Development cooperation can have an impact on the human rights situation of a State or region in a positive or a negative way. Some civil society organizations have noted that seemingly well-intentioned programmes or projects to improve the water and sanitation services of a given city or region have at times had a negative impact on a subset of service users. In some cases the responsibili ty for the negative impact on the human rights to water and sanitation as a result of development cooperation activities can rest with both the funders and the partner State, including with respect to the affordability of services after project completion, the accountability of public authorities and contracted businesses throughout those projects, stakeholder participation, access to information and the overall sustainability of services. 32. Some projects may evoke broader human rights concerns, such as the protection of the right of individuals to freedom of expression and those of human rights defenders. For example, there have been an unfortunate number of reports of the lives of civil society stakeholders being threatened when they voiced concerns for human rights in relation to multilateral development cooperation activities. 15 Within the human rights framework, partner States are required to create an enabling environment for active and informed participation and the protection of human rights defenders. It is also important to recall that a funding State is responsible in the context of its assistance to a beneficiary State when an internationally wrongful act has been carried out by the beneficiary State if the funding State provides such cooperation with knowledge of the circumstances and if the act would have been deemed wrongful if committed by the funding State. 16 33. Another issue is that some stakeholders may consider certain human rights based approaches to represent an unnecessary diversion of funds, demonstrations of “excesses of zeal” or a restriction on the flexibility of funding entities. 17 Such concerns could be brought on by the participation by multiple stakeholders in the design phase of a programme, which may lead to lengthier processes that require a greater number of opinions to be taken into consideration. The Special Rapporteur does not fully share the preceding points of view. In agreement with the conclusions reached in an evaluation carried out by the United Nations Inter -agency Mechanism on All Freshwater-related Issues, Including Sanitation (UN-Water), the Special __________________ 15 16 17 10/24 See Human Rights Watch, “At your own risk: reprisals against critics of World Bank Group projects”, 22 June 2015, available from www.hrw.org/report/2015/06/22/your-own-risk/reprisalsagainst-critics-world-bank-group-projects. See General Assembly resolution 56/83, annex, art. 16. According to a ruling of the In ternational Court of Justice in the Bosnian genocide case (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro, judgment of 26 February 2007, para. 420), art. 16 reflects a customary rule. AquaFed: the International Federation of Private Water Operators, “AquaFed contribution on questions for the report on Development Cooperation”, 30 January 2016, available from www.aquafed.org/Public/Files/__Uploads/files/2016-01-31%20AquaFed_RTWS_DevCoop_ Heller.pdf. 16-13590