universally acknowledged, that water is the vital element for all human beings. Consider, for instance, that water accounts for about 75 per cent of a newborn’s body and 60 per cent of an adult’s, while in the foetus the proportion rises to nearly 90 per cent. Around 73 per cent of the heart is water, 83 per cent of the lungs, 64 per cent of the skin, 79 per cent of the muscles and kidneys, and even the bones are 31 per cent water. Blood plasma is composed of almost 90 per cent water. Water, moreover, is involved in a range of vital functions for our lives, as it enables the transport of nutrients, the regulation of energy balance, detoxification, the control of body temperature and the maintenance of fluid equilibrium. If such an archaeological perspective on water yields a historical, empirical and scientific result of this magnitude, it follows that the importance, indeed the urgency, of a careful juridical and political regulation must derive first of all from the ontological recognition that water belongs to the empyrean of the ultimate Things. These are the Things, to use the language à la manière of the illustrious Philosopher, that give direction to every Commencement and are thus destined Things, which, by virtue of their telos, are nothing other than the Beginning itself. Not, however, as the mere starting point of an indifferent range of possibilities, but as the very Infinity of the Thing in its inalienable and timeless singularity.8 II. HYDRO-POLITICAL-LEGAL TOPOLOGY For a long time, scholars from a wide range of disciplines have turned their attention to the question of how to situate the right to water within a systematic legal framework, considered, as it were, from an institutional-topological perspective.9 In different terms, the debate has long centred, particularly in Italy but also in other European countries, on whether classificatory spaces exist that can accommodate new social or civil rights, among which the right to water undoubtedly holds a place of primary importance. confirms groundwater depletion as a significant contributor to global sea level rise 1993-2010, in Geophysical Research Letters, 50, 2023. 8 Here I engage with the dense pages of M. Cacciari, Della Cosa ultima, Milano, 2004. 9 The best research has delivered us some truly remarkable contributions in recent years. Among the many it is worth mentioning here at least the following: A. D’Aloia, M. Acevedo-Mino (edited by), Costituzione e diritto all’acqua. Esperienze in America Latina, Napoli, 2016; S. Staiano (edited by), Acqua. Bene pubblico e risorsa non riproducibile, fattore di sviluppo, Napoli, 2018; M. Andreis (edited by), Acqua, servizio pubblico e partecipazione, Torino, 2015; E. Balboni, S. Vaccari (edited by), Acqua, cit. 431 WATER GOVERNANCE AND RIGHT TO FOOD
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