This paper analyzes international law regarding the human right to water for people who are stateless, displaced, and/or armed conflict zone residents in the contemporary Middle East. Cases include Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. Deficiencies in international law (humanitarian, water, human rights, criminal) are examined to demonstrate law’s challenges to guarantee water rights for vulnerable groups already dealing with ambiguous legal statuses. The roles of international justice institutions, particularly the ICC, are evaluated to assess possibilities for reparations to water access denial victims, including when water is manipulated by states, occupying powers, and non-state actors (e.g. the Islamic State). The ICC Chief Prosecutor announced a new focus on “environmental crimes” in 2016, but few developments have followed. What are the implications for the ICC examination in Palestine, or future investigations in the Middle East? Problematically, water crises induced by natural disasters, occupation, economic blockade, geopolitical conflict, and pollution are collapsed into one monolithic category of ‘global water challenges.’ The Middle East hosts devastating water crises—all poised to worsen—but existing analyses often erroneously point to physical scarcity as the sole cause, or are de-politicized, presenting water restrictions as effects without causes. The Middle East is “the most water-stressed region in the world” (Joffé 2016), and unjust water distribution will be exacerbated by climate change (e.g. in Gaza, where only 25% of people have daily access to water, resulting in a catastrophic health crisis; in Yemen in the midst of the Saudi-led coalition’s war and the ensuing cholera crisis; and water weaponization in Syria/Iraq). Analysis is framed by Hannah Arendt’s assertion that loss of citizenship in a sovereign state renders people without the “right to have rights.” Interpretations by scholars including Benhabib, Agamben, Benjamin further frame the analysis. My work builds on research by Roy, Zeitoun, Selby, Gordon, Weizman. Fieldwork in the OPT (interviews with civilians, NGOs, UNRWA staff), Geneva, and The Hague informs this research, which expands on research presented at MESA in 2017. I argue that while progress has been made for protection of the human right to water, the paper offers avenues through which this right can become increasingly enforceable. A substantial body of law exists to deal with transboudary water usage, and the Geneva Conventions address water during conflict. The paper addresses a significant lacuna, however, regarding law regulating water access/environmental destruction for people facing challenges resulting from ambiguous legal statuses, specifically for jus post bellum.