This article deals with the access and the management of international waters in the light of the principles, the strategies and the juridical mechanisms that have been crediting a new outlook for International Water Law. Within the topics taken under consideration, it is analyzed the role of the decisions made by specific institutional mechanisms over this regime evolution; the effects of the demands for protecting the environment and the promotion of sustainable development on this subject existent regulation; the consequencies of international rivers economic use from the international trade and investment law point of view; and, finnaly, the emergence of the recognition of a human right to water.