This paper stems from two research projects on access to drinking water in Reunion Island and French Guiana, which contributed to the reflections and drafting of a note carried by the Water Coalition (2022) during the Universal Periodic Review of France, conducted by the United Nations. Our paper seeks to answer the following questions: In what extent do the public drinking water services implemented in Reunion Island and French Guiana guarantee the right to water for their inhabitants?What does this implementation of the right to water imply for the cultural rights and development rights of these territories? We propose here to redefine the right to water through the discussion of two case studies: water management in Mafate (Reunion Island) and Kaw (French Guiana). We analyze the friction observed between endogenous management rules and management rules resulting from the application of the national regulatory and legal framework. Our methodological protocol is structured around a qualitative analysis based on in situ observations, semi-structured interviews and a qualification of the actors’ capacities to influence the management rules. It is based on the theoretical frameworks of the institutional analysis of the Bloomington School, the capability approach and a dialectical approach to hydro-social relations. Our results raise questions about the quantitative data on access to drinking water in the French Overseas Departments and Regions and about the effectiveness of the model of access to drinking water defined in France. They show that the realities of access to water in the overseas territories are characterized by a dual distancing dynamic.