The General Agreement on Trade in Services (Gats), Water, and Human Rights from the Perspective of Developing Countries (original) (raw)
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The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) seeks to expand international trade in a wide range of services ranging from tourism to telecommunications and education. In recent years, it has come under attack from civil society organizations in both the North and the South for having a detrimental impact on poor people's right to basic services. This article explores some of these controversies, using the example of water services. It focuses specifically on the impact of the GATS on poor people's right to water and national governments' ability to safeguard the interests of poor people through regulation. It demonstrates that, de jure, the liberalization of water-related services under the GATS may not necessarily undermine the ability of governments to introduce the kind of legislative measures necessary to realize poor people's right to water. Still, de facto, the exercise of policy autonomy might be substantially curtailed due to inherent ambiguities in treaty interpretation, the politics of process arising out of power asymmetries, a lack of transparency in processes of negotiation as well as institutional and other deficiencies in the domestic politics of WTO member states.
Water plays a central role in the life of society. However, factors such as population growth, pollution and poor allotment and distribution mechanisms place severe pressures on adequate and equitable water supply. The principle of universal and consistent access to clean water is a key part of the Millennium Development Goals and a major component of the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. Provision of water has to be efficient, sustainable, accessible and affordable for all – especially in developing countries. The water issue arises from the capacity of governments to expand water networks and maintain or improve infrastructure in order to supply water to their citizens and particularly to their most marginalised populations. In response, the discussion here contributes to the debate about whether and how water should and can be provided by governments only or with private and social sector participation. Four options are addressed, with a significant conclusion being that private sector participation in water provision necessitates rigorous public regulation to enforce standards and ensure adequate and affordable access to water resources.
The Human Right to Water: The Importance of Domestic and Productive Water Rights
The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision—known as ‘domestic-plus’ services—the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus servic...
Water rights and water markets: lessons from technical advisory assistance in Latin America
Irrigation and Drainage, 2006
Water has unique features, which distinguish it from other natural resources. These characteristics usually result in legal systems in which water belongs to the public domain, but rights granted to economic agents to use it are protected under constitutional guarantee of private property. The allocation and retention of water rights are always contingent upon putting them to a socially recognized beneficial use. For an increasingly scarce resource, new demands can only be satisfied by transferring water rights from existing uses. To deal with the problem of reallocation, countries have to decide whether to use administrative mechanisms or water markets. For the sustainable and efficient functioning of water markets, it is necessary to have an institutional and legal system that is compatible with water marketing as well as with the nature of the water resource itself. A water market without regulations to protect the resource base, third parties and the environment, and to prevent monopolization, will result in uncontrolled private appropriation of a scarce resource and problems in related markets rather than in efficient resource allocation. Source: Solanes, Miguel and Jouravlev, Andrei, ''Water rights and y Droits d'eau et marchés d'eau: leçons tirées d'une assistance technique en Amérique Latine. z Solanes, Miguel and Jouravlev, Andrei, ''Water rights and