Taking Stock of the Human Right to Water (original) (raw)
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The Human Right to Water: Moving Towards Consensus in a Fragmented World
Review of European Community …, 2010
The problem of unmet water and sanitation service needs of one-sixth to one-third of humanity has been recognized by the UN General Assembly's 2010 Resolution on the human right to water and sanitation. However, this raises a number of questions. First, does the consensus within the General Assembly imply that all governance actors accept the right and the accompanying responsibilities and does it override other governance discourses dominant in the global arena? Second, why is a human rights discourse superior to other discourses used to address the above problem? Third, what are the challenges in implementing such a discourse and what are the potential solutions? This article argues that although there is growing consensus on the human right to water, the fragmentation of water governance implies that the impact of the consensus is limited. It argues further that there is a real and pressing need to discuss access issues in terms of human rights; but that given the implementation challenges, there is a more active need to move from public-private partnerships to public-nongovernmental organization partnerships.
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Families in Flint, Michigan, protesting lead in their water, indigenous groups in the Amazon asserting control over their rivers, slum dwellers in India worried about disconnection or demanding cities bring potable water to their neighborhoods, an entire city in South Africa worried about the day when they will run out of water altogether—all these and many more have claimed the human right to water as the vehicle to express their demands. Where does this right come from, and how is its meaning constructed? In this article, we show that, in sociolegal terms, the global right to water, as are many others, is constructed out of the myriad struggles and claims of people who feel the lack of something that is essential to a dignified existence, and who cannot obtain an adequate response from their immediate political and legal environment. They do so in loose conversation with, but relatively unconstrained by, the meanings that are being constructed by the international and domestic leg...
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Water history reveals millennia-old struggles over the ownership of water, the pollution and depletion of water sources, and conflicting water uses. What is new is the scale of these problems, particularly access to water for the poorest of the poor. This paper discusses the various conceptual responses to the water problématique, including the commodity, public and social approaches. The human rights aspects of the latter are analysed in some detail in light of the recent General Comment on the Right to Water by a United Nations body. The paper argues that countries have international legal obligations, to respect, protect and fulfil this right without discrimination, that carry clear implications for policy and practice. While the report does not argue that this human right requires the complete decommodification of water or that it provides a 'magic bullet' solution, it seeks to show the benefits of a human rights approach and provides some suggestions for implementing the right at the local, national and international levels.
Global Issues in Water Policy, 2016
The UN recognition of a human right to water for drinking, personal and other domestic uses and sanitation in 2010 was a political breakthrough in states' commitments to adopt a human rights framework in carrying out part of their mandate. This chapter explores other domains of freshwater governance in which human rights frameworks provide a robust and widely accepted set of normative values to such governance. The basis is General Comment No. 15 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in 2002, which states that water is needed to realise a range of indivisible human rights to non-starvation, food, health, work and an adequate standard of living and also procedural rights to participation and information in water interventions. On that basis, the chapter explores concrete implications of the Comment for states' broader infrastructure-based water services
Translating the Human Right to Water and Sanitation into Public Policy Reform
The development of a human right to water and sanitation under international law has created an imperative to implement human rights in water and sanitation policy. Through forty-three interviews with informants in international institutions, national governments, and non-governmental organizations, this research examines interpretations of this new human right in global governance, national policy, and local practice. Exploring obstacles to the implementation of rights-based water and sanitation policy, the authors analyze the limitations of translating international human rights into local water and sanitation practice, concluding that system operators, utilities, and management boards remain largely unaffected by the changing public policy landscape for human rights realization. To understand the relevance of human rights standards to water and sanitation
Human Right to Water: Contemporary Challenges and Contours of a Global Debate. Antipode.
In recent years, significant debate has taken place around the concept of the ‘human right to water’. In this paper, we seek to respond to recent critiques and clarify the terms of the debate by presenting an in-depth exploration of the human right to water. We analyze its legal sources, both nationally and internationally, spell out its major implications, and present some examples of how it has been deployed in various contexts across the world to further the cause of access to water for vulnerable populations. We conclude that, rather than abandoning the concept, as critics have suggested, the human right to water maintains importance as a discourse and strategy in the contemporary moment.
Implementing an evolving human right through water and sanitation policy
Water Policy, 2013
With water and sanitation vital to the public's health, there have been growing calls to accept water and sanitation as a human right and establish a rights-based framework for water policy. Through the development of international law, policymakers have increasingly specified water and sanitation as independent human rights. In this political development of human rights for water and sanitation, the authors find that the evolution of rights-based water and sanitation policy reached a milestone in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly's 2010 Resolution on the Human Right to Water and Sanitation. By memorializing international political recognition of these interconnected rights and the corresponding obligations of national governments, states provided a normative framework for expanded efforts to realize human rights through water and sanitation policy. Examining the opportunities created by this UN Resolution, this article analyzes the implementation of the human right to water and sanitation through global water governance, national water policy and water and sanitation outcomes. While obstacles remain in the implementation of this right, the authors conclude that the UN Resolution could have lasting benefits for public health. means of realizing improved public health through rights-based water and sanitation policy. In examining the development of human rights to address the public health implications of water and sanitation, this article describes the role of human rights as a normative framework for public policy, assesses the evolution of a human right to water under international law and describes the 2010 UN Resolution that now shapes a distinct human right to water and sanitation. From the seminal role of the UN Resolution, the authors analyze the prospects for implementation of this Resolution through global water governance, national water policy, and water and sanitation outcomes. Recognizing that obstacles remain at each step of implementation, the authors outline research needed to examine the process by which human rights impact water and sanitation. With increased human rights specificity facilitating human rights accountability, this article concludes that there are now enhanced opportunities for rights-based water and sanitation policy, but that additional research will be necessary to overcome obstacles in translating human rights into improvements in the public's health.