General Assembly declares access to clean water and sanitation is a human right

Posted on July 28, 2010 by dietvorst| 1 Comment

After more than 15 years of contentious debate on the issue, the United Nations General Assembly has passed a historical resolution (64/L.63/Rev.1) declaring “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”.

In the non-binding text, the 192-member Assembly also called on UN Member States and international organizations to offer funding, technology and other resources to help poorer countries scale up their efforts to provide clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all. This clause appeared to put the onus of rectifying the situation on rich countries, a Reuters report suggested.

Bolivian initiative

The resolution, which was submitted by Bolivia and co-sponsored by 35 other developing countries, passed overwhelmingly with 124 states voting in favour and 42 abstaining. No countries voted against the resolution. According to the Earth Times, “the decision has no legal standing, but inclusion in the UN’s declaration on human rights is seen as an important political step for the issue”.

Ambassador Pablo Solon of Bolivia, representing a country that spearheaded the resolution, said human rights were not born as fully developed concepts, but are built on reality and experience.

The human rights to education and work, included in the UDHR [Universal Declaration of Human Rights], evolved over time with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

“The same will occur with the human right to water and sanitation,” he predicted in a statement to the General Assembly Wednesday.

Abstainers

The abstainers to the vote on the resolution were mainly developed countries, although European Union members Belgium, Germany and Spain voted for the measure, as did China, Russia and Brazil.

Developed countries that abstained included the United States, the UK, Australia, Austria, Canada, Greece, Sweden, Japan, Israel, South Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Ireland. Anil Naidoo of the Council of Canadians accused the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board (UNSGAB) of having sent a “very damaging letter to the President of the General Assembly, in an obvious attempt to derail the resolution”.

Several developing nations, mostly from Africa, also abstained on the vote, siding with rich industrial countries. These included Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Lesotho, Zambia, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago.

According to The Lancet:

Some delegates felt the decision to hold the vote was pre-emptive, and all countries could have reached consensus—and thereby avoided the need for a vote—if more time was allowed to interpret legal outcomes of the move for public and private suppliers. Most delegates who abstained, and some who endorsed the resolution, were anticipating a report to be published later this year by an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). The Brazilian delegate, who voted yes, decried the absence of an “appropriate forum” to debate the resolution, and the UK’s delegate, who abstained, said that the resolution was not proposed “with consensus in mind”. Nevertheless, the justifications given by the 41 countries that abstained, including the USA, Japan, and Canada, were not convincing.

Commenting on the USA’ s abstention, Pacific Institute’s Co-founder and President Peter Gleick wrote:

The United States, which has typically been a world leader on protecting and enhancing political human rights, has always had a flawed position on “economic and social” human rights, including the human right to water – a position characterized by bad logic and a narrow and inconsistent interpretation of human rights law.

[...]

This latest declaration is not the end of the debate. There is still an ongoing discussion about the nature of the human right to water underway at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. But the endless bureaucratic shuffling of this topic from one council to another; from one committee to another; must stop. After nearly two decades of debate, these games should be seen for what they are: delaying tactics rather than clarifying activities. And the U.S. must get its UN representatives to actually read, and interpret, economic and social rights laws in a way that permits such an obvious human right to be clearly acknowledged, indeed, even embraced, as a tool to help address gross and inexcusable failures to meet basic needs for safe water and sanitation around the world.

Victory for Water Justice Movement

The Council of Canadians called the resolution “a major victory” for the “global water justice movement”.

“This resolution has the overwhelming support of a strong majority of countries, despite a handful of powerful opponents. It must now be followed-up with a renewed push for water justice,” says Anil Naidoo, Blue Planet Project organizer. “We are calling for actions on the ground in communities around the world to ensure that the rights to water and sanitation are implemented.

Banner on the web site of Food and Watch, US-based advocacy group campaigning for the right to water

Water activist and national chair of the Council of Canadians Maude Barlow (pictured above) wrote:

This vote marked a historic landmark in the fight for water justice in several ways. Countries representing 5.4 billion people – the vast majority of the population on Earth – voted in favour of the human right to water and sanitation. The language of the resolution itself set the gold standard for all future deliberations on the right to water. While a resolution is not binding, it does nevertheless demonstrate the intent of the General Assembly, and when the time comes for a more binding declaration or convention, the clear and unequivocal wording of this resolution will serve as the template.

Finally, it was important because there was a clear split in the powerful countries of the global North. Many broke with the naysayers and voted for the resolution, including Germany, Spain and France. Most emerging powerhouse countries, including China, India, Russia and Brazil, also voted in favour. This demonstrates a global shift in influence away from the once-dominant Anglo powers and their model of development.

Washington-based advocacy group Food & Water Watch, also backed what it called a landmark resolution.

“It’s time to reach consensus that the world’s poor deserve recognition of this human right without further delay or equivocation,” it said in a statement that accused the United States of “obstructing recognition of the human right to water.”
UN Independent Expert

The resolution also welcomed the UN Human Rights Council’s request that Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation, report annually to the General Assembly as well. The abstainers to the vote on the resolution accused its sponsors of seeking to preempt the findings of Ms De Albuquerque. By rushing the current resolution through before a consensus could be reached, the US delegate John F. Sammis felt the work of Ms De Albuquerque could be even be undermined. The UN Independent Expert is due to report to the Human Rights Council on her work in October 2011.

Germany’s UN Ambassador Peter Wittig disagreed with those member states that voiced concern about the impact of the resolution on the Geneva process led by de Albuquerque.

“We see the resolution as a complement to the ongoing process on water and sanitation in Geneva,” he noted.

However, Wittig and others would preferred language with “a clearer message on the primary responsibility of states to ensure the realization of human rights for all those living under their jurisdiction.”

British delegate Nicola Freedman said London “does not believe that there exists at present sufficient legal basis under international law to either declare or recognize water or sanitation as free-standing human rights.”

In her own press statement, Ms De Albuquerque welcomed the landmark resolution as a “breakthrough for the United Nations General Assembly” and “a positive signal from the international community”. She underlined that:

“the fact that the right to water and sanitation was recognized, demonstrates that the General Assembly, instead of creating a new right rather formally acknowledged its existence. Hence the existing human rights framework, in particular the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, fully applies in this context.”

Criticism

Sahana Singh, editor of Asian Water, argued that “no more time should be wasted on drafting new laws and resolutions”, especially in developing countries, where implementation of laws is already such a big problem. Unless clearly specified upfront, the right to water could be taken to mean that water should be free or nearly free, she said.

“It has led to a situation where millions of litres of water are lost daily due to leakages from pipe networks. Would such a situation be allowed to exist with oil pipelines?” she asked.

The point to note is that the governmental authorities of Singapore, Manila, Phnom Penh and others, which understand the benefits of providing water and sanitation to all their citizens, are working hard to do so even without water being declared a human right.

On the other hand, the irresponsible governments which have done little for existing rights, such as the right to equality or the right against exploitation, are certainly not going to implement any more new rights, she warned

What is needed, according to Singh, are utilities that are properly management, have financial autonomy, and are allowed to charge appropriate tariffs so that they can invest in better services.

The harshest criticism of the resolution came from the head of legal affairs at the Danish think-tank CEPOS Jacob Mchangama. Not surprising as Mchangama fiercely opposes all social rights, which he claims are driven by a leftist ideological bias that is undermining classic civil and political rights (freedom rights). In his opinion piece he writes:

declaring water and sanitation as human rights constitutes a threat to both international law and the poor themselves. [...]. The right to clean water and sanitation [...] depends on economic development, technology and infrastructure. Above all, if people have a right to water and sanitation, other people must provide it – in practice, governments using public money. [...] So this is really a call for state intervention, at the expense of other priorities and freedoms – and water is no more a practically enforceable human right than other essential commodities, such as food, clothing or shelter.

Mchangama suspects the resolution is inspired by activists’ ideological resistance to the privatisation of water. He also is unimpressed by Bolivia’s motives as proposer of the resolution:

By demanding that developed countries “provide financial resources and technology transfer” to developing countries, the resolution implies that the rich are violating the human rights of people without water in poor countries. This allows many countries, such as the proposer, Bolivia, to deflect criticism away from their own real rights violations – arbitrary detentions, corruption, censorship – while portraying themselves as victims of the West.

Reactions from China and the Arab world

Writing for state-run Chinese news agency Xinhua, Ding Yi reacts to the abstention of many developed countries to the UN resolution by highlighting the different perspectives on human rights between developed and developing countries:

Different countries and people may have contrary understandings about “human rights,” but in the eyes of some Western countries those rights seem to involve equality only in social and political spheres. [...] [However] if one’s survival and development rights can’t be guaranteed, how can people talk about one’s social and political rights? [...] Perhaps those living in the developed world can’t understand the suffering of those struggling against death in the developing countries. [...] As the developed nations pour vast amounts of money into political campaigns and the promotion of their own human rights, what if they also provide more to help promote the survival rights of the people in underdeveloped countries?

A commentator for Arab News, Iman Kurdi asks if the resolution is really going to make a difference:

For a start, the resolution is nonbinding but even if it was binding, you only need to look at Israel’s flagrant disregard for UN resolutions to see how toothless they have become. A UN resolution is rather long way from a treaty on access to clean water and sanitation, though it is a valiant step in the right direction.

Kurdi also writes that:

[W]e should not be surprised that some rich countries preferred to abstain, given they are likely to be the ones footing the bill [and] that countries that are rich in water may also prefer to protect the right to sell that water and to see it as an economic and commercial resource.

[...]

At the end of the day, thinking of access to clean water and sanitation in terms of a fundamental human right is an important step in changing mindsets. It moves the issue from being an aid issue to being a right. But ultimately it is putting in the resources and the programs necessary to make that right a reality that matters.

Positive reactions from WaterAid and Amnesty

WaterAid also welcomed the UN recognition of right to water and sanitation.

Kate Norgrove, Head of Campaigns at WaterAid said: “It is good news that the resolution, recognising water and sanitation as a basic human right, has been passed by a majority vote. It is particularly encouraging to see the crucial reference to sanitation, due to its historic neglect and importance for human development.”

“It is however regretful that the vote wasn’t passed by consensus, which exposes a distinct lack of political will on this issue. Abstentions illustrate the continuing lack of priority given to sanitation – which is astonishing given that slow progress on sanitation is holding back progress on many of the other Millennium Development Goals.”

Amnesty International’s specialist on the right to water, Ashfaq Khalfan, said:

“After this promising first step, all states must now take the opportunity to protect the life and health of millions and unreservedly support the rights to water and sanitation”.

The rights will next be debated by the Human Rights Council in Geneva in September 2010.

Read the official UN General Assembly press release (GA/10967) on the resolution.

Sources: UN News Center, 28 Jul 2010 ; Patrick Worsnip, Reuters, 28 Jul 2010 ; Council of Canadians, 28 Jul 2010 ; Mark Leon Goldberg, UN Dispatch, 28 Jul 2010 ; Food & Water Watch, 28 Jul 2010 ; WaterAid, 28 Jul 2010 ; Right-to-water discussion list, 28 Jul 2010 ; Thalif Deen, IPS, 28 Jul 2010 ; AFP / The Independent, 28 Jul 2010 ; OHCHR, 30 Jul 2010 ; Amnesty International, 29 Jul 2010 ; The Lancet, 7 Aug 2010, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61203-2 ; Maude Barlow, Globe and Mail, 05 Aug 2010 ; Jacob Mchangama, Globe and Mail, 05 Aug 2010 ; Ding Yi, Xinhua, 29 Jul 2010 ; Iman Kurdi, Arab News, 02 Aug 2010 ; Peter Gleick, Huffington Post, 04 Aug 2010

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

* Water as human right threatens to split world body
* Rights to food and water are also human rights, says Dutch development mini…
* U.N. rights experts call for proper toilets in prisons
* Win! UN General Assembly passes historic Human Right to Water and Sanitatio…

Ads by Google
Youth For Human Rights
Raise Human Rights Awareness To Our Youth. Get Free DVD & Info Kit
YouthForHumanRights.org



This entry was posted in Policies & legislation, Sanitation, Water supply and tagged right to water, right to sanitation, United Nations. Bookmark the permalink.
← Strategic evaluation of the Water Integrity Network: call for expression of interest
Humanitarian aid: 30-fold increase in spending on water and sanitation over last decade →
One Response to General Assembly declares access to clean water and sanitation is a human right

1.
Michael Hughes | August 30, 2010 at 11:09 pm | Reply

We, at Water for Humans, could not agree more with the United Nations General Assembly in approving this historical resolution. As the U.N. put it so aptly, “the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights”.

We are working to alleviate the desperate water sanitation conditions facing the people of the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico. Scores of impoverished and under-served citizens in Santo Domingo Barrio Bajo Etla in the Oaxaca Valley are victims of raw sewage flowing from the defunct waste-water treatment plan there. Water for Humans is working closely with water experts, government leaders, and NGOs to bring about sustainable, clean-water solutions to the people of Oaxaca.

But as the U.N. General Assembly appropriately points out, UN Member States and international organizations must play a significant role in solving the worldwide water sanitation crisis. Offering funding, technology and other resources to help poorer countries scale up their efforts to provide clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation is one sensible way to bring this about.

All countries should sign onto this resolution as this plague affects all of us! Developed nations have no excuse in not signing this important U.N. resolution. It is irresponsible not to!

Now we need to work collaboratively and help the more than 1 out of 8 people in the world, or nearly 1 billion people, who lack access to clean, safe drinking water.