Water is a Human Right

People’s Statement on the Right to Water

In 2000, the Millennium Development Goals were established to “halve, by 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water.” Yet the reality of universal access to water continues to be deferred, and the increasing corporate control of global water resources undermines steps made toward these goals.

The People’s Health Movement and other organizations[i] and individuals working toward health, equitable development and environmental justice

Commit to acting on the following principles, beliefs and values:

That water is essential for human life and all life on earth. Access to safe water is a basic human right. It is a vital public health need. Therefore, each member of the human community has the right to accessible, affordable water in quantity and quality sufficient to life and basic economic activities.

Water has cultural significance beyond its health and environmental value. Water is not and should not be a commodity to be bought and sold as merchandise in the market place. Rather, the global water supply is a shared legacy, a public trust and a fundamental human right.

Water is a natural resource that should be used judiciously and preserved for the common good of all peoples and ecosystems on this planet. Healthy ecosystems ensure the human right to water for future generations.

Water is an increasingly scarce natural resource, and as a result is crucial to the security of all societies and sovereignty of nations around the world. For this reason alone, its ownership, control, management and distribution belong in the public domain.

Citizens have the right to effectively participate in the shaping of public policies that fundamentally affect their lives such as the control of water, and government has a responsibility to ensure this right.

Emphasize the gravity and urgency of the current situation:

• 1.4 billion people lack access to clean drinking water.

• By 2025 some 3 billion people will be suffering from water shortage. Over 80 percent of them live in developing countries, predominantly in rural areas and in areas of marginal habitation in and around large cities.

• 80 percent of all diseases in developing countries can be traced back to the use of polluted water.

• The poor spend up to twenty times more than the rich for safe water.

• Current international trade and investment agreements encourage commodification and corporate control of water resources, which reduces access to water and limits government capacities to comply with their obligations under the right to water.

Lack of water leads to increased hunger, poverty, misery and disease, as well as desertification and loss of biodiversity. Without access to water, people are driven from their homes and forced to migrate and flee. Social unrest, conflicts and the danger of war over access to water become intensified. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan put it clearly at the start of the Year of Water: “No water – no future.”

Therefore, the People’s Health Movement and other organizations and individuals working toward health, equitable development and environmental justice:

Call upon the United Nations to:

Assert its leadership role regarding water policy over that of the World Trade Organization and other private and non-democratic bodies on the basis that access to water is a fundamental and universal human right.

Create a water convention binding under international law on par with the Climate Convention, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention to Combat Desertification. The objectives of this convention shall be to:

• re-affirm the human right to water

• strengthen and ensure the implementation of the human right to water.

• make the right to water fully enforceable under national and international law

• ensure management of water as a public trust and, where water resources lie completely within the borders of a particular State, as part of that State’s national patrimony.

• ensure sustainable consumption of water and that sufficient water is left for non-human species, to the greatest extent possible.

• help prevent conflicts over water resources at the national level.

Call upon governments to:

Allocate sufficient resources to provide safe and affordable water to all at both the local and national levels. Aggressive public programs aimed at developing systems for sustainable global water sanitation and increased water-treatment systems must be established;

Develop participatory decision-making mechanisms at the local, regional and national level that ensure that citizens have the opportunity to publicly discuss, debate and vote upon water management options, especially when governments are addressing proposals and decisions regarding the privatization of public water utilities;

Ensure that participatory decision-making mechanisms are inclusive and recognize that there is a tendency to marginalize women, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, children and the aged from decision-making mechanisms.

Oppose legislation that promotes privatization of water or wastewater services, undermines local government authority in water services management, undermines environmental, health or consumer protection of drinking water, or requires that public funds be made available to private service corporations;

Provide full information disclosure concerning any proposed water privatization process, including: names of multinational corporations bidding on utilities in their domain, information about the terms and conditions of the privatization, such as the proposed tariff structure, expansion plans, connection fees, and possible subsidies;

Oppose the consideration of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and agreements such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), or any provisions thereof, that would undermine national, state or local regulations protecting health, the environment, and labor rights or would promote the privatization of essential public services such as water, health, and education through requiring market access or preferential treatment for private corporations;

Protect the right to water by ensuring that their own citizens and companies do not violate the right to water of people in other countries;

Recognize the legitimacy of popular mobilization in achieving and safeguarding the human right to water.

Call upon the World Bank, the IMF and other multilateral financial institutions to:

Eliminate water privatization as a condition for access to World Bank and other multilateral loans;

Remove increases in water fees and full cost recovery as a condition for access to World Bank loans;

End secret negotiations between governments and IMF and World Bank officials and provide full public information disclosure and transparency on loan conditions and agreements;

Ensure that citizens around the world have the opportunity to participate in privatization decisions and have the opportunity to debate a wide variety of water management options.

Urge the international community and world leaders to:

Declare the urgent need to protect global water resources for the public good;

Provide adequate technical assistance and sufficient funding to less developed nations directly through multilateral and bilateral agreements to support the implementation of water and sanitation programs in the public sector;

Condemn policies that treat water as a commodity governed by market forces or promote the privatization of public water utilities. Such policies undermine the public commitment and responsibility to provide universal access to clean and affordable water;

Partake in the International Development Target set by the UN Millennium Assembly to, "halve, by 2015, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty and to halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and are unable to reach or afford safe drinking water";

Encourage the development of policies that treat water as a valuable and finite resource, that actively manage the water demand and increase the efficiency of water in all uses by setting appropriate national targets to improve the equity with which water resources are used;

Adhere to the activity plans of Agenda 21 that promote schemes for rational water use through public awareness-raising, educational programs and levying of water tariffs and other economic instruments for affordability of safe water so that all people have financial and geographical access to clean water by the year 2025;

Reform sanitation, manufacturing and agricultural practices in developed and less developed countries alike in order to protect and save the limited amounts of the world’s clean water.

Call on the peoples of the world to:

Conserve water in the household, workplace and community;

Document and act on cases of violations of the right to water;

Document and raise awareness of cases where the right to water has been successfully defended or promoted;

Communicate with local and national groups on possible provision of legal and other forms of assistance in order to respond to violations;

Assist local and national groups in efforts to advocate for national legislation on water and sanitation;

Provide information to local and national groups about the right to water and the potential ways in which they can claim their rights.

Oppose the commodification of water and the privatization of public water utilities as a violation of our human rights. Demand that our local and national governments recognize and defend people's right to clean and affordable water or risk their removal.

Thanks to Friends of the Right to Water for help developing this statement.