Pablo Antezana Quiroga: "Water, development, and the public-private debate"

Project proposal

Worldwide, approximately one in eight people lack potable water. The situation of lack of sanitation is far worse, for it affects 2.6 billion people, or 40% of the global population. Every year, 3 and a half million people die of waterborne illness. Diarrhea is the second largest cause of death among children under five. The lack of access to potable water kills more children than AIDS, malaria and smallpox combined. 

The right to health was originally recognized in 1946 by the World Health Organization’s Constitution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 guaranteed all people a right to a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being. Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966) also recognizes “the right to an adequate standard of living”. In 2000, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted a General Comment that interprets the right to health as an inclusive right that extends not only to timely and appropriate health care but also to those factors that determine good health. These include access to safe water and sanitation, adequate supply of safe food, nutrition and housing, healthy working and environmental conditions, and access to health-related education and information. In 2002, the Committee further declared that water itself was an independent right, since “(…) it is one of the most fundamental conditions for survival”. 

Finally, in 2010 the General Assembly of the UN approved the resolution recognizing access to clean water and sanitation as a human right. However, the approval wasn’t unanimous and 41 countries abstained from voting (Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, United States, Israel, Turkey, Sweden, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand, among others). 

• What are the challenges to states parties posed by the recognition of this right and what set of (new) rules should be established and/or reinforced at the international level to ensure compliance?
• Access to water should always be regulated by public state-owned institutions? (Since the challenge of supplying vast populations with this resource is almost unreachable for poor countries that lack the adequate infrastructure and financing).
• How could the declaration affect the right of private -local, national and international- companies conducting business in this sector?
• What are the implications for other stakeholders such as local communities?
• What are the lessons of the “Water War” of 2000 which took place in Cochabamba-Bolivia, especially taking into account that in many countries provision of water has been largely privatized? 

Currently, water sector practitioners, scholars and representatives of governments and NGOs are focusing on ways of translating human rights theory into practice. Basically, they are basing their discussion on four axes: (1) universal access to safe water for drinking, food preparation and sanitation; (2) protection of water sources from contamination and over-use; (3) distribution of safe water as a public service on a not-for-profit basis; (4) right of countries to receive water of sufficient quality and quantity from a co-riparian state to meet the minimum needs of its population. 

This paper will argue that only a strong international legal (and moral) framework will ensure compliance of this right and even prevent future conflicts between nations and within them due to the acceleration of the global water crisis.

Comments

[Sam]

The Water Wars angle immediately got me thinking of the latest James Bond film, "Quantum of Solace," which centers around a major fresh water heist.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNHbRznN9Qo

What's most interesting to me about your proposal is the fact that 41 countries, including some powerful liberal democracies, decided not to weigh in on the water debate (though of course silence speaks loudly). It seems that, beyond your paper, an advocacy project that refutes that abstention by a particular country or two (Canada sure jumps out from that list) would be a worthwhile project. Why not take Canada to task for shying from a vote?