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The Right to Water:
The Campaign for a United Nations Treaty
By Maude Barlow
The National Chairperson of the Council of
Canadians
Co-founder of the Blue Planet project |
Ever since the powerful players of the World Water Council - the World Bank, the
big water corporations, and the aid agencies and water ministries of First World
countries - declared that water is not a human right, but rather a human "need"
best served by private investors, the issue of the human right to water has
become central to the international struggle for the control of water. The human
right to water was rejected at both the 2nd World Water Forum in The Hague in
2000 and at the 3rd World Water Forum in Kyoto in 2003, even though the majority
of civil society groups attending these events were strongly in
favour.
The omission of water from both the original United Nations
Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, while understandable (how
could one imagine a lack of clean air or water back then?) is a problem that has
hampered the efforts of those working for the right to water for all. At
successive UN conferences, it has become clear that the international community
is more than ready for a binding legal instrument of some kind to codify this
right. In fact, the right to water has been adopted in several key non-legally
binding UN resolutions and declarations, most notably Agenda 21, the UN
blueprint for sustainable development.
In the absence of a legally
binding treaty or convention, however, the decision-making power over water has
slowly moved away from the United Nations to the World Water Council, the World
Bank and other regional banks, trade institutions like the World Trade
Organization, and the big water transnationals. This has allowed the rapid
privatization of the world's water services, driving up prices and cutting off
millions from their water supplies.
The process within the UN to a more
binding legal framework has already begun. In 2002, ECOSOC ? the UN Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - adopted "General Comment No. 15." This
document emphasized the right to water as the cornerstone for realizing all
other human rights and called for water to be treated as a social and cultural
good, not primarily an economic good. With General Comment No. 15, the Committee
speaks out against the commercialization and commodification of water and
clarifies that an international human rights law would take precedence over
international trade law in this regard. The adoption of General Comment No. 15
provides a seminal overarching methodology for determining people's rights and
the obligations of governments. It is a key step in the march toward a binding
legal framework.
It is clear that the right to water is an idea whose
time has come. Those of us involved in this campaign have no illusions that this
will be an easy fight, nor do we want to get bogged down in interminable UN
committees and panels. For us, this campaign must become both a common goal for
the many groups fighting for their water rights around the world and a tool for
them to use on the ground in their struggles, or it is not worth the work. Nor
are we prepared to sacrifice a good treaty for a compromise that would open the
door to the private sector. We have a very clear goal in mind, the people power
around the world to make it real, and history on our side.
Please join
us.
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, Canada's
largest citizen's advocacy organization with over 100,000 members and co-founder
of the Blue Planet project, which works to stop commodification of the world's
water. She nominated for the "1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005." Also
Ms. Barlow received the prestigious "2005 Right Livelihood Award" given by the
Swedish Parliament and widely referred to as "The Alternative Nobel."
The
Council of Canadians: http://www.canadians.org/
The Blue Planet project: http://www.blueplanetproject.net/ |
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