Study 3: Ecodestruction and the Right to Food: The Cases of Water ...

Starving the Future Study 3
The Dublin Declaration on “Water in a perspective of sustainable development” originating from the
International Conference on Water and Environment in 1992 in preparation of UNCED had noted that:
“[I]t is especially crucial to recognize the basic right of all human beings to have access to drinking water
and sanitation at affordable price.”
“Blue Gold”, the 1999 special report on “The global water crisis and the commodification of the world’s
water supply” published by the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), advocates that access to
clean water for basic needs is a fundamental human right. This is echoed in one of the ten principles
formulated in the report: “An adequate supply of clean water is a human right.” 17 This may sound
elemental, but at the Second World Water Forum in the Hague in March 2000, it was the subject of a
heated debate. The World Bank and the water companies reportedly tried to declare it merely a “human
need” in order to avoid states obligations to protect and fulfil access to water. Such states obligations
would not necessarily rule out private sector activities in the water system, but would exclude handing
over the water system to the private sector. Human rights are by nature inalienable: They cannot be
signed away even by the beneficiary of this right – let alone by her state.
In recent years Riccardo Petrella (former president of the Group of Lisbon) and others have advocated a
“World Water Contract”. Part of that initiative is to strengthen the right to water as a human right. In his
new book “The Water Manifesto” 18 Petrella suggests “the drafting and approval of a legally binding
world water convention which integrates the political, economic and social right of individual and
collective access to water into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The same approach will have
to be applied to other charters and conventions bearing upon human rights, national rights and minority
rights.”
A right to water, in fact, has not been explicitely referred to neither in the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) nor in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
(ICESCR) – the main sources of livelihood rights in international law. There may be some speculation
why a right to water had not been spelled out. At the time when the Declaration and the Covenants were
drafted (between 1946 and 1966) water related oppression was already well-known: Nevertheless the
full scarcity dimension of water became clear only after the 1970s with the enormous importance which
irrigation developped for food production in the context of the “Green Revolution” and with the stark
growth of human consumption and population pressures.
v. The right to drinking water – a part of the right to food?
In the UN human rights system so far the issue of water has been dealt with in the context of the rights
to health, to housing – and most recently – the right to food. Its natural place is in the ambit of the right
to an adequate standard of living. Article 25 of the UDHR proclaims that “Everyone has the right to a
standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food,
clothing , housing, medical care and the necessary social services …” It should be clear that access to
drinking water is a basic element of any definition of “standard of living adequate for the health and wellbeing”.
UDHR art. 25 then gave rise to the right to an adequate standard living including food, clothing
and housing (ICESCR art.11) the right to health (ICESCR art.12) and other rights. ICESCR was
therefore seen to contain a right to food and a right to housing as well. Water was taken up explicitely in
the General Comments on the Rights to Housing and to Health. General Comment No.4 (1991) on the
Right to Housing notes (in para 8.b) …”All beneficiaries of the right to adequate housing should have
sustainable access to natural and common resources, safe drinking water, …” General Comment 14
(2000) on the Right to Health stipulates as a core obligation “to ensure access to basic shelter, housing
and sanitation, and an adequate supply of safe and potable water.”(para 43(3)). Curiously enough
General Comment 12 (1999) on the Right to Food does not make explicite mention of water. In the
sense that water is just a special type of food – this may not have been deemed necessary.
FIAN International 116
June 2002