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

Starving the Future Study 3
In order to clarify the issue the Commission on Human Rights asked (in resolution 2001/25) the Special
Rapporteur on the Right to Food appointed in the previous year to pay attention to the issue of drinking
water, taking into account the interdependence of this issue and the right to food. In his second report
submitted in December 2001 the Special Rapporteur noted (para 25) “Like solid food, drinking water is
also in short supply for hundreds of millions of people in the world”. The introduction of the word solid
before food and the juxtaposition of solid food and drinking water is an indication that drinking water is
seen by the rapporteur as liquid food. The report concluded in (para 130) “The Special Rapporteur
believes that drinking water is essential for healthy nutrition, so that it should be considered a public
good. … Including drinking water in the right to food is an important way of ensuring [that] accountability
and justiciability .” and finally (para 138) “The Special Rapporteur recommends that the question of
drinking water is also given adequate respect, as this is a fundamental component of the right to food
…”.
The most recent development is the preparation of a draft general comment on the Right to Drinking
Water, by the Committee on Economic, Social, Cultural Rights. The draft is currently (summer 2002)
circulated among the members of the Committee. It is based on articles 11 and 12 of the Covenant
seeing the right to drinking water for example as a guarantee for securing an adequate standard of living
on a par with food, housing, clothing in ICESCR art.11.1, even though food, housing, clothing are
mentioned in a (non-exclusive) list of this article, while water is not. Moreover the draft general comment
mentions a number of international documents recognizing the right to drinking water (such as the
Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimitation against Women (1979), the Convention on
the Rights of the Child (1989), as well as the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols. Moreover
the draft recollects previous work of the Committee on the right to drinking water. It remains to be seen
how the final general comment on the right to drinking water will look like. Currently it seems as if the
right to drinking water will not be included in the right to food – as suggested by the special rapporteur
on the right to food - but primarily in the right to an adequate standard of living stressing the close link to
the human right to health (art.12.1).
The right to water clearly goes beyond the right to drinking water. Access to water for purposes other
than drinking needs to be respected, protected and fulfilled as well. One of the main such purposes is
food production.
FIAN International 117
June 2002