the human right to water and sanitation in emergency situations

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The Sphere Standards (2004), which nowadays reflect a broad consensus within the humanitarian community,
recognize that: “Everyone has the right to water 4 ”. International human rights instruments also refer
to the importance of access to safe drinking water and sanitation. The UN Committee on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights has defined the right to water as every person’s entitlement to sufficient, safe, acceptable,
physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic use. However, practice has
amply demonstrated that in emergency situations the right to water is one of the first rights to be denied,
both for political and/or financial reasons and through lack of coordination.
3. A brief history of water and sanitation and human rights 5
The debate on the right to water and sanitation has been moving on since the early 1970s and access
to water for personal and domestic use is now recognized as a basic human right and not simply as a
need 6 . Indeed, since the Mar del Plata Conference (1977) during which it was declared that “all peoples,
whatever their stage of development and their social and economic conditions, have the right to have
access to drinking water in quantities and of a quality equal to their basic needs”, the international
community as a whole has become very active in issues related to the management of water and a
fortiori to the right to water.
A number of high-level conferences have made significant advances in furthering the links between the access
to water and sanitation and human rights, gradually calling attention to the duties and responsibilities
of Governments and other actors concerned. The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
in 2000 and particularly Goal No. 7, which aims “to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable
access to safe drinking water by 2015”, has been an important catalyst in generating debate on
the right to water and sanitation 7 . However, despite the political strength of this declaration, from a human
rights perspective, the Goals fall short of full realization of human rights. It is important to note that, even
if the MDG targets were to be achieved in full, in 2015 more than 800 million people would still be without
access to water and 1.8 billion people without basic sanitation.
In 2002, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) adopted General
Comment 15, which clarified the scope of the right to water and sanitation and offered a legal framework
for better understanding this right. The publication of this document marks the moment when the
right to water and sanitation ceased to be a slogan and became an important tool for all people involved
in the water, sanitation and hygiene sector, from policy makers to field staff.
Nowadays virtually all humanitarian aid agencies, organizations and UN programmes take human rights
into account in their work. Furthermore, many governments in industrialized and developing countries alike
have integrated human rights obligations into their activities. However, despite the significant progress
made in advancing human rights as a whole, much remains to be done before human rights become fully
integrated into the framework of water, sanitation and hygiene activities.
These developments have lead to a number of studies being undertaken and books and documents being
published on the right to water and sanitation. However, the present document is intended to add a new
4 / The Sphere Project, Humanitarian Charter and Minimum Standards in Disaster Response (2004), p. 55.
5 / See Annexe 1 for more details.
6 / Further progress is called for regarding recognition of sanitation as a human right.
7 / During the Second Earth Summit held in 2002 in Johannesburg, sanitation was added to MDG No. 7 on safe drinking
water.
© ACF - THE HUMAN RIGHT TO WATER AND SANITATION IN EMERGENCY SITUATIONS