Comments on: Water marketing vs. human rights

By: mizanur

mizanur — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:19:00 +0000

Dear Prof. Gabriel

Thank you for your response. I fully agree with you that we should draw a line how much obligation is practically reasonable for the governments to ensure the promised water supply to its people.

It might be interesting to note that recently The Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa
instruct the government to ensure 42 liters/person/day free water to each poor resident of Phiri . http://www.helsinki.fi/henvi/research/scienceday09/Belinskij_16042009.pdf

I hope the Governments will decide of its own how much water is possible to guarantee considering their own capacity/limitations- but, I am in favor of definitive quantitative guarantee like the case in Phiri, South Africa.

Hoping for the best.

By: Gabriel Eckstein (IWLP blogger)

Gabriel Eckstein (IWLP blogger) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:52:54 +0000

Thanks for your comment Mizanur. In response, I wanted to point out that according to the WHO Technical Note 9 (revised in 2005), the 70 L/person/day does include water for growing food for domestic purposes (e.g., not for commercial purposes). Nonetheless, these numbers are global averages and, clearly, in more arid climates, 70 L may not be adequate. Notwithstanding, the issue of recognizing water as a human right is, in part, a political issue because if such a right is recognized, it imposes an obligation on a nation's government to ensure that right to its citizens. While many governments/nations might be willing to recognize a right to access some minimal amount for survival, I suspect that most will hesitate to recognize more. Between local water scarcity problems and the cost associated with "guaranteeing" fresh water (e.g., delivery and infrastructure, maintaining quality, etc.), ensuring a human right to water could impose a considerable burden. That is not to say that governments should not have such an obligation. Rather, the question is where to draw the line - how much can a government guarantee to its people before that obligation undermines its ability to ensure that guarantee?

By: Mizanur

Mizanur — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:14:03 +0000

Water is a basic human right. However, when we talk about this right, most often, we only tend to consider access to drinking water, sanitation and, to a certain extent, other household requirements e.g. cooking. But, water required to produce minimum amount of food for survival is not incorporated in the current “water as human right” debate. If we consider this requirement of water to grow food, the amount of water for maintaining minimum quality of life might exceed far beyond 70 liters per day per person.