The UN Calls Water a Human Right

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-07-28 12:55:00 UTC
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Activists around the world are raising a glass today — of clear, cold water — after the UN today declared that access to clean water and sanitation is a human right.

Without water, the average person wouldn't last more than a handful of days (or less, depending on their environment). Yet oddly enough, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was passed in 1948, while Article 25 invoked food, clothing, housing and medical care, water was left off that list.

Now, though, thanks to Bolivia — who first introduced the non-binding measure to the UN General Assembly — the UN has deemed the right to clean water and sanitation a right that's "essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights." In other words, it's the one human right that undergirds all others.

Not a single country voted against the resolution, though fully 40 nations abstained from the vote — mostly developed countries, including the U.S. (The resolution calls for international institutions and other countries to help ensure the right to water and sanitation via cash and tech transfers, as well as capacity building.)

True, this resolution is non-binding, and ultimately it's just a piece of paper. So for more jaundiced observers, there's plenty of reason to feel skeptical. But as we often write about here, this latest vote helps counter the fact that — as one press release puts it — the global community has treated water and sanitation issues as a "second fiddle" for years.

Despite some progress on access to clean water, today, some 2.6 billion people — or nearly 40% of the world population — still live in conditions with abysmal sanitation. Likewise every day, fully 16% of the world is still forced to defecate in public. If donor countries and governments don't accelerate their efforts to tackle this crisis, estimates one officer at Water Aid, the world will only achieve the 2015 Millennium Development Goals on access to water and sanitation in the 23rd century, 300 years from now.

The good news is that dollar for dollar, investments in sanitation reap some of the best returns on declines in poverty around, as well as better health (reduced child mortality and HIV/AIDS and malaria mortality rates) and productivity. All the more reason to raise your glass this afternoon.

(For more, check out Jess's coverage over on our Environment blog.)

Photo Credit: laszlo-photo

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
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