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Daily Report: News Updates from Johannesburg: Water is a human right, but a billion lack access! August 28, 2002

Today, the United Nations held its one and only plenary session on water and sanitation, with government delegates and hand-picked non-governmental organizations (the only groups permitted inside were chosen by UN officials). Plenary sessions are where the complete delegation for the summit discusses an issue.

Representatives from civil society were not permitted into the session to speak on behalf of the people. Not surprisingly, the debate was weak.  While it was determined that water should be considered a human right, this was narrowly defined. The discussion was dominated by a focus on the business aspects of water service, leading Public Citizen and many other civil society groups to conclude that UN delegates hijacked the concept of water as a human right during the session to advance their pro-privatization agenda.

One of the participants in the session, Miloon Kothari, the UN's special rapporteur on adequate housing, said that while he was happy that water was recognized as a human right, water was only discussed in terms of money during the plenary session. The Swiss government representative attending the session, emphasized the fact that there have been 200 world conferences about water and still more than a billion people are without access to this basic resource. "I am ashamed," he said.

Meanwhile, Public Citizen was able to confirm that corporations are part of the official US delegation attending the World Summit. With corporate representatives side-by-side with government officials in official UN sessions, it's no wonder that business' access to water is a higher priority than people's access to water.

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