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Water is a Human Right

Clean Water for the Poor: Making the Human Right to Water a Reality  [128 KB]

Water is essential to sustain life. It is enshrined in the right to life and dignity, as set forth in the International Bill of Human Rights. In 2002, the United Nations adopted water as a human right. This adoption commits the 145 countries that have ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to gradually ensure fair and non-discriminatory access to safe drinking water.

Daily, the right to water is violated – according to the World Health Organization an estimated 1.7 billion people still lack access to clean water and 2.3 billion people suffer from water-borne diseases each year. Water-borne diseases occur due to the inability to provide clean water, but increasingly due to pricing of water. Pre-paid water meters are installed in poor areas in order to ensure profitable supply and services are cut-off if citizens fall behind on their payments. Privatization of water has only exacerbated the problem. People should control water, not corporations.

Water is a common resource and we all have an equal right to this precious resource and a responsibility to protect it.

• Pre-Paid Water Meters: Why they violate the human right to water?
• United Nations on the Human Right to Water   
• The U.S. Water Declaration- The declaration reaffirms that water is a common good that should not be privatized, commodified, or exported for profit.
• The Human Right to Water: Necessity for Action and Discourse

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