Water should be a human right
June 30, 2009In this months PLoS Medicine Editorial, the editors argue that -- despite recent international objections -- access to clean water should be recognised as a human right.
At the March 2009 United Nations (UN) meetings, coinciding with the World Water Forum, Canada, Russia, and the United States refused to support a declaration that would recognize water as a basic human right. But this flies in the face of considerable evidence that access to water, which is essential for health, is under threat, argue the editors. According to the World Health Organization, 1.2 billion people worldwide do not have access to clean drinking water, and a further 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation services, and these numbers are expected to rise. The UN has estimated that 2.8 billion people in 48 countries will be living in conditions of water stress or scarcity by 2025.
Three reasons are outlined for why access to clean water should be declared a basic human right. Firstly, access to clean water can substantially reduce the global burden disease caused by water-borne infections. Millions of people are affected each year by a range of water-borne diseases including diarrhea, which is responsible for 1.8 million potentially preventable deaths per year, mostly among children under the age of five. Secondly, the privatization of water—as witnessed in Bolivia, Ghana and other countries—has not effectively served the poor, who suffer the most from lack of access to clean water. As Maude Barlow, senior advisor on water issues to the president of the General Assembly of the UN, has argued, "high water rates, cut-offs to the poor, reduced services, broken promises and pollution have been the legacy of privatization."
Thirdly, the prospect of global water scarcity—exacerbated by climate change, industrial pollution, and population growth—means that no country is immune to a water crisis. The United States is facing the greatest water shortages of its history, and in Australia severe drought has caused dangerous water shortages in the Murray-Darling river basin, which provides the bulk of its food supply.
A human rights framework, argue the Editors, offers what the water situation needs—international recognition from which concerted action and targeted funding could flow; guaranteed standards against which the protected legal right to water could be monitored; and accountability mechanisms that could empower communities to advocate and lobby their governments to ensure that water is safe, affordable, and accessible to everyone.
More information: The PLoS Medicine Editors (2009) Clean Water Should Be Recognized as a Human Right. PLoS Med 6(6): e1000102. http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000102
Feb 08, 2010
Normative prescriptive statements are characterized by 'would', 'should' and 'could' do not have truth values. Such statements cannot be falsified and are thus not scientific.
If clean water makes you happy, then go for it.
Don't expect big brother to deliver it, wherever you might be.
Why is this kind of political drivel at PhysOrg? Does PhysOrg think its readers are bored with science and yearning for this kind of warmed over Marxist propaganda?
If it is declared a basic human right then more money will be set aside for funding the scientific studies and programs that deal with all the above.
Maybe a lot of the people posting are not interested in promoting another scam by those claiming they will "solve" a problem if given more money and political power.
Maybe too, a lot of the people posting come to PhysOrg because of an interest in science, not to read some political harangue by hacks at the UN.
I'm willing to bet that not a single one of the authors of this malarky is thirsty either. Have you ever been to a UN Conference? Top of the line all the way, from the food to the drinks to the entertainment to the accomodations. And they believe strongly that they deserve it; after all they are morally superior beings saving the world while those of us paying the bills are merely feeding our families and trying to make ends meet.
In regards to the article, water is a basic human need, its not a basic human right. Providing clean water may be the responsibility of government, but so is providing law enforcement, yet we still have crime. Declaring water a basic human right doesn't make it so, and doesn't change the "facts on the ground".