“Once again, the UN Human Rights Council missed a critical opportunity to recognize the human right to water”, said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of the US-based Food & Water Watch, in reaction to the “watered-down” resolution [1] adopted by the Council on 28 March 2008. The right to water was on the agenda at the 7th session of the Human Rights Council (Geneva, 03 - 28 March 2008).

The “watering-down” of the resolution was exemplified by the replacement of all references to the ‘right to water and sanitation’ by ‘human rights and access to safe drinking water and sanitation’. “The perceived need to adopt the resolution by consensus dictated that the adopted measure was significantly weaker than it might otherwise have been, particularly in the area of the normative description of the rights at issue”, writes Claude Cahn (COHRE) [2].

In the resolution, the Council decided to “appoint, for a period of three years, an Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation”. The expert’s task will be to undertake a study on best practices and human rights obligations related to water and sanitation, and submit a final report to the Council at its tenth session.

[1] Resolution on Human Rights and Access to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation (A/HRC/7/L.16). PDF file

[2] Claude Cahn. International action to strengthen right to water and sanitation guarantees. Source Bulletin – Readers’ Opinion , 24 Apr 2008

Related news: Human rights: the Netherlands officially recognises the right to water, Source Weekly, 20 Mar 2008 ; Right to water: legislation does not always guarantee access to water, says study, Source Weekly, 05 Oct 2007

Related web sites

Contact: Right to Water Programme, Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), Switzerland, water@cohre.org, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Switzerland, water@ohchr.org

Source: UN Human Rights Council, 28 Mar 2008 ; Food & Water Watch, 28 Mar 2008

Tags: policies & legislation