Water Rights

Today millions of people in the developed world take for granted that they have access to water for life and livelihood, while others struggle for subsistence, as 12 percent of the world’s population controls 85 percent of the world’s water.

According to the 2006 UN Human Development Report, people have a minimum basic water requirement of 20 liters per day. This estimate takes into account drinking and personal hygiene. If bathing and laundry needs were factored in, this number would rise to about 50 liters per day. In the United Kingdom the average water consumption is around 150 liters. In the United States, one person taking a shower uses more water in five minutes than the average person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.

If the average water consumption in Europe per person is around 250 liters and in the United States around 600 liters, then these numbers are in stark contrast with the 1.8 billion people in developing countries whose access is limited to less than 20 liters of water per day.

Why, then, are so many caught up in believing that our water crisis has more to do with scarcity of resources than a distribution of them? The answer can be found in the current economic ideology of neo-liberalism. According to neo-liberal rhetoric, efficiency and economic growth is realized through the privatization and commodification of everything, including public goods. The problem when we privatize everything from water to mass transit is that it no longer becomes profitable to provide services to those who can’t afford them. That’s why a home in Arizona can use more than 1,000 liters of water a day keeping its lawn green, while the parents of a child in Mozambique struggle to keep their children clean enough to ward off infections and maintain their health on 10 liters of water a day.

There Is No Universal Access

However, national water usage averages can mask inequalities. An article from the Detroit News reported that 100,000 people in Detroit, Michigan were without water because they could not afford to pay their bills. When IMF and World Bank policies call for efficiency, this does not necessarily mean a call for universal access.

Many believe that something can be done to ward off the solemn predictions like that of UNESCO’s Third World Water Development Report, which predicts nearly half of humanity will be living in areas of high water stress by 2030. If water access were more equally disseminated everyone could have more than enough for their individual need. In fact, household water requirements represent only a small fraction of total water usage, usually less than 5 percent. Therefore, there is no reason for such tremendous inequality in access to clean water and sanitation at a household level.

Beyond water use for life, most people’s livelihoods depend on whole industries such as agriculture and fishing. These industries are most affected by the deterioration of water quantity and quality. Such disruptions of water exacerbate the effects of droughts and floods. Furthermore, water contamination affects food production, thereby directly affecting the health of all living things.

Another challenge specific to post-industrialization includes the misuse of water. It is diverted from agriculture to industry, creating threats of hunger and less food production in the country being exploited. For example, Coca Cola in Kerala, India, according to one report, takes 3 liters of local water to produce 1 liter of Coke. In addition to the use of land and water from poor countries to produce products that are largely consumed in wealthy countries, it is also common to find countries dismantling their environmental protection laws in an attempt to compete for foreign investment. Such deregulation has led to the depletion and pollution of a significant percentage of inland water supplies.

In Europe and North America alone, since 1985, between 56 and 65 percent of inland water systems suitable for agriculture have been drained. Additionally, the water pollution created by industry has had devastating effects on the environment. A 2010 report in Global Biodiversity Outlook states that the number of dead zone locations worldwide, defined as coastal areas where water oxygen levels are too low to sustain marine life, have been doubling every decade since 1960.

Activist Prospects

Although prospects may seem bleak, fortunately, some progress has been made in the right direction. Activists like Maude Barlow and former Chilean Ambassador Pablo Solon have imbued civil society with a renewed hope over the issue of water rights in the 21st century. Their efforts, along with many others, helped to pass the UN Convention of Water as a Human Right. This convention obligates governments to ensure that people enjoy “sufficient, safe, accessible and affordable water, without discrimination.” Moreover, it asserts that water be protected and distributed across all nations. Although this can be seen as a success on the side of civil society, it is important to realize that the real work has only just begun. The implementation of this convention is far from realized. With water scarcity becoming a global geopolitical issue, moving up the ranks of National Security Agenda’s in Europe, America and China, getting countries to comply with these demands will not be an easy task.

Thus, it is vital that civil society remain strong in the position that all people and the earth have a right to clean water. Furthermore, transnational corporations, who ignore international or nation-state laws, cannot be allowed to privatize precious natural resources such as water. The time has come for all people, not just the very wealthy, to have access to clean water.

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Erica Carlino is a freelance artist and writer. She currently works as a project manager for Cultural Center development at Fermata Arts Foundation. She holds a masters degree in Sociology and Public Policy from the Anglo-American University in Prague.