The human right to a national water plan

The United Nations voted 124 to zero in favour of recognising a human right to water yesterday. When an issue is as one-sided as that you know from the start that it is likely to be totally meaningless.

That does not seem to have deterred the self-proclaimed “global water justice movement”. The press release from the Council of Canadians begins: “After over a decade of hard work, the global water justice movement achieved a major victory today as the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of recognizing water and sanitation as human rights,” then continues, “This resolution has the overwhelming support of a strong majority of countries, despite a handful of powerful opponents. It must now be followed-up with a renewed push for water justice.”

It begs the question, who are these “powerful opponents”? The answer is no one. Everyone is in favour of a human right to water. Where the division arises is over the question of how it should be implemented. The real debate is about whether the human right to water has any relevance to whether there can be private sector participation in water utilities, or whether the model for delivering the human right to water should be financially sustainable.

The global water justice movement wanted to use the human right to water to keep the private sector out of water. Whatever the UN Assembly voted for yesterday, it did not vote to keep private operators out of the water sector, and it did not vote to condemn water utilities – both public and private – to financial dereliction.

Last week the UN Independent Expert Catarina de Albuquerque published her findings on the human rights obligations which apply in cases of “non-state service provision”. She is unequivocal on the issue. “Human rights are neutral as to economic models in general, and models of service provision more specifically,” she states. She points out that if private operators don’t serve poor neighbourhoods it is not because they are private operators: “The geographic coverage of services provided by non-State actors is the result of a political decision and a contract proposed by the public authorities – non-State service providers will not extend services to unserved or underserved areas unless explicitly mandated to do so in their contracts,” she says, adding that contracts and regulation should also address issues of the price, quantity and quality of supply.

Essentially she is pretty happy with the way professional private water operators work. She is more concerned about small informal water vendors “Operating unregulated, they often provide poor quality services at exorbitant prices. Yet, many people would be far worse off without their services.” This brings her to the nub of the problem: what is the most effective way of extending the human right to water: it is best to focus making sure that as many people as possible actually get clean piped water, or is it more important to be concerned about the terms on which they receive that water? “States must ensure that the measures taken – for instance strict licensing requirements – do not worsen the situation and leave people without access to services,” she says. “When utilities are not adequately and sustainably resourced, they cannot ensure operation and maintenance, let alone invest in the network. Yet, direct full cost recovery would render services unaffordable for many people.” Although she likes targeted subsidies and doesn’t want to see people totally cut off for non-payment, she does not suggest that pro-poor arrangements should be so extreme that they undermine the viability of the service.

Overall she appreciates that reaching low income groups is a long term aspiration rather than something that can be achieved simply by adopting the right to water. “States must develop a national plan, including legislation and other appropriate measures, to progressively achieve the full realization of the rights to water and sanitation, including in currently unserved and underserved areas, independent of the modalities of the service provision chosen,” she concludes.

It seems that the human right to water boils down to no more than a statement of good intentions by governments. There is no prohibition on private sector participation and no obligation on utilities to adopt financially unsustainable business models. In that sense, the adoption of the human right to water has got to be a massive defeat for the Global Water Justice Movement.