CESR promotes a rights-based approach to environmental advocacy. Our efforts in environmental advocacy have fallen into two main areas: reporting environmental health hazards in Latin America, and promoting the right to water as a fundamental part of the right to a healthy environment. Please click here for more on environmental health hazards. Please see below for more on CESR's work on the right to water.
CESR was the first human rights NGO to articulate what the right to water should entail. In 2002, CESR collaborated with the World Health Organization, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights and other NGOs to produce a guide to the right to water. Click here to read the report
Access to Adequate Clean Water is a Human Right
Water is a basic element of all life. Over 70 percent of the human body is made up of water. While a human being may survive without food for several days, water deprivation can kill a person within a matter of hours. Water is also a requirement for the most basic activities vital to sustaining human life, including agriculture, cooking, and sanitation. Yet while water sustains life, it can also bring death if contaminated. Some of the deadliest diseases, which kill millions around the world each year, are carried in unclean water. Access to adequate amounts of clean water, for both consumption and sanitation, is a prerequisite for a healthy life. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares, “all human beings have the right to life”; this includes the right to water.
Most water shortages and water contamination stem from human actions or neglect. However, the problems of water supply and sanitation are often portrayed as stemming only from natural phenomena such as drought, climate change, or seasonal weather patterns. Recognizing a human right to water is an important step toward holding decision-makers accountable and recognizing the social and political dimensions of water use and management.
Several countries have already recognized some form of the right to water in their national Constitutions. Click here for a list of those countries.
Although the international community recognized the right to water, as a component of the right to life, over fifty years ago, millions around the world are still denied access to adequate amounts of clean water. In arid regions, states have regulated access to water as a way of controlling marginalized groups. Reclaiming water as a human right reframes the terms of debate around water scarcity. While human actions or neglect cause most water shortages and contamination of water resources, the problems of water supply and sanitation are often portrayed as stemming only from natural phenomena such as drought, climate change, or seasonal weather patterns. Recognizing a human right to water is an important step toward holding decision-makers accountable and recognizing the social and political dimensions of water use and management.
CESR Fact Sheets on the Right to Water:
- Right to Water Fact Sheet #1: Global Statistics [pdf 346 kb]
- Right to Water Fact Sheet #2: Why a Human Right to Water? [pdf 30 kb]
- Right to Water Fact Sheet #3: International & Constitutional Law [pdf 12 kb]
Thirsting For Justice: Violations of the Human Right to Water in Palestine [pdf 5.84 mb]
Control over water resources has been a central point of conflict between Israelis and Palestinians since Israel was established in 1948. In spring 2003, CESR collaborated with local Palestinian NGOs, including the Palestinian Environmental NGO Network (PENGON) and the Palestinian Hydrology Group (PHG), to document violations of Palestinians’ human right to water. In addition to the above report on water in Palestine, CESR has produced two fact sheets on water in Palestine:
- Right to Water in Palestine: A Background [pdf 1.82 mb]
- Right to Water in Palestine: Crisis in Gaza [pdf 766 kb]
Report of the International Fact-Finding Mission on Water Sector Reform in Ghana [pdf 418 kb]
In August 2002, Public Citizen, along with other NGOs, including the Center for Economic and Social Rights, conducted a fact-finding mission to examine the impacts of privatization in Ghana.