High Commissioner, UN experts tell Kyoto forum that water is crucial to realization of human rights

19 March 2003



Water is an essential but limited resource, crucial to the pursuit of a dignified life and to the realization of many human rights, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello says in a statement to the Third World Water Forum being held in Kyoto this week.
The High Commissioner emphasizes the need to promote the right to water in the work of the Forum, and encourages delegates to include an explicit reference to water as a human right in the Ministerial Declaration to be adopted during the Conference.
"Beyond personal and domestic needs, water is necessary for realizing many other human rights, such as the rights to adequate food, health and housing. Safe water is especially necessary to reduce the risk of water-related disease. It should be noted that the principle of non-discrimination applies to the right to water which means that special attention and measures should be ensured to benefit the vulnerable and disadvantaged," the statement says.
Stressing that access to water must never be compromised, Mr. Vieira de Mello recalls the Millennium Summit, during which all 191 Member States of the United Nations committed themselves to reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water by 2015. He drew attention to two recent initiatives aimed at realizing this commitment, namely the General Comment of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in November 2002 recognizing water as a right; and a joint publication of the World Health Organization and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on "water as a human right" (available from the website www.ohchr.org).
In a separate statement to the Kyoto Forum, three experts of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights also highlight the importance of the CESCR General Comment. The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Miloon Kothari, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, and the Special Rapporteur on the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Paul Hunt, say water is inextricably linked to the realization of the rights they are charged with studying.
The rapporteurs stress that water as an essential public good takes priority over water as an economic commodity and that water should never be used as an instrument of economic or political pressure. They also recommend that plans for the implementation of national and international water strategies should encompass a human rights-based approach.
"At the World Water Forum, Governments must consider meeting the needs of the most vulnerable first, keeping in mind the primacy of human rights obligations. Only then will the goals and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, and the rights to water, adequate housing, food and health, be realized," the joint statement says.



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