by Maude Barlow

All over the world, groups fighting for local water rights are championing an international instrument for the right to water. Increasingly, the need is for a United Nations convention that would serve as a model for nation-state constitutions. For the past 15 years, the World Bank and other banks have promoted private water development in the south. This model has proven to be a failure. High water rates, cut-offs to the poor, reduced services, and pollution are the legacy of privatization. A new study has confirmed this approach led to a net reduction in water development in the south, as northern governments and banks assumed the private sector would bring in new investments, a promise that never materialized.
At the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City last March, the UN cited the failure of privatization and called for governments to re-enter the water services arena. Calls for a UN convention to re-assert the role of government in supplying water to the poor increased dramatically at the forum.
That water is not now an acknowledged human right has allowed decision-making over water policy to shift from the UN and governments toward institutions and organizations that favour the commodification of water by private water companies. These institutions include the World Bank, regional development banks, World Water Council, Global Water Partnership and the World Trade Organization.
Not only have these institutions vigorously promoted the interests of the private water companies in the global south, they have relinquished much political control over water policy to them. The study Pipe Dreams by Public Services International and the World Development Movement reported that the big water transnationals influence decision-making around water services.
Many governments have gone along with this trend, allowing creeping privatization with little or no government oversight or pubic debate.
Behind the call for a binding instrument are questions of principle that must be decided soon as the world’s water sources become more depleted and fought over: Is access to water a human right or just a need? Is water a common good like air or a commodity like Coca Cola? Who is being given the right or the power to turn the tap on or off – the people? Governments? Or the invisible hand of the market? Who sets the price for a poor district in Manila or La Paz – the locally elected water board or the CEO of Suez?
The global water crisis needs good governance; good governance needs binding, legal bases that rest on universally applicable human rights. It calls for the political will to act. Because these global water companies and the financial institutions that back them are now global, nation-state instruments to deal with water rights are no longer sufficient. International laws are needed to control the global reach of the water barons.
At the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, key areas were targeted for action; since that pivotal event, conventions on climate change, biodiversity and desertification have all emerged. But water, which was targeted as a priority area, has been neglected.
At a practical level, a right to water convention gives citizens a tool to hold their governments accountable in their domestic courts and the “court” of public opinion, as well as seeking international redress. In Canada, the decision by the Conservative government to back away from Canada’s previous commitment to the Kyoto Accord has become highly contentious and given environmentalists in Canada and around the world a powerful tool with which to criticize the government. Had Kyoto not existed, the fight for good climate policy in Canada would be much more difficult.
The right to water has been recognized by international resolutions and declarations at the UN. These include the 2000 General Assembly Resolution on the Right to Development; the 2004 Committee on Human Rights resolution on toxic wastes; and the May 2005 statement by the 116-member Non-Aligned Movement on the right to water for all. Recently, Evo Morales, the new president of Bolivia, called for the right to water for the South American Community of Nations (CSN).
Most important is General Comment No. 15, adopted in 2002 by the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that recognized that the right to water is a prerequisite for realizing all other human rights and for leading a life in dignity.
In October of 2006, several countries presented a resolution to the newly formed UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) requesting the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to conduct a detailed study on the relevant human rights obligations related to access to water under international human rights instruments, including recommendations for future action.
The countries that proposed this resolution are: Belgium, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Cyprus, Ecuador, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Cameroon.
Countries that are likely to oppose or who have serious reservations include India, the UK, Canada, the US, China, Egypt and Australia. The council will vote on the resolution in the future.
Support among civil society groups around the world is growing. A Right to Water convention has been adopted by Red Vida, the network of grassroots groups fighting for water justice all through the Americas. There is a fear among grassroots groups that our movement has been too successful and that may lead to a compromised convention.
Until recently, the global institutions and the big water companies opposed a Right to Water convention. So did the European countries, such as France and Germany, home to the big water companies. However, the momentum for a right to water instrument is growing and it is clear it cannot be stopped. So the position of the World Bank and the World Water Council has shifted.
There is now an understanding that the call for the right to water is an idea whose time has come. Those who opposed it until very recently have decided to help shape it so that the private sector is not excluded. A proposal by Green Cross International, for example, is in great favour in some circles as it includes the water corporations as “stakeholders” and promotes private financing of water projects in the global south. See (www.blueplanetproject.net) critique of Green Cross draft convention.
This has given civil society cause for alarm, as it is concerned that a convention that would protect corporate rights in the delivery of water would be worse than having no convention at all. Grassroots groups in the south would never support a compromised instrument.
So civil society has been looking for a small number of nations from the global south and north to spearhead a more strongly worded resolution that would not only confirm that water is a public trust, but that water services should be delivered by governments on a not-for-profit basis. The two obvious choices are Norway, which has announced it will no longer support any World Bank water project that imposes privatization as a conditionality, and Bolivia, which had terrible experiences with private water companies.
It is imperative to find a group of countries to champion a strongly worded convention document and address two shortcomings inherent in current human rights conventions: It must bind international institutions and corporations and establish enforcement measures that provide effective remedies for individuals and communities denied their right to water. Our convention must make it clear that, where there is a conflict between the human rights articulated in a UN instrument and the corporate rights inherent in trade agreements, UN-sanctioned human rights will prevail.

Canada’s position
Canada, under Liberals and now under Conservatives, opposes the right to water at the UN. Canada was the only one of 53 countries to vote against appointing a special rapporteur on water at the 2002 meeting and reacted negatively to the October 2006 resolution to the Human Right Council to conduct a study on the right to water. Canada expressed concern over the reference in the resolution to General Comment No.15, asking that it be removed. It is widely understood at the UN that Canada is clearly opposed to any articulation of the right to water. In July 2006, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights rebuked Canada for its position on the right to water, saying it “regretted” Canada’s continued opposition and called on Canada to review its stand.
The official reason given by the government of Canada for this strange position is that a convention might force Canada to share its water resources with the world, and particularly cites the growing demand for water in the US. This is patently untrue; it has been repeatedly pointed out to Canadian authorities that a UN human rights convention establishes obligations on a state toward its own citizens. Nothing in a convention would force Canada to share its water, especially with a wealthy nation. Canada’s position is rendered doubly troubling as it has included water as a tradable “good” in NAFTA, which means that if commercial export of water to the US were to be commenced, Canada would have limited authority over its water supplies in the future.
Perhaps this is the real reason the government of Canada is refusing to adopt a favourable position on the right to water even though a 2004 Ipsos-Reid poll showed that 97 percent of Canadians support the right to water. A declaration that water is a right and therefore, by extension, cannot be traded or sold, would violate the NAFTA contention that water is a commodity like shoes or cars. Perhaps successive Canadian governments do not want to cut off their opportunity to make money from Canada’s water resources in massive commercial exports to the US.
Whatever the reason, Canada’s continued opposition to the Right to Water is an international embarrassment and a disgrace. It is for this reason that a group of Canadians organizations have come together to pressure our government to change its position and to support efforts at the United Nations for an idea whose time has come – a UN convention on the Right to Water.

Maude Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and co-founder of the Blue Planet Project (www.blueplanetproject.net), an organization committed to supporting global grassroots struggles in the fight for water justice. The project works with many international organizations and activists and is affiliated with international networks including Friends of the Earth International, Red VIDA (Inter-American Network of Vigilance for the Defense and Right to Water) and the People’s Health Movement.