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CANADA SHOULD SUPPORT THE RIGHT TO WATER THIS YEAR AT THE 60TH SESSION OF THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION.

The Canadian Catholic Organization For DEVELOPMENT AND PEACE, the official international solidarity agency of the Canadian Catholic Church, has adopted the theme of universal access to water as its education campaign for the period 2003-2006. It is therefore monitoring the position taken by Canada on the right to water at the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

Canada has stood out as being the only country to oppose the resolutions on the Right to Water at the Human Rights Commission in 2002 and 2003. This refusal is ironic, especially given Canada’s identification of basic human needs, specifically including water, as one of the six priority areas for its overseas development assistance.

This refusal to recognise the most basic of human rights undermines the efforts of those struggling on behalf of 1.1 billion people in the Global South who lack access to a clean water supply. It undermines worldwide efforts to ensure that water becomes a legal entitlement, rather than a commercially-traded commodity or a humanitarian service. Canada’s refusal is another arm in the weaponry of those who would wish to deny the world’s poorest citizens this most basic of rights, and who would resist the redistribution in water resources necessary to see that this universal right is met.

Canada’s refusal to recognise this right flies in the face of a number of international treaties it has ratified, as well as a number of political declarations of intent, which recognise water as a human right. These include:

Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights sets out that States signatory to the treaty ‘recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions.” Common sense dictates that water must be considered one of the essential components of adequate living conditions.

Article 14 of the Covenant on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) binds States parties to ensure rural women ‘adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply…”

The International Convention on the Rights of the Child binds States parties to: “combat disease and malnutrition…through, inter alia,…the provision of adequate nutritious foods and clean drinking water.”

A number of declarations of political intent also set out statements of Canadian policy on water as a human right:

In 1977, at the UN Water Conference, UN member states recognised in the Mar del Plata Declaration that all peoples ‘have the right to have access to drinking water in quantities and of a quality equal to their basic needs’

In 1994, principle 2 of the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo re-affirmed the right to water: “[Human beings] have the right to an adequate standard of living for themselves and their families, including adequate food, clothing, housing, water and sanitation.”

Canada is also committed to reaching the Millennium Development Goals of halving poverty by 2015, including Goal number 7 target 10, which aims to halve the number of people without access to drinking water.

Canadian policy should be consistent with the treaty obligations and declarations of political intent set out above. Nonetheless, despite the fact that Canada has recognized its obligations to respect, protect and fulfil this right, it persists in refusing to vote for the right to water at the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Canada’s stated commitment to playing its part in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, although encouraging, will not be enough to ensure a sustainable adequate water supply for all of the world’s people. In our view, the best way to ensure access to water for all is to make water a basic human right.

This persistent refusal raises questions regarding Canada’s commitment to human rights, as its refusal to recognise the right to water is undermining the international human rights system. As United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan himself has said:

‘Access to safe water is a fundamental human need, and therefore, a basic human right. Contaminated water jeopardizes both the physical and social health of all people. It is an affront to human dignity.’

The late UN Human Rights Commissioner, Sergio Vieira de Mello echoed this call at the Third World Water Forum in Kyoto last year, calling for a direct reference to the right to water in the Ministerial Declaration of the conference. Sadly, this call was not heeded.

We urge Canada to rectify this position at the 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Commission, and in honour of those who lack this vital resource, as well as to pay tribute to the memory of Sergio Vieira de Mello, to recognize that human beings have a right to water.

Ottawa, February 3, 2004.