The Human Right to Water: The Importance of Domestic and Productive Water Rights

Abstract

The United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision—known as ‘domestic-plus’ services—the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus services provide water for domestic and productive uses around homesteads, which challenges the widespread practice in the public sector of planning and designing water infrastructure for a single-use. Evidence is presented to show that people in rural communities are already using their water supplies planned for domestic uses to support a wide range of productive activities. Domestic-plus services recognize and plan for these multiple-uses, while respecting the priority for clean and safe drinking water. The paper concludes that domestic-plus services operationalize the obligation to progressively fulfill a comprehensive range of indivisible socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas.

Human Rights and the Challenges of Science and Technology

“…If there is a continuing trend, exemplified by the right to water as presented by Meier, et al (2014 ) and Hall et al (2013), to develop new or derivative human rights in a wide range of scientific and technological fields, the engagement of scientists and engineers, in partnership with human rights specialists, will be essential to translate normative pronouncements into "enhanced opportunities for rights-based ... policy" and "actual interventions" (Hall et al, 2013). This special section of Science and Engineering Ethics on technology, engineering and human rights is a good beginning.…”

“…Both assume the value of expanding the corpus of international human rights. While Meier et al are concerned about translating this right from formal international and national pronouncements into practical action at the local level, Hall et al suggest "adopting a more holistic interpretation of existing international law on the human right to water" (Hall et al 2013). …”

Strengthening the Human Right to Sanitation as an Instrument for Inclusive Development

“…The non-legal literature critiques the narrow formulation of the HRW which affects the realisation of HRS norms especially for people relying on various wet sanitation systems (Joshi et al, 2011;Hall, van Koppen & van Houweling, 2014); analyses the central role of knowledge in the re-production of the urban waterscape, including wastewater (for instance, Bakker, 2003;Castro, 2004;Kaika, 2003;Karpouzoglou & Zimmer, 2016;Swyngedouw, Kaïka & Castro, 2002); assesses sanitation governance processes and the motivations and accountability of key actors (Abeysuriya, Mitchell & White, 2007;Giles, 2012;Meier et al, 2014), even using human rights standards (Galvin, 2015); and proffers quantitative and qualitative indicators for measuring access levels (Bain et al, 2014;Baum et al, 2013;Ensink, et al, 2008;Ensink et al, 2015;Irish et al, 2013;Kvarnström et al, 2011). The nonlegal literature however does not sufficiently address the HRS norms beyond a cursory consideration at best but has instead focused largely on the technological and economic aspects of sanitation services (Obani & Gupta, 2016 analyses the coverage of the HRS in the legal and non-legal literature in detail).…”

Rights-Based Freshwater Governance for the Twenty-First Century: Beyond an Exclusionary Focus on Domestic Water Uses

“…For example, Hall et al ( 2013 ) found that even at consumption levels of 20 l per capita per day, half of the households used these quantities for domestic and productive uses. In mountainous areas with free gravity energy in Colombia, the proportion of households using pipes for multiple uses is 82-98 % in three rural areas, but only just below 50 % in two urban areas (Van Koppen et al 2009 ).…”

“…Currently, service levels for water supplies delivered near or at homesteads are 20-50 l per capita per day, supposedly to meet personal and domestic needs (and sanitation) only. This should be raised to 50-100 l per capita per day in order to also enable basic productive uses (Hall et al 2013 ;Van Koppen et al 2014a ). Unlike irrigation development that tends to disproportionately favour those with more land, multiple-use water services to homesteads benefi t everybody, including the land-poor and landless, childheaded households, the sick and disabled.…”