The Right to Water
How access to clean water became recognized as a human right and why billions still lack it.
Recognizing Water as a Right
In 2010, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 64/292 recognizing the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. The vote was 122 in favor with none against but 41 abstentions, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, which argued the resolution could create obligations that conflicted with domestic water governance.
The right to water was not explicitly included in the UDHR or the major covenants, but the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights had recognized it in General Comment 15 (2002) as implicit in the right to an adequate standard of living (ICESCR Article 11) and the right to health (Article 12). The Comment specified that the right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible, and affordable water for personal and domestic uses.