Water - UN Report threatens water as Human right

Action Letter:

Letter to complete with your logo, date and to sign for sending to the President of the Council of Human Rights United Nations at hrcpresidency1@ohchr.org; hrcpresidency2@ohchr.org ; hrcpresidency3@ohchr.org; mission.thailand@ties.itu.int

 :

 

His Excellency Mr. Sihasak Phuangketkeow

President's Council of Human Rights, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland

 

(Copy to Members States Mission at the Council of Human Rights, United Nations)

 

Subject: Approval of the Resolution on the right to water and sanitation.

Your Excellency,

Having considered the draft resolution on the right to water and sanitation, co-written and sponsored by your Mission and that of the Spanish Permanent Missions,  we strongly request the removal of paragraph OP7, which stipulates that states are free to engage the private sector in managing the water, and paragraph OP 09, which stresses the importance of non-state actors in policy and management of water. If the report is approved, the Commission on Human Rights Human will legitimize by these two paragraphs the privatization of water services and commodification of water. To do so would be to flagrantly contradict the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations on July 28, which states that the right to water and sanitation is a fundamental right and therefore not subject to market mechanisms.

Furthermore we declare in the strongest of terms that in approving this report, UN agencies are continuing their efforts to transfer the responsibility for water management to private companies and to abandon their international duty and prerogative of defending the right to life for all people around the world.

 

As an absolute minimum, this resolution should recognize that the right to safe and clean water and sanitation is derived from the right to life recognized in Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the right to an adequate standard of living recognized in Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. These two rights are inextricably linked to other human rights, including the rights to dignity, food, adequate housing and health.  More broadly speaking, we believe that the human right to water and sanitation is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, and ultimately should be recognize as such by law. 

 

Sincerely,        

                                

(Your signature)