Why Is the US Getting in the Way of International Efforts to Make Clean Water a Basic Human Right?

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/water/why-us-getting-way-international-efforts-make-clean-water-basic-human-right



On 21 November 2013 the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee (The Committee) adopted a resolution on “The human right to safe drinking water and sanitation.” There, all UN member states agreed that the rights to water and sanitation are derived from the right to an adequate standard of living. As a result, these rights are now implicitly recognised as being part of International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Convention on the Rights of the Child ( CRC) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).

This means that for the very first time, all UN member States affirm that the rights to water and sanitation are legally binding in international law. This is indeed a moment for all of us to celebrate.

Yet this agreement is marred by the reluctance of the United States to join all other nations in a universal agreement on the definition of these rights (as defined in a resolution of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) adopted by consensus in September 2013).

Writing about this, an Amnesty International press release says: “At the time [of the unanimous adoption of the UNHRC resolution] the United States was the only country that disassociated itself from the definition of these rights and stated that it did not agree ‘with the expansive way this right has been articulated.’ However, it has not explained what aspects of this definition it does not accept.” The press release continues: “Such rights are only ‘expansive’ if one adopts a 19th century understanding of hygiene and of government duties to ensure the provision of public services.”

[MADem]

1. Go west, young man, go west.

http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/features/2003/aug/water/part3.html

Personally, my view is that everyone should have access to clear, clean, safe drinking water. I think water fees are getting usurious, and I think water HOGS need to pay much more than they are paying, AND find ways to conserve.

OTOH, I also think that US is slow and lazy when it comes to use of gray water for things like landscaping irrigation.

I also think that if we can put a man on the moon, we can figure out a way to desalinate that produces tasty water and doesn't cost the earth.

[KentuckyWoman]

2. Would put Coke and Pepsi out of the water business

There is a real problem with multinationals bribing poorer governments to get all the water rights for water bottling plants.

Coke has made a killing in India selling their own water back to them.

[Bohunk68]

6. Don't forget what the CEO

of Nestle stated about water. We don't have a right to it, because they have the right to sell it to us.

[TheKentuckian]

3. Because something that is a right hampers the same thing being a commodity to exploit.

All about the money.

[Scuba]

5. Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

[Wilms]

4. I'd say it's a matter of policy.

The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply

snip

Over the last two years, I've discovered documents of the Defense Intelligence Agency proving beyond a doubt that, contrary to the Geneva Convention, the U.S. government intentionally used sanctions against Iraq to degrade the country's water supply after the Gulf War. The United States knew the cost that civilian Iraqis, mostly children, would pay, and it went ahead anyway.

The primary document, "Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities," is dated January 22, 1991. It spells out how sanctions will prevent Iraq from supplying clean water to its citizens.

snip

http://progressive.org/mag/nagy0901.html

[solarhydrocan]

7. Investing in Water Good Long-Term Bet, Goldman Head Says

Bloomberg Business Peter S. Green Feb 11, 2013

Investing in water utilities, infrastructure and water rights offers stable, long-term returns, Kyung-Ah Park, head of the environmental markets group at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in an interview.

“Water’s an indispensable necessity, and supply is very inelastic,” Park said in New York. Water infrastructure is a way to invest in the megatrend, said the executive of a world in which one in eight, or 884 million people, still lack access to safe water supplies.

With demand for water growing twice as fast as a global population expected to reach 8 billion by 2025, and much of the developed world’s water infrastructure aging faster than it can be replaced, municipalities constrained by the amount they can charge customers need to seek alternative financing, she said.

Public-private partnerships where municipalities join with private water operators in water and water-treatment operations, some with incentives, are one model being used more, particularly in the U.S...more
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-11/investing-in-water-good-long-term-bet-goldman-head-says.html

The Fed gives Goldman Sachs our money, then Goldman invests that money in basic necessities, makes money and gives contributions to the next puppets in line so they can give more to Goldman.

It's a perfect circle- jerk

[Wilms]

9. Goldman Sachs!?! Where have I heard that name before?

[hatrack]

8. See also: "World Bank", "Cochabamba"

Timeline here:

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/bolivia/timeline.html

[beachbum bob]

10. Enron's next biggest move was into world's water supply

before they did themselves in, they successfully lobbied international financial institutions, led by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, on the condition that they privatize their water and wastewater services.....and enron was moving quick before their energy and derivative fraud was discovered

[dotymed]

11. Also,

This surely goes against most of the "rules" set forth in
the TPP....

Change we can believe in?
That would be President Bernie Sanders.