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14 June 2012 - Catarina de Albuquerque,
the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to water and sanitation has released an open letter
calling on all States negotiating the outcome document for Rio to again
commit to the human right to water and sanitation.
De Albuquerque says the language it is not sufficient in the
outcome document of the Conference to commit to water and sanitation- the
language must be explicit. It is a human right and must be referred toas such,
according to Albuquerque, who points out that the right to safe drinking water
and sanitation is recognized in international law.
In the negotiations for
“Governments have to integrate the human right to water and
sanitation and aim at achieving access to safe and affordable drinking water
and sanitation for all without discrimination, and in sufficient quantities to
protect human health and dignity, particularly for the most marginalized,” De
Albuquerque says.
The UN Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in
UN Human Rights Chief Navi Pillay, who will be attending the
conference, has also drawn attention to the interdependence of human rights and
sustainable development. In an interview with the International Press
Service, Pillay said, “Without human rights safeguards, policies intended to
advance environmental or development goals can have serious negative impacts on
those rights.”
“Technocratic efforts” in recent years to achieve
sustainable development, Pillay says, have resulted in the exclusion of many
communities from decision-making processes, exacerbating social and economic
inequalities and side-lining human rights.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aim to halve, by
2015, the number of people without access to safe drinking water. In April 2012
the World Health Organization and Unicef announced that their joint monitoring
programme for water and sanitation (JMP) found that the goal for safe drinking
water had been achieved ahead of the deadline.
The MDG target to halve, by 2015, the number of people
without access to basic sanitation is well off target, with 2.5 billion people
still deprived of a basic latrine or toilet.
Nonetheless, the report said, that 11 percent of the global population – 783
million people –have no access to improved water sources. The report indicates
that , progress has been uneven, with enormous strides being made in
The Special Rapporteur has stressed that human rights
obligations do not stop once arbitrary benchmarks are realized.
Human rights law requires “progressive realization”: States
should aim for universal access within timeframes tailored to the country
situation and the maximum of available resources, the Special Rapporteur says.
A number of the independent experts of the Human Rights
Council, including on water, food, indigenous peoples, internally displaced
people, migrants, international solidarity, health and the environment, earlier
published an open letter
to the States negotiating Rio+20, calling for the incorporation of human rights
standards into the outcome document with strong accountability provisions to
ensure implementation.
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“It should enable citizens to monitor the commitments of
their Governments. And it should put accountability, the foundation of a human
rights based approach to development, at the core of its commitments,” they
said.