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Is access to clean water a basic human right?

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mwkruse
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Christian Science Monitor: Is access to clean water a basic human right?

ISTANBUL, Turkey -  With fresh water resources becoming scarcer worldwide due to population growth and climate change, a growing movement is working to make access to clean water a basic universal human right.

But it's a contentious issue, experts say. Especially difficult is how to safely mesh public-sector interests with public ownership of resources – and determine the legal and economic ramifications of enshrining the right to water by law.

"It's an issue that is snowballing," says Tobias Schmitz, a water-resources expert with Both Ends, a Dutch environmental and development organization. Some 30 countries have a constitutional or legal provision ensuring individuals' access to water, up from a handful a few years ago, he says.

"Everybody is grappling with the issue, knowing that we need to secure this right. But the question now is over the practical application of this right," Dr. Schmitz says.  …

David Schmidtz has some interesting thoughts about this tendency to classify basic needs as rights. From Social Welfare and Individual Responsibility: For and Against, page 9:

Collective responsibility as such is not a problem, but the urge to externalize responsibility is. Naturally, it would be comforting to know that if we lost our jobs tomorrow, strangers would be forced, against their will if necessary, to take care of us. So, why not say everyone has a guaranteed right to enjoy the kind of life-style that goes with being a productive member of society, whether or not one actually is a productive member? Edwin Baker claims, "If the practices of the society indicate that certain things are necessary in order to be a full member, then the community must assure the provision of these things to all who are expected to be part of the community.

Baker leaps straight from the premise that some things are necessary to the conclusion that guaranteed provision of those things is necessary. That leap is a mistake. Our need for food, clothing, and shelter is beyond question; our need for guaranteed provision is not. Nor is guaranteed provision guaranteed to make people better off. After all, the guarantee does not mean the goods are free. What it means is someone else has to pay. It means people have to pay for other people's needs and other people's mistakes instead of their own.

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2 responses to “Is access to clean water a basic human right?”

  1. ZZMike Avatar
    ZZMike

    “Naturally, it would be comforting to know that if we lost our jobs tomorrow, strangers would be forced, against their will if necessary, to take care of us.”
    Would it be equally as conforting to those strangers?
    The issue probably touches on the confusion, so prevalent in our society, of “rights” with “entitlements”.
    One of the basic human rights is surely the right to be left alone.
    But the whole discussion hinges on what we mean by “rights”. I believe that rights and duties go together. And we really can’t talk about either rights or duties without talking about society. The lone woodsman has absolute rights and no duties (other than to himself).
    I think that a lot of the things people call “rights” are things that other people – most commonly governments – can (and often do) take away from them.
    Like water.
    We went through that particular fight early on in this country – through the time of the cattleman and the rancher, up to the more recent time of California’s Bill Mulholland, the guy who made Southern California an agricultural possiblilty.
    Water is in the odd position of being the most common substance on Earth, and also the scarcest – in its drinkable form.
    Where water is scarce, I’d bet that most of the problems come from the governments involved.
    “Edwin Baker claims, “If the practices of the society indicate that certain things are necessary in order to be a full member, then the community must assure the provision of these things to all who are expected to be part of the community.”
    I wouldn’t go so far as “provision”. The end result of that is that eventually, everyone will be equally poor. What must be provided is the opportunity to get and share in these things. (The Founding Fathers recognized that when they wrote “the pursuit of happiness”, not just “happiness”. Unfortunately, they left it up to later generations to decide just what “happiness” means.)
    Certainly any society claiming to be civilized owes its members certain basics (not the least of which is to stay in the tribe), and in return, the members owe the tribe (e.g., to help defend against attack, to go to war of necessary).
    To keep going in the narrow example – water, wherever there’s a shortage of something, it’s either because Nature is indifferent to our presence, or someone has caused the shortage.
    There will always be floods and famines, disease and disaster. Since that’s out of our control, we can complain only to God.
    When it’s other people making the shortage, usually by monopolizing, and usually to profit from shortage, the usual route of complaint is to government. But when government is the culprit (as often happens on other continents), the people are left with only the first recourse.
    A larger question is, suppose somebody (or some organization) declares that “clean water is a basic human right”, what then? (Or more plainly, so what?)

    Reply
  2. vanskaamper Avatar
    vanskaamper

    “clean water is a basic human right”, what then? (Or more plainly, so what?)
    More taxes.

    Reply

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