Today the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, Mr David Boyd, presented to the UN Human Rights Council his report on human rights and the global water crisis, describing the negative impacts of water pollution, water scarcity and water-related disasters on the enjoyment of many human rights and how these have disproportionate effects upon vulnerable and marginalized groups.

GI-ESCR took the floor during the discussion of the report to highlight a new threat to the right to water, posed by the recent creation of the world’s first futures market in water. In its oral statement GI-ESCR told the Human Rights Council, that water is a public good and a human right and it must not be marketised, thereby exposing it to speculation and market fluctuations, as we have seen in relation to the rights to food and housing. It is crucial to protect water as a human right, to ensure equitable and affordable access for all, as an essential element of a dignified life. The COVID-19 pandemic has further drawn attention to the importance of universal and equitable access to water in responding to health crises.

The Special Rapporteur on the right to water, Mr Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, previously expressed alarm about the futures market in water, saying: ‘You can’t put a value on water as you do with other traded commodities. …. Water belongs to everyone and is a public good. It is closely tied to all of our lives and livelihoods, and is an essential component to public health. … Water has a set of vital values for our society that the market logic does not recognize and therefore, cannot manage adequately, let alone in a financial space so prone to speculation’.

The Report of the Special Rapporteur on environment also reminds us of the importance of a healthy environment for the protection and realisation of human rights. In this context, GI-ESCR called on states at the HRC to support the call by civil society and by UN Agencies to recognise at the international level, the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

At this session of the Council, states can demonstrate their support by co-sponsoring the Joint Statement proposed by Costa Rica, the Maldives, Morocco, Slovenia and Switzerland and by engaging constructively in their process towards the possible international recognition of the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Read GI-ESCR’s Statement here.

Read the report of the Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment here.

Read the press release of the Special Rapporteur on the right to water here.

4 March 2021

GI-ESCR’s Lucy McKernan delivers the oral statement to the UN Human Rights Council