Hello Unassuming Reader, 

Please join me in this cause to raise awareness for water poverty that impacts Humanity on a local level, such as in my community of The Eastern Shore of Virginia, as well as Nationally & Globally.  

We have already faced together, collectively, a global pandemic.    It's time to heal.  Starting with Human Rights and Water Accessibility.  

By signing this petition, you are stating you agree that Water is a Human Right.  

Will you join us and sign this petition to increase the number of households with Clean Potable Drinking Water?  

The human right to water is indispensable for leading a life in human dignity.   It is a prerequisite for the realization of other human rights.   The right to water as the right of everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable and physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have the time......

On Philosophical Global Frameworks for Water as a Human Right:

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water," so W. H. Auden finished his poem "First Things First."  Only oxygen is needed more urgently than water at most times.   But a key difference that makes water a more immediate subject for theorists of justice is that, for now, oxygen is normally amply available where humans live.   Historically, the same was true of water since humans would not settle in places without clean water.  Nowadays, however, water treatment plants and delivery infrastructure have vastly extended the regions where humans can live permanently.   Population increases have prompted people to settle in locations where access to clean water is precarious.   While we need other nutrients as well we can survive without any of them for quite some time.  Without water we die within days.  Water is life-giving and non-substitutable.  A second crucial point about water is that it is part of nature.  Its existence is not owed to human accomplishments.  My goal here is to argue in support of a human right to water and a global water compact to regulate its distribution.   I do so in a way that develops the aforementioned two points about water within a theory of global justice I recently presented, which is especially suitable to capture the significance of water for human life and to show that there is a genuinely global responsibility for the distribution of water.  A human right to water is discussed in two forms, a right to safe drinking water and a right to sanitation.  I support both.  I talk of a "human right to water" to refer to both rights, and distinguish between them where appropriate.  According to The Who, each human being requires at least 20 liters of clean water for daily consumption and basic hygiene.  However, many countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East (and the Eastern Shore) lack sufficient water resources or have so far failed to develop these resources or the necessary infrastructure.  Insufficient access to clean water remains a ubiquitous problem, posing an impediment to development and may even be a security risk.   The human rights framework is the leading proposal for a globally acceptable normative approach to regulating human affairs.   It matters therefore greatly whether there is a human right to water.  Lawyers and social scientists have discussed whether international law generates such a right, what precisely it would mean, and what difference it could make (perhaps for the better, by promoting development or by preventing excessive privatization, or perhaps for the worse, by wrestling control over water from indigenous peoples or by preventing appropriate privatization.   Legally and politically a human right to water has become increasingly recognized.   The 1979 Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) mention water, albeit only in contexts concerned with the eponymous women and children.   CEDAW obligates its signatories to make sure (rural) women enjoy "adequate living conditions, particularly in relation to housing, sanitation, electricity and water supply, transport and communications".  In 2002, the Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights, charged with assessing the implementations of ICESC, recognized a human right to water as being implied by the provisions of that Covenant.   In its General Comment 15, the committee asserts:  The human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses.  An adequate amount of safe water is necessary to prevent death from dehydration, to reduce the risk of water-related disease and to provide for consumption, cooking, personal and domestic hygienic requirements.  In July 2010, the UN General Assembly recognized rights to water and sanitation.   In September 2010, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution acknowledging that both rights are implied by the right to an adequate standard of living.   Despite various institutions such as the Committee on Social, Economic and Cultural Rights (a group of "experts"), the UN General Assembly or its Human Rights Council coming together to address the issue of Water as a Human Right, none can readily create binding international law.   Moreover, the United States has not ratified ICESC and so does not recognize a right to an adequate standard of living to begin with.   The legal and political support for human rights to water and to sanitation is far from unambiguous.   Sanitation might appear less worthy a subject for a human right than drinking water.  However, water for drinking and water for sanitation come from the same water system around us.  We are highly vulnerable to water: there are waterborne diseases humans catch from dirty water, water-scarce diseases stemming from insufficient access, water-based diseases originating from organisms that live in water, and water-related diseases spread by animals that live near water.   Poor sanitation is causally related to all these hazards.  Moreover, the drinking of water and the disposal of urine and feces belong to the same metabolic cycles for which water is so essential.   Two thirds of our bodies consist of water, and a right to safe drinking water makes sure we receive enough safe water for resupply.   A right to sanitation guarantees that conditions allow for the safe disposal of human waste, which to some extent just is contaminated water but also involves water as a medium.   Economic and social rights enable individuals to participate actively in community life and to be competitive in commercial life by providing them with some substantive (often material) prerequisites to those ends: education, food, housing, social security, private property.   A human right to water would be among these rights.   Some say inflation would be a worry, do we devalue the currency by declaring too many rights? Should we detach it from international responsibilities associated with human rights?  My conception integrates the idea that initially would seem to have little to do with human rights:  that humanity collectively owns the earth, the resources and spaces that exist without human accomplishments.   Since my approach integrates the two fundamental points about water recorded at the beginning (that it is indispensable to all life and that its existence is nobody's accomplishment) it provides especially secure foundations for a human right to water.  My approach also makes clear why there is a genuinely global responsibility for water provision everywhere.  The idea that the earth is collectively owned by humanity was pivotal to the political philosophy of the 17th century.   At that time European expansionism had come into its own.   Questions about how to divide up the planet arose forcefully among the conquering nations.   The Old Testament (where the divine gift of the Earth was recorded) was as secure a starting point for such debates as these religiously troubled times permitted.  Philosophers such as Hugo Grotius,  Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf and John Locke disagreed about how to capture this ownership status and the conditions under which parts of the earth can be appropriated.   Revitalizing the standpoint of collective ownership is sensible in light of the problems of global reach that now preoccupy us and that concern our use of the earth, such as questions about immigration and our responsibility for future generations.   What is at stake is the sheer space in which our existence takes place.  There turns out to be a conceptual link between collective ownership and human rights.  In virtue of the face that humanity collectively owns the earth, persons possess a set of natural rights that capture their status as co-owners.  The existence of states put these rights in jeopardy.  A set of associative rights must ensure that states preserve these natural rights.   ("Associative" rights are rights individuals have in in virtue of being subject to certain political or economic structures.). These associative rights are among the membership rights in the global order and as such are human rights.  Within that conception the human right to water emerges vindicated.  If countries fail to occupy resources and spaces in a proportionate manner, they can be expected to admit more people or to relinquish resources or spaces.  What matters is the overall value of a region for human resources or spaces.  What matters is the overall value of a region for human purposes.  Water is increasingly important for determining a region's value.   Water-rich countries have a duty to make good on that human right if other countries are unable to do so for their citizens.  I conclude by arguing in support of a global compact on water, including a monitoring body that keeps track of global water distribution of water.  Thales of Miletus and the Old Testament gave water pride of place.  Contemporary theories of global justice can do the same?  In its 1993 Vienna Declaration and Program of Action the UN states that "all human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated.  The International community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis.   The philosophical doubts about economic and social rights stem as such: the nature of rights objection and inferior-urgency objection.   The nature of rights objection insists that regardless of how we think of the moral urgency of the issues behind economic and social rights, we should not think of them in terms of rights.  Talking about a moral right to something involves identifiable addressees with an ability to make good on the realization of the right and with relevant connections to the holder.  But for economic and social human rights, this could not be done.  Notice how Bernard Williams formulates a worry specifically for labor rights: "The problem is: against whom is the right held?  Who violates it if it is not observed?  Even if governments accept some responsibility for levels of employment, it may not be possible for them to provide or generate work, and if they fail to do so, it is not clear that the best thing to say is that the rights of the unemployed have been violated.   Since in many cases governments cannot actually deliver what their peoples are said to have a right to, this encourages the idea that human rights represent merely aspirations, that they signal goods and opportunities which, as a matter of urgency, should be provided if it is possible.  But that is not the shape of a right.   If people have a right to something, then someone does wrong who denies it to them."  If there is a right and it is not satisfied, Williams says, then someone has done wrong.  If someone does wrong, then that agent has the power to make it the case that the right was satisfied.   But no one has the power to make it the case that, in this example, everyone has the opportunity to work.   Therefore there is no identifiable duty-holder, which goes to illustrate that economic and social rights generally do not possess a vita feature of rights.  The crucial response to the Nature-of-Rights objection is that human rights can sensibly be aspirational.  Aspirational rights are rights one can only progressively realize but that do not thereby forfeit their status as rights.  A human right to X is a moral demand that X be realized if it is possible to do so, and that appropriate steps towards the creation of conditions be taken under which X can be realized if that is not possible right away.  The obvious worry is that this response renders rights indistinguishable from mere goals.   Even rights one cannot realize immediately have corresponding duty-bearers with the ability to contribute to the realization of the right and with relevant connections to the holder. We can distinguish between strict human rights, whose more or less immediate realization can be expected, and aspirational ones ("manifesto rights," as Feinberg (1973).   The words "aspirational" and "manifesto rights" are sometimes used in a sense that excludes any connection to normative force, a point sometimes stressed through the addition of the word "mere" (merely aspirational rights).   I do not use these terms in this way.   Aspirational or manifesto rights have all the normative force of rights, but are not always immediately realizable.   Contrary to Williams, it is possible for (aspirational) rights to be currently unsatisfied and yet for nobody to have done anything wrong.  Which rights are strict and which aspirational varies by country, changes over time, and is contested.  What bears on the distinction-and thus on what is "possible" to do-is both resource limitations and political obstacles.  There is much political abuse of the space created by the idea of aspirational rights for disagreement about who needs to do how much towards the realization of certain rights.  But this does not undermine the conceptual possibility of aspirational rights.   Is the duty holder always the global order?  Human rights are a source of moral progress partly because discourse about them renders unavoidable the question of who needs to do what.   Can human rights, hold within and against the global order? It is because of the differences between states and the global order that it might be problematic for rights guaranteed by constitutions to be aspirational, but not for human rights.  There is always a link between rights and duties, but what precisely it is depends on the context in which the rights are held.   A second objection to counting economic and social rights as human rights is the inferior-urgency objection.   If X is a human right, then it is no less urgent than any other human right.  Economic and social rights are less urgent than some rights that everyone accepts are human rights.   Therefore economic and social rights are not human rights.  Maurice Cranston (1973) argues that economic and social rights fail the test of "paramount importance".   It is "a paramount duty to relieve great distress, as it is not a paramount duty to give pleasure."  It would be a "splendid thing" if, the content of economic and social rights were also realized.   Yet it would be much more serious if civil and political rights were disregarded than if economic and social rights were.  Some say all human rights are strict because the lack of fulfillment of basic economic and social rights is a function of how the global operates, a failing that should and could be remedied immediately.  One way of understanding what is at stake is that civil and political rights are said to be more essential to survival than economic and social rights.   But that point is misguided.  Civil and political rights provide security, while economic and social rights protect one's ability to make a living.   That ability is as essential to survival as security.   Therefore some economic and social rights must be of as paramount an importance as some civil and political rights.  A second understanding of what is at stake is that there is greater urgency in the provision of civil and political rights than in the provision of social and political rights, in the sense that satisfying the former can be more readily expected of duty-holders than satisfying the latter.  The rationale is that civil and political rights are negative rights: they merely require that duty-holders refrain from inflicting harm.  Economic and social rights are positive: they require measures to supply rights-holders with something.  Not harming is more significant than doing good.   But first of all, just about every right involves positive and negative elements.  The right to a fair trial is a classic civil right.  A negative component of this right is that the Tate does not abuse its power by way of prejudicing court proceedings.   A positive component is that states must take measures to create a judicial infrastructure in which fair trials are normal.  The point applies to civil and political rights generally.  Abstaining from abuse is always on aspect of what it is for such a right to be realized.  But in addition, the state must take measures to make sure officials are trained and supervised in such a way they do not abuse their powers.  Economic and social rights often require the provision of material benefits to people, or the creation of opportunities that allow them to secure these benefits.  But there is also a requirement that others refrain from interfering with individuals as they go about doing so.  The division of rights into negative and positive ones is misleading.   A second reply to the Inferior-Urgency objection is that even if there were a difference in urgency between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic and social rights on the other, this difference would not preclude any kind of right from being human rights.  Any conception of human rights would have to explain why a certain list of rights is being proposed as a list of human rights.  If all things considered a conception is plausible the present objection would have little bite.   There is an idea of collective ownership of the Earth, such as in Locke's Second Treatise of Government.   Here are his statements on water: "To be sure, water is a venerable topic of philosophical and religious writing.  In the Western canon water enters early.   Thales of Miletus believed water was the origin of everything .   The Presocratics started philosophy by seeing the world as orderly and comprehensible.   The original version of that thought made water essential.  In the biblical Book of Genesis we read that before giving shape to this creation, "The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters" (Genesis 1:2). Water became God's point of departure for further deeds."   Water appears three times in chapter V of Locke's Second Treatise.   He begins by stating that, by revelation and natural reason, the earth can be considered common property of all humanity.   Locke explores how there can be private property of resources that were originally given to humanity in common.   Each person owns her body, and thus her labor.    Next Locke introduces constraints on acceptable property acquisition.   Nobody is supposed to acquire more than she can enjoy: nothing must be spoiled or destroyed.   When land appropriation occurs initially, such acquisition would leave "enough and as good" for others.  Again he illustrates the matter in terms of water: "Nobody could think himself injured by the drinking of another man, though he took a good draught, who had a whole river of the same water left him to quench his thirst: and the case of land and water, where there is enough of both, is perfectly the same.    The theme of the precious water from Exodus that animates Locke can be traced to another revered source: Cicero's "On Duties".   Cicero lists fresh water alongside fire and council as something one should give freely because it is useful to the receiver and of no trouble to the giver.  this classic passage makes water a subject for an account of beneficence, rather than justice.   For Locke, water exists in abundance and has little commercial value, not only at the early states of acquisition but also in his time.   Still appropriation can occur although it adds no value to the water.   But then appropriation must also be possible once there no longer is abundance.   However, since Earth was given to humanity in common "for the support and comfort of their being" at that later stage everybody must still have access to enough water to survive.    Except for the recent revival of left-libertarianism, inquiries about collective ownership have been almost invisible since the Rawlsian renaissance of political philosophy.   But this approach is present in international law, where for forty years the term "common heritage mankind" has been applied to the high seas, the ocean floor, Antartica and outer space.   In Two Books on the Duty of Man and Citizen, Pufendorf lists water, fire and advice things nobody should be refused.   In the middle of the 18th century, Ever de Vattel would again list water as an example of something that is so abundant it should not be refused anyone.   Seneca's On Benefits, another inspiration from the 17th century, also treats water as an example of something that is abundantly available.  It is a long way from there to an attitude expressed by John F. Kennedy on several occasions, that "the first country that is able to transform sea water into fresh water at a reasonable price" will earn far more prestige than we lost by being second in outer space.   Philosophically, much can be gained by developing, in secular ways, the idea that humanity collectively owns the earth, since this original ownership status has strong implications for what individuals and groups can do with portions of three-dimensional space.   Once we develop this secular version we find an important connection to human rights.   Three points are straightforward enough: first the resources and spaces of the earth are valuable and necessary for any human activities to unfold; second, those resources have come into existence without human interference; and third, the satisfaction of basic human needs matters morally.   These points must be considered when individual accomplishments are used to justify property rights strong enough to determine use across generations.  Egalitarian Ownership is the view that the earth originally belongs to humankind collectively, in the sense that all humans, no matter when and where they are born, must have some sort of symmetrical claim to it.   ("Original" ownership now does not connote with time but is a moral status, one that pertains to the "original" resources and spaces, the resources and spaces of the earth as they exist without human interference.)  This is the most plausible view of the ownership of natural resources in light of the tree points just mentioned.   Egalitarian Ownership is detached from the complex set of rights and duties the civil law delineates under the heading of property law.   At this level of abstraction from conventions and codes that themselves have to be assessed in relation to views on original ownership, all Egalitarian Ownership states is that all humans have a symmetrical claim to original resources.   The considerations motivating Egalitarian Ownership speak to raw materials only, not to what human beings have made of them.   The distinction between what "is just there" and what humans have shaped is blurred.   But by and large, we understand well enough the idea of what exists without human interference.   One may object that the idea of humanity's collectively owning the earth is misguided in light of the environmental problems that no are (or should be) so high on our agenda.   Egalitarian Ownership does not presuppose the arrogance associated with an interpretation of the biblical account that subjects the rest of creation to the human will, an attitude that shows, say, in Calvin's view that God took six days to create the world to demonstrate to human beings that everything had been prepared for them.    Religiosity aside, a more difficult question is under what conditions man-made products, including improvements of original resources, should no longer be accompanied by special entitlements of those who made them or their offspring.   Egalitarian Ownership formulates a standing demand on all groups that occupy parts of the earth to inhabit the earth in a manner that respects this symmetrical status of individuals with regard to resources. That Egalitarian Ownership operates in this way should be intelligible and acceptable even within cultures where individuals are not seen as property owners.   Nothing about Egalitarian Ownership precludes such cultures where individuals are not seen as property owners.   Nothing about Egalitarian Ownership precludes such cultures from being acceptable to their members even if they do not treat individuals themselves as property holders.   At the same time, even cultures that do not see individuals themselves as property holders must indeed be acceptable to those who live in them especially because all individuals have symmetrical claims to original resources, no matter how precisely we understand such acceptability.  Common ownership- in which the entity belongs to several individuals and private ownership, you say?  Common ownership is a right to use something that does not come with the right to exclude other co-owners from also using it.   If the Boston Common were held as common ownership when it was used for cattle, a constraint on each person's use could be to bring no more than a certain number of cattle, a condition driven by respect for other co-owners and the concern to avoid the infamous Tragedy of the Commons.    Perhaps common ownership is our only resort in life given what scientists  earnestly predict for our future certainty of survival as a species.  The core idea of common ownership is that all co-owners ought to have an equal opportunity to satisfy basic needs to the extend that this turns on obtaining collectively owned resources.  This formulation, first, emphasizes an equality of status; second it points out that this equality of status concerns opportunities to satisfy needs (whereas there is no sense in which each co-owner would be entitled to an equal share of what is collectively owned, let alone to the support of others in getting such a share, any more than co-owners of the Boston Common had a claim to such a share or to the support of others to obtain it) and third, it does so insofar as these needs can be satisfied with resources that are collectively owned.    To put this in standard Holfeldian rights terminology, a common ownership rights must include liberty rights accompanied by what Hard (1982) calls a "protective perimeter" of claim rights (p. 171) To have a liberty right is to be free of any duty to the contrary, and obviously, common ownership rights must include at least rights of that sort; that is, co-owners are under no duty to refrain from using any of the resources of the Earth.  In Hohfeldian terminology, co-owners have immunity from living under political and economic arrangements that interfere with their having such opportunities.   When individuals cannot satisfy basic needs where they live, other states that have this ability but refuse entry would not merely fail to aid them; they would deny them the opportunity to satisfy these needs.   Under these conditions we must ask what to make of the immunity individuals have from living under political and economic arrangements that interfere with those subject to them having opportunities to satisfy their basic needs.   Common ownership rights are natural, pre-institutional rights.  Once institutions are founded, guarantees must be given to co-owners that institutional power will not be used to violate their status.   Since such a violation is threatened by the system of states per se, such guarantees take on the form of moral demands against that system of states.  Responsibilities that arise in the manner I have sketched must be allocated at the level of the state system as such, as collective responsibilities, rather than resting exclusively with individual states and then only with regard to their members.   These considerations take us to a conception of human rights.   Cohen (2006) sensibly proposes that human rights have three features: they are universal and owed by every political society to everybody; they are requirements of political morality whose force does not depend on their expression in enforceable law; and they are especially urgent requirements.   Any more specific account of human rights, says Cohen, has to meet these constraints, as well as two methodological assumptions : fidelity to major human rights documents, so that a substantial range of these rights is accounted for; and open-mindedness (we can argue in support of additional rights).   In what sense are human rights held in virtue of membership in the global order?  This order is the system of states that covers most of the land of the earth as well as the network organizations that provides for "global governance"  At the political level, the state system is governed by a set of rules, the most significant of which are codified by the UN Charter.   At the economic level, the Bretton Woods institutions (IMF, World Bank, later the GATT/WTO) provide a cooperative network intended to prevent wars and foster worldwide economic improvement .  These institutions, jointly with the more powerful states acting alone or in concert, shape the economic order.  Importantly for there to be enough structure to the global order to render that term ("global order") applicable, and an accompanying capacity for coordinated action, is a minimal condition for the existence of rights held within that order.   And, indeed there is enough structure of that sort.   Being a member of that order merely means to ilve on the territory covered by it, which by now all human beings do, if for no other reason than shared territory.   We speak of rights held in virtue of membership in the global order.   States must make sure their power does not render individuals incapable of meeting their basic needs.   On a narrow reading, this standpoint does not deliver much beyond basic rights to life and physical integrity.   On the broader reading, co-ownership status is not preserved merely if it happens that states do not render individuals incapable of meeting basic needs.   States must be bound to refrain from doing so.   Their power must be limited so that they cannot simply elect to become abusive.   Adding ideas of robustness responds to the nature of the state as an entity that (generically, ignoring phenomena such as failed states) is overwhelmingly more powerful than individuals and organized in complex ways that permit abuse in many forms.  Ensuring that individuals are robustly protected in light of the dangers posted by the state system requires such constraints although we cannot achieve perfect protection.  To rights to life and bodily integrity we must add individual liberties (e.g. freedom from forced labor, of conscience, of expression and association, of movement, and freedom to emigrate) as well as political rights (e.g. to accountable representation) and due process rights (e.g. a fair trial).   The second fundamental guarantee is that states must provide opportunities for individuals to lead a life at least at subsistence level. On a narrow reading we merely obtain a set of rights that protect people's ability to live at subsistence level, such as rights to food, clothing and housing.   At least in societies with sophisticated economies that make it difficult to satisfy needs without actively participating in society, an elementary right to education and a right to work understood as a right not to be excluded from labor markets can be supported within such societies.   Such rights constitute robust protection of the rights to food, clothing and housing that the narrow understanding already delivered.   Given the present understanding of human rights, it is then up to the global order to distribute the global water resources accordingly, and to assume a shared responsibility to develop local infrastructures to assist with accessing and distributing water.   If people find themselves without water and their state cannot help, other agents in the global order must either make sure they have water or else allow them to move elsewhere.   States can exclude people, and thus restrict their liberty, right, only if they jointly give guarantees to people wherever they live. Since even minor deficiencies in our supply with safe water can seriously debilitate human beings, this guarantee must include safe drinking water.  

Section 2 recorded some concerns about a right to water: that we would have to assess how such a right bears on practical choice, that is, how it may be compatible with markets for water; that it may be too specific and presuppose a problematic judgement about priorities among components of wellbeing; that we may devalue the currency by proclaiming too many rights; and that there are may be good reasons not to tie water to international duties.  As far as the first point is concerned, a right to water has been enlisted to resist privatization of water resources.  For instance, in the late 1990, the Bolivian government sought to improve the provision of municipal services by, among other things, privatizing water services.   To cover their investments the companies involved raise the price of water substantially.   In the city of Cochabamba these measures encountered such heavy resistance that the government ultimately undid the changes.   During these protests several grassroots organizations issued the Cochabamba Declaration according to which "water is a fundamental human right and a public trust to be guarded by all levels of government, therefore, it should not be commodified, privatized or traded for commercial purposes."  But nothing in the account of human rights that we discussed licenses such a move.  What the theory delivers is that a human right must constrain private markets to make sure everybody has access to enough safe water.   This in turn implies that water has to be available at reasonable prices )prices that do not interfere with other purchases required to maintain a decent life, and on which the original ownership status of the water exerts downward pressure).   To be sure, the efficiency arguments that generally support markets also support them in the case of food and water.  Markets facilitate the distribution of food and water and thereby help to make sure everybody has access to food and water  at all.   And although water occurs naturally, pipes do not.  Charging for treatment and delivery is appropriate.   Nonetheless, fees must be kept at rates that do not interfere with the requirement that everybody have access to water at reasonable prices.   The concern about over-specificity is toothless on account of the special status water has among nutrients.   We must prioritize access to water as a component of wellbeing.   The worry about rights inflation fails for the same reason.   Finally, that there is something about water that makes it unsuitable for International duties is false.  Precisely the opposite is true, and making that clear is one of the distinctive implications of resorting to my account of human rights in this context: there is a genuinely global responsibility for making sure everybody can enjoy access to water to which co-owners of the earth are entitled.   The state system is acceptable only if it meets that responsibility.  A human right to sanitation also emerges, in any event on the more robust understanding of human rights that I just introduced.  the basic thought behind the derivation of rights from collective ownership is that co-ownership generates entitlements to access to natural resources that must be either preserved or adjusted appropriately when individuals live in states.  A right to water is an example of a right that preserves access to something to which individuals qua co-owners must have access.   A human right to basic education, for instance, adjusts for lack of access.   Such a right applies at least in nay slightly sophisticated society since the existence of states means that co-owners will often not have the possibility to make a living by accessing natural resources.   As a substitute for this lack of access we need empowerment to participate in society.   A right to sanitation involves both aspects (preservation of access to something to which co-owners must have access, and appropriate adjust to life in states).  It involves a guarantee to use the local water system, in this case for purposes of hygiene and thus for the maintenance of health.   But such a right also captures an adjustment to life in societies where particular health hazards are generated or exacerbated through our organized ways of living together.  Hygiene is an example of such a health concern.   In a nutshell, there is human right to sanitation because co-owners are allowed to help themselves to naturally existing water systems to protect themselves against health hazards that to a large extend arise because of human living arrangements.   Common ownership implies that each individual must have the opportunity to satisfy basic needs to the extent that this turns on natural resources and spaces of the earth.   In light of the significance of water for all forms of life, this includes a right to make use of the earth's water.    The state system interferes with the co-owners' ability to satisfy basic needs by exercising their liberty right to water.    It is genuinely a global responsibility, a condition of the very acceptability of the state system, to guarantee access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.    The vast majority of water is used for agriculture (70%) followed by industry (15-20%) and then personal consumption (10-15%) of which drinking water is only a fraction.   Many "water justice" issues involve disputes over water for agriculture that are not covered by the legal or moral definition of human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation.   Often these are questions of transboundary water allocation on which human rights provide little guidance, but which collective ownership also illuminates.   Here the focus is on the actual provision of water, but what about the INFRASTRUCTURE? Physical water shortage is not the issue when people lack water for drinking and sanitation.   There is often enough water, but it used for other purposes.   Agriculture is frequently the only way for people (say, in rural Africa) to make a living, but water used for irrigation is unavailable for drinking needs.   In such situations, a human right to water entails a duty to help with the provision of infrastructure to optimize use of water for agriculture or other essential purposes while also making sure there is enough water for drinking and sanitation.  What about collective ownership and immigration?  We must ask under what conditions would-be immigrants can reasonably be expected to accept borders.  Countries are justified in excluding others ONLY IF sufficiently many people populate their spaces.   "Sufficiently many" means the number of these people is proportionate to the value for human purposes of the resources and spaces thereby removed from general use.   We arrive at the nadir of an idea: relative over and under use, and thus of proportionate use of portions of the earth, an idea that is helpful for water distribution problems.  A population under uses its hare of three dimensional space if the per capita value of what they occupy is higher than the world average across states.   The average person in such a state can access more resources and spaces than people around the world can on a per country average. They over use if the per capita value of what they occupy is lower than the work average among states.   Under-users can be reasonably expected to permit immigration.   Alternatively, they should relinquish some territory or resources.   Over-users may decline further requests for immigration.   They are doing enough in permitting a proportionate share of humanity to make a living.   Assessing how many people are proportionate to the value for human purposes of certain resources is not a matter of population density that proceeds in terms of sheer territorial extension.   Territories of the same size might differ vastly in terms of soil quality, resource endowment, climatic conditions and other variables.   A host of biophysical factors shape the value of a territory for human purposes, as do technological constraints.   Much of the empirical work needed to make the relevant valuing operation precise is currently unavailable.  Another complication is that one needs to wonder exactly what counts as "use" in the relevant sense (not merely what is in circulation but also, say, what is accessible in the ground but not yet in circulation) a point that matters greatly for the case of water.   It is in any event the overall value for human purposes of whole regions that determine whether a country proportionately uses a portion of the earth.   If countries have large amounts of certain resources, people who live elsewhere do not therefore have a claim on a share of those particular resources.  It is not the case that each country should have its share of oil, gas, copper or coal.  But things are different for WATER.   Water is special among the raw materials humans have integrated into their lives as resources.   Unlike any other resource (except oxygen, which, however, is amply present where people normally live) water must either be made available to human beings everywhere, or alternatively, people who live in countries where there is not enough water to allow for the realization of the human right to water must be permitted to move to countries where water is available.  This situation calls for a global compact on water, which must include a monitoring body.   This body would take inventories of global water resources and assess how they contribute to the overall value for human purposes of regions of the earth.   It must identify which countries under-use their regions and are water-rich (on a per capita basis).   As far as the human right to water is concerned, it is in the first instance those countries satisfying conditions are responsible for making good on the global responsibility of ensuring all human beings can access water.  They could do so either by plainly transferring water if other countries cannot realize the right to water for their citizens, or else by allowing for more immigration, primarily from countries that over-use resources and specifically suffer from water shortages.  Donor countries could thereby make a contribution to global distributive justice for which they would get credit when it comes to assessing what they must contribute overall.   But the global compact idea (and Common Ownership) has broader applications than what we can say about the human right to water.   With populations growing, living standards rising in many places, and climate change disrupting patterns of water supply, availability of clean water is increasingly important for the value of human purposes of three-dimensional spaces.  Thereby water also becomes increasingly important for assessing whether countries over or under use their portion of the world.   Recall also that many "water justice" issues involve disputes over transboundary water allocation for agriculture, or for industrial use, with are not generally addressed by human rights.   Here too ideas of over and under use allow us to make progress.   For instance, suppose a river runs through several countries and affects people's lives in different ways (e.g. the Mekong).   In some parts the river is used for fishing, but elsewhere mostly for transportation of generation of energy.  It is worth noting in 1997 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (or Watercourse Convention)  This Convention pertains to the uses and conservation of all waters that cross international boundaries (both surface and ground water).   The  Convention has three primary principles.   First, states should use an international watercourse in a way that is "equitable and reasonable" vis-á-vis other states sharing that watercourse.   Second, states should take "all appropriate measures" to prevent "significant harm" to co-riparian states.   Third, states should "consult" with co-riparian states and provide "timely notification" of any changes in use that could have significant, adverse effects on those co-riparian states.  The Convention also outlines seven factors designed to ensure that an international watercourse is utilized in an "equitable and reasonable manner" Notably, in the absence of agreement or custom to the contrary, no use of an international watercourse enjoys priority over other uses, but disputes about use must be resolved with "special regard being given to the requirement of vital human needs".  For this Convention, as well as for its legal context and possible implications for the case of Iraq.   As of 2012, the Convention has not been ratified by enough countries to enter into force. Anyway back to sharing water.   It is vexing to determine how water contributes to the overall value of a region for human purposes.  First of all, we must note the difference between water volume and yearly renewable supply.   Countries might have a topography that creates lakes and a climate that prevents evaporation.   For instance, Canada harbors 20% of the global water that is contained in lakes.   Based on that, one might wish to conclude that Canada should be among the first to be summoned when water is scarce elsewhere.  Perhaps so, but one way of illustrating the intended impact of the remainder of this discussion is that it renders that kind of inference more problematic than it may seem.   The renewable supply is the amount of fresh water that is fully replaced annually through precipitation.   (Canada's share of world supply is 6.5% to continue that example).  If the supply is gone, it will be replaced next year.  If the volume is diminished, it may not be replenished.  An assessment of the overall value for human purposes of regions of the earth must be distinguish between these two manners of access to water.  A second complication is that humans are not the only water users.  Collective ownership is a relationship among humans that is meant to capture that all of us have the same claim to resources and spaces.  That relationship does not imply that other creatures should not also have an opportunity to consume resources, or that the preservation of ecosystem (of which hydrological systems are an essential component) does not by itself at least have aesthetic value that demands preservation.   A third complication stems from the instrumental value of ecosystems.   Wetlands and forests, for instance, play a critical role in purifying water.  This kind of instrumental value of nature accrues mostly to the immediate environment.  But ecosystems might also contribute to the cycle of transforming CO2 into oxygen, a contribution to life everywhere on earth and on earth and not just where that ecosystem happens to be located.   More work is needed to develop these ideas of global water compact and its guiding idea of proportionate use of resources and spaces of the earth.   Much of it is work in disciplines other than philosophy.   Nonetheless, despite these complications, a global water compact that includes a monitoring body is required to make sure human beings have the kind of access to which they are entitled as co-owners.   This relatively concrete result from mirrors our more general finding.   Unlike Cicero and, following his example, Locke and others, we can no longer think of fresh water as abundant and thus a suitable illustration of what beneficence requires.   Water is an essential subject for a global theory of justice.   Thales and the Old Testament rightly gave water pride of place.   Contemporary theories of global justice should do the same.

Water, water everywhere, there are some drops to spare...if you care.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Footnotes On a Global Scale:

* The 2006 Human Development Report provides much  information on the global water crisis. See also the biennial report The World's Water by the Pacific Institute (edited  by Peter Gleick, e.g., Gleick (2011)). On the overall water situation, see World Water Assessment Programme  (2003) and (2009). For the range of conceptual (legal) and practical issues connected to a human right to water, see  Dubreuil (2006). Water is vital as a solvent and an essential part of a multitude of metabolic processes within the  body.http://hdr.undp.org/en/2019-report

*For historical approaches to water regulation across cultures, see Salzman (2006). For historical and  contemporary water conflicts, see also Shiva (2002).  

*Most water is used for agriculture (upwards of 70%) followed by industry (15-20%) and personal consumption  (10-15%), of which drinking water is a fraction. Arguably, for now, the biggest security threat is when agricultural  water is tapped.

*The Cochabamba Declaration contrasts with an international statement, the Dublin Statement, published in 1992.  Issuing the first major recognition of water as a commodity, the governments represented at the 1992 International Conference on Water and the Environment declared that "water has economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good."  For both declarations, see Salzman (2006).  See Bakker (2012) for the relationship between a human right to water and privatization.   Related is also the issue of bottling water, private suppliers profiting from packaging natural resources.  

*Quoted from "The Human Right to Water and Common Ownership of the Earth" by Mathias Risse, Harvard University: