Protection of Human Right to Water and Public Advocacy

One of the critical issues of our times is the scarcity of water brought on by overconsumption and lifetime issues, this has led to an acute shortage of drinking water to all humans beings particularly in the third world countries

In his speech delivered today on Human Rights Day at Christ University, Bangalore, senior advocate Mohan Katarki, discusses the rights under International law to portable drinking water and the role of the courts in India in guaranteeing the fundamental right to drinking water.

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]RESHWATER is undoubtedly a precious natural resource but, it constitutes only 3% of the overall water available on the Earth. The rest of the water is in Sea as saltwater.  Out of this 3% of freshwater, actually, 1% is available since the remaining 1/3rd lies under the surface as groundwater and 1/3RD is frozen in glaciers.  1% of available freshwater is partly polluted water and that too, it is spread over hundreds of basins on the Earth. Out of these, 261 basins are a transboundary basin or international basins. The prominent among them are Ganges, Brahmaputra, Indus, Mekong, Jordon, Euphrates-Tigris, Nile, Danube, Seine, Amazon, Colorado and the Rio Grande.

Photo: Senior Advocate Mohan V Katarki delivering his lecture on Human Rights Day at Christ University, Bangalore

The common law juridically addressed water rights as an incident of property inland. If categorisation is permissible for analysis in law, the water rights fall in four categories. The powers of State in regulating the use, control and distribution of waterfalls under natural resources law. The protection of the environment while recognising the right to develop usable waterfalls under environmental law. The protection of the purity of water from polluters and rights of the riparian owner is known as riparian law touching tort. In the emerging concept of Human Right, the water is recognised as an incident of health and life.

Water – Linked to health and life 

Water is directly linked to the sustenance of any biological life. One may live without food for three weeks, but he cannot live without water for more than one week. In fact, about 55 to 60 per cent of the human body consists of water. All water doesn't protect health and life. What is available ought to be available as safe and clean water conforming to the standards. Water in poor quality or inadequate in quantity is the cause for 80% of the diseases and sickness. 20% of the deaths are attributed to water-related diseases. Secondly, water is not available equally to all. Discrimination in the availability of water is rampant. The annual per capita water use in African countries like Nigeria or Ethiopia is as low as 50 cubic metres. But, in western nations like the USA, it is as high as 1700 cubic metres. The per capita use in India is about 600 cubic metres. It is said that about 76 million or 7.6 crore Indians don't have safe water to drink. In some places in Rajasthan, women walk 5 to 6 km to fetch drinking water. Worldwide and speaking generally, about 0.5 billion suffer from a serious shortage of water, about 1 billion people have no access to water and about 2.5 billion have insufficient access to water. The water-stressed population worldwide is projected to reach about 3.5 billion in the next 5 years. If these estimates are true, the human rights of about 45 per cent of the population of the world are jeopardised or are likely to be jeopardised soon. The State acts as the silent killer by its failure to develop and supply water to people.