MEDIA RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 17, 2008

Harper government blocks UN resolution on right to water

Ottawa – The Council of Canadians is calling on the Harper government to stop blocking a resolution tabled by Germany and Spain at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on March 10 that calls for water and sanitation to be recognized as a human right.

The resolution, which will be voted on within the week, is currently being debated at the UNHRC session in Geneva. Canada has put forward numerous objections to the resolution. Canada and the United States are the only two countries to go on record at the United Nations in opposing the right to water.

Canada is a member of the UNHRC until 2009, while the United States is not an elected member of the UNHRC but allowed to engage under the rules of the Council.

“Recognizing water as a human right is vital to ensuring that governments address the reality of more than a billion people who are currently without access to clean water,” says Maude Barlow, chairperson of the Council of Canadians and author of Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. “It is shocking that Canada would work with the United States to oppose this fundamental right.”

The debate occurs as communities around the world observe the 15th UN World Water Day on March 22 emerging out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.

The joint resolution promoted by Germany and Spain aims to establish a ‘Special Rapporteur’ with the mandate to provide guidance on the right to water and sanitation, identify best practices, investigate country situations and promote the right internationally. The resolution follows a report by Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights stating that “specific, dedicated and sustained attention to safe drinking water and sanitation is currently lacking at the international level” and recommending that access to safe drinking water and sanitation be recognized as a human right.

Canada is working to weaken the resolution by demanding that references to the right to water and sanitation be removed and that the scope be reduced. Canada wants the proposed position of ‘special rapporteur’ to be downgraded to an ‘independent expert’ serving for only one year instead of the proposed three years. Canada is also opposing visits by this independent expert to individual countries and the granting of a mandate enabling them to clarify the content of the right to water and sanitation.

Negotiations on the issue are expected to conclude this week.

The Council of Canadians will be marking World Water Day by working to promote the right to water in nearly 40 communities across the country.

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For more information, please contact:
Dylan Penner, Media Officer: Tel.: (613) 233-4487, ext. 249; .