RESULTS
YES	57%
NO	43%

DATE : 7.26.2010
Title : Human Rights, Economic Opportunity, Disease, Environment, Hunger, War, Population

"A resolution before the UN General Assembly this week seeks to declare the right to water and sanitation as a human right - a move that should give a push to address the severe and increasing global water crisis", writes Martin Khor in the Malaysia Star today. He notes Maude Barlow, chair of the Council of Canadians and a senior adviser on water to the previous president of the UN General Assembly, says that water touches the lives of billions every day and the world needs a clear signal that water is an issue of the highest priority. “When the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written, no one could foresee a day when water would be a contested area,” said Barlow. “But in 2010, it is not an exaggeration to say that the lack of access to clean water is the greatest human rights violation in the world. Nearly two billion people live in water-stressed areas and three billion have no running water within a kilometre of their homes. Every eight seconds a child dies of a water-borne disease, in every case preventable if their parents had access to clean water and if adequate sanitation was available.” A new World Bank reports says by 2030, global demand for water will exceed supply by 40%. This, said Barlow, is a shocking prediction of terrible suffering. More than a third of the world’s population is already facing water scarcity. Two billion people live in countries that are water-stressed and by 2025, two-thirds of the world population may suffer water stress, unless current trends alter. This will cause global conflicts, further global warming and soil erosion, greater food scarcity and disease. Five million people already die from water-borne diseases annually according to the article. The right to food has been established, which the organization that began World Campaign, Planet Earth Foundation, strongly supported. Hunger began to be reduced significantly, but has been on the rise again. As with all the great issues facing humanity, one cannot be solved without dealing with other related issues. Giving issues the force of a human right in international law obviously does not magically solve them. But it has through history been an important step in progress on various basic needs and basic rights issues.

Given that access to clean water, which along with air and food, are necessary for life, in a context in which five million people a year may die from lack of clean water, and many other inter-related problems such as hunger, disease, the environment and global conflict will likely become far worse immediately unless equitable and sustainable clean water access is created globally, do you believe that the UN should make clean water a human right for all people as a marker from which pragmatic solutions are determined and implemented?