ABSTRACT
This chapter examines efforts over the past few decades to address water ethics, including water resource professionals, corporations and scholars from many disciplines. It begins with the most influential initiatives that have affected water ethics: those undertaken by the UN. Those initiatives have included informal acknowledgement of the human right to water for almost a half century, formal recognition of an international human right to water and sanitation during the last decade, articulation of the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation starting in 2000, adoption of the Sustainable Development Goal for water and sanitation in 2015, and the spark the UN has provided for many discussions on water ethics. The human right to water as understood by the UN includes sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for domestic uses such as drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation, personal and household hygiene.
