ABSTRACT
The recent movement by some within the international community to recognize a human right to water resulted from the poor record by most states to guarantee minimum supplies of clean water and sanitation to their citizens, especially the marginalized. However, this movement also arose as a reaction to neo-liberal globalization that prioritizes the liberalization of water and sanitation services and the promulgation of national policies that treat water as an economic, rather than a public good (Bluemel, 2004). The relatively new body of literature on the subject of the human right to water, inspired by liberal attitudes, tends to centre on the imperative of empowering individuals to fulfill their potential as humans by having a minimum set of resources (water in this case), and invokes the putative authority of certain international human rights declarations, norms and conventions (such as the ICESCR) that seek to impose state obligations towards their citizens (Gleick, 1998; Bluemel, 2004; Klawitter ampentity Qazzaz, 2005). Indeed, the more pragmatic advocates of a human rights-centred water policy are now seeking specific international and national legislation to enshrine such rights in a manner that both accepts the ultimate authority of the state, rather than universal moral prescriptions imposed from above, and the efficacy of the market (World Water Forum, 2006). This problem-solving logic, or strategy, thus avoids the more radical human rights project of structural (and behavioural) change, and allows public policy officials, members of civil society and international organizations to concentrate their combined efforts on the relatively simpler, more technical task of law-creation, in the hope that long-term education, awareness and political commitment will create binding and effective policies and norms.
