Water As a Human Right for the Middle East and North Africa

Water as aHuman Right for the Middle East and North Africa Access to safe drinking water and proper sanitation is essential for human survival and for maintenance of adecent quality of life. Currently, more than abillion people do not have access to safe drinking water and more than 2billion people lack proper sanitation. In 1992, the United Nations proclaimed that water should be considered to be ahuman right. This position, however, has not been accepted by many developed and developing countries. This book systematically and comprehensively analyses the legal development of the concept of water as ahuman right; . Implications for national governments, and international and national organisations. Progress made on this front in different Middle East and North African countries. Obstacles to universal access to water-related services and how they can be overcome. This book was previously published as aspecial issue of Water Resources Development. Asit K. Biswas is President of the Third World Centre for Water Management, Atizapan, Mexico. Eglal Rached is Regional Director of the International Development Research Centre, Cairo. Cecilia Tortajada is the Scientific Director of the International Centre for Water, Zaragoza, Spain and President, International Water Resources Association. This page intentionally left blank Water as aHuman Right for the Middle East and North Africa Edited by Asit KBiswas, Eglal Rached and Cecilia Tortajada First published 2008 by Routledge 2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledgeisanimprint of theTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness Published in association with the International Development Research Centre PO Box 8500, Ottawa, ON K1G 3H9, Canada www.idrc.ca ISBN: 978-1-55250-380-5 (e-book) q 2008 Edited by Asit KBiswas, Eglal Rached and Cecilia Tortajada Typeset in Times 10/12pt by Alden Prepress Services, Northhampton, UK Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 10: 0-415-44584-1 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-415-46135-9 (pbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-44584-9 (hbk) ISBN 13: 978-0-415-46135-1 (pbk) CONTENTS Foreword MAHMOUD ABU-ZEID&MAUREENO’NEIL vii 1WaterasaHuman Rightinthe MENA Region: Challenges and Opportunities ASIT K. BISWAS 1 2Human Rights to Water in North Africa and the MiddleEast: What is New and What is Not; What is Important and What is Not DAVIDB.BROOKS 19 3Right to Water: The Millennium Development Goals andWater in the MENA Region OLLI VARIS 35 4The RighttoWater ANTONIOEMBID IRUJO 59 5WaterasaHuman Right: The Palestinian Occupied Territories as an Example ABDALLAHABU-EID 77 6WaterasaHuman Right: The Understanding of Water Rights in Palestine SIMONE KLAWITTER 95 7WaterasaHuman Right: TowardsCivil Society Globalization ODEHALJAYYOUSI 121 8Actualizing the RighttoWater: An Egyptian Perspective for an Action Plan SHADENABDEL-GAWAD 133 9Accountability and Rights in Right-based Approaches for Local WaterGovernance PETER LABAN 147 10 Towards aHuman Rights Approach to Water in Lebanon: Implementation beyond ‘Reform’ KARIM MAKDISI 161 Index 183 This page intentionally left blank Foreword Throughout history, it has been recognized that water is an essential requirement for the human and ecosystems survival. Without water, life as we know it will simplynot be possible. Thus, notsurprisingly, the ancient Greek philosopher, Pindar, declared in the 5th century BC that best of all things is water.Nearly two millennia later,Leonardo da Vinci considered water to be ‘the driver of nature’.These may be considered by some to be overstatements, but the fact that such eminentpersonalitiesoftheir times madesuch major pronouncementsindicate that water always has been considered to play an important role in humansurvival and development. During the second half of the 20th century, human population increased steadily, as did our economic and social activities. These twodevelopments, together with sub-optimal water management practices and processes, meant that many parts of the world started to face physical water scarcities. In addition, it is now beingincreasingly accepted that the environment is alegitimate user of water.Thus, in thoseareas where much of the available water has already been allocated, or is about to be allocated, the addition of environmental needs to other existing water needs has further complicated an already complex and difficultsituationthat will undoubtedly have significant social,politicaland economic ramifications in the coming years. The importance of water for satisfying avarietyofhumanand ecosystem needs has been regularly recognized in numerous intergovernmental meetings at very high decision- making levels, starting with the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972. All these global intergovernmentalconferences and their resulting declarations and action planspointed out the need for water for drinking (humans and livestock),food production, electricity generation, environmental conservationand industrialdevelop- ments. Theimportanceofaccess to clean water and sanitation was further emphasized in the Millennium Development Goals and in the JohannesburgDeclarationof2002. The importance of having access to clean water for domestic uses and sanitation was very specifically highlighted during the UN Water Conference,held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in March 1977. This Conference notedthat the access to water is abasichuman need, and proposed that the period 1981–90should be declared to be the International Water Supply and Sanitation Decade so that the people everywhere could have access to safe water within areasonabletimeframe.Even thoughthe Decade missedits goal of achieving universalaccess to safe water, it is now considered to be aremarkable success. viii Foreword The Decade mobilized politicalwill and resources in such away that an estimated 600 to 800 million peoplereceived access to clean water,who otherwise may not have had access to it. An in-depth analysis of theresolutions andaction plansofthe various intergovernmental conferences indicate that while they have consistently givenhigh priority to achieving universal access to clean water, they have vacillated regularly between the concepts of water as abasic need and water as ahumanright. In fact, it appears that these two concepts have often been used interchangeably,without aclear understanding of their differencesand possiblepolicy and financial implications. Thesituation changedsomewhat when the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights issued General Comment No. 15 in January 2003. This Comment reinterpreted Articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). It stated that: Water is alimited natural resource and apublic goodfundamental for life and health. The humanright to water is indispensable for leading alife in humandignity. It then went on to say that: The right to water containsboth freedoms and entitlements. Thefreedomsinclude the right to maintainaccess to existing water supplies necessary for the right to water, and the right to be free from interference, such as right to be free from arbitrary disconnections or contamination of water supplies. By contrast, the entitlements include the right to asystem of water supply and management that provides equality of opportunity for peopletoenjoy ‘the right to water’. The responses to the non-legally binding reinterpretation of ICESRstating that water can indeed be considered to be ahumanright under the existing international treaties and covenants have been somewhat varied. Thegoal of the GeneralComment No. 15 that every human shouldhave access to clean water is now generally accepted. The new interpretation was widely acclaimed by most, if not all, of the advocacy non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that were interested in providing access to clean water and sanitation in developingcountries. However, it should be noted that even within the legal community there is divergence of views as to whetherhumanrights can be extended to areas where no rights have been specifically endorsed by international treatiesand conventions. Equally, manygovernments have declined to accept this ‘derived’ interpretation that water is ahuman right. Because of the importanceofthe desirability of universal access to clean water,and differencesofopinions on the recent developments that water is ahumanright, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), through its Cairo Office, decided to explore the main issues associated with this area in depth, including the formulation of a priority research agenda.Accordingly, Dr Eglal Rached, Director of the IDRC Office in Cairo, in collaboration with Professor Asit K. Biswas of the Third World Centre for Water Management in Mexico, formulated aproject on water as ahumanright, very specifically for the Middle East and the North Africa region. Among the activities carried out under thisproject was avery focused workshop which explored the different important issues that are associated

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