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Right to water


The Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS) was recognised as a human right by the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on 28 July 2010.

The HRWS has been recognized in international law through human rights treaties, declarations and other standards. The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948 and International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) of 1966 implicitly recognized the HRWS. Other treaties that explicitly recognize the HRWS include the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The first resolutions about the HRWS were passed by the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council in 2010. They acknowledged that there was a human right to sanitation connected to the human right to water, since the lack of sanitation reduces the quality of water downstream, so subsequent discussions have continued emphasising both rights together. A revised UN resolution in 2015 highlighted that the two rights were separate but equal.

The clearest definition of the human right to water was issued by the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in General Comment 15 drafted in 2002. It was a non-binding interpretation that access to water was a condition for the enjoyment of the right to an adequate standard of living, inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of health, and therefore a human right. It stated: "The human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses."


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