Right to Water
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WIN! The Human Right to Water and Sanitation
On July 28, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly agreed to a resolution declaring the human right to “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation.” The resolution, presented by the Bolivian government, had 122 countries vote in its favour, while 41 countries – including Canada – abstained.
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Water to be a human right?
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. THERE is almost nothing more important to human beings than water. We cannot live without water…
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The Right to Water
By MIKHAIL GORBACHEV The right of every human being to safe drinking water and basic sanitation should be recognized and realized. The United Nations estimates that nearly 900 million people live without clean water and 2.6 billion without proper sanitation. Water, the basic ingredient of life, is among the world’s most prolific killers. At least…
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Water as Human Right Threatens to Split World Body
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15, 2010 (IPS) – A long outstanding proposal to recognise the right to water as a basic universal human right is threatening to split the world’s rich and poor nations. Opposition to the proposal is coming mostly from Western nations, says Maude Barlow, a global water advocate and a founder of the…
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A human right Canada rejects: Access to clean water
On June 17, Pablo Solon, the Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations, presented a draft resolution declaring the human right to “available, safe, acceptable, accessible and affordable water and sanitation” to a closed-door consultation at the UN General Assembly that will be dealt with over the next several weeks. This is the first time the…
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Securing the right to water in Bolivia
Clean and affordable water is a basic human right, but right now, citizens in El Alto, Bolivia are struggling to regain control of their local water supply from multinational corporate giant, Suez. As a condition for a World Bank loan, the public water system in El Alto was privatized in 1997. Eight years later, despite…
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Uruguay Victory an Inspiration to the Water Movement
On October 31, 2004, the people of Uruguay made history by being the first people in the world to vote on the human right to water. By an almost two-thirds majority, the people of Uruguay voted to amend their constitution to ensure not only that access to piped water and sanitation is a fundamental human…