Why democratic outcomes have not delivered for the poor: The

case of the right to waterDr Lyla Mehta

Institute of Development Studies, UK Visiting Professor, Norwegian

University of Life Science

Outline• Politics and contestations of water• Unresolved issues around the right to

water • Unequal citizenship / elite biases of the

State• Rights talk and rights practice (South

Africa; Bolivia) • Despite problems, rights still matter

Contestations around water• Water as a contested resource• Water policies – Benthamian logic / utilitarian • Aggregate and technocentric notions of

scarcity/ crises• Recently rights based (e.g. South Africa,

Bolivia) • Exclusions, conflicts, rights violations • Sustainability - beyond supply/ quality• Silo-driven discourses – WSS; WRM;

sanitation; waste

The human right to water • The right to water is implicitly mentioned in the 1948

Universal Declaration of Human rights and is explicitly mentioned only in the Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989).

• Recent endorsements : General Comment No. 15 2002; UN 2010 General Assembly Resolution and UN Human Rights Council Resolution

• Right to water still controversial on many fronts. ‘Indivisibility’ of rights not recognised in practice.

• In the water debate, dominant narratives are happier to see water as an economic good rather than as a human right.

Why Rights Matter • Justiciable and legally binding• Markets cannot guarantee the provision of

all goods on a fair basis to all citizens• Key element of citizenship • Counterveiling force against

commodification• Powerful tool of mobilisation to local

struggles and claims

Unresolved issues of the human right to water

• What does legally binding really mean in local, national and international contexts?

• Individualistic , anthropocentric and state centric • Regulatory frameworks v. weak in the case of

non state and private actors • Not incompatible with ‘private sector provision –

‘neutral as to economic models’ (OHCHR 2010)

Unresolved environmental dimensions to RTW

• Tensions between access/ social justice and environmental quality/ nature

• RTW as balancing environmental risks and benefits between poor and rich

• Ecosystem sustainability – environmental flows of water need to be protected by law (e.g ecological reserve )

Unequal citizenship

• Modern state created distinctions between rights bearers and those who are targets of government interventions

• Distinction between civil/ political society (Chatterjee )

• Vast populations need to fend for themselves or opt out of the formal system (e.g. in peri urban areas)

Denial of rights

• Sins of omission: Poor states may not prioritise the imperative to provide basic services for all due to lack of resources or political will

• Sins of commission: States/ powerful actors knowingly put poor people’s rights at risk

State as arbiter of rights and justice

Water injustices in peri urban areas

History of conflict and rights violations

The global land and water grab

South Africa : Dancing to two tunes? • South Africa was the first country to endorse the

constitutional right to water and endorse the rights of nature (reserve)

• 2001: Free Basic Water Policy

• Implementation rests with local authorities who interpret it according to the resources and capacity available

• Since 1997, controversial cut offs and hikes in water tariffs

• High profile judgements and struggles

The case of BoliviaWater Wars of 2000/ 2001 The Right to Water for Life – 2006Right to mother earth Contradictions (economic policies that violate

basic rights and destroy natural resources; lack of awareness and capacity; communitarian notions of rights; mistrust of state)

Rights talk/ Rights Practice

• Inadequate information about rights• Fuzziness around responsibilities/ duty

bearers• How define what is sufficient and what

determines the human right to water?• Resistance of powerful players – weak

commitment to rights – poor state/ citizen relations

• Elite biases/ indifference to poor

Conclusions • Lots of unresolved issues around RTW• States continue to be very contradictory

towards poor and marginalised peoples • Despite contradictions in implementation, the

fight is worth it! • Use rights to hold powerful players to account/

justiciability • Rights are realised through struggle – more

and more people are demanding their rights to water and sanitation