The Human Right to Water: The Importance of Domestic and Productive Water Rights

dc.contributor.authorHall, Ralph P.en
dc.contributor.authorVan Koppen, Barbaraen
dc.contributor.authorVan Houweling, Emilyen
dc.date.accessioned2017-02-23T21:02:34Zen
dc.date.available2017-02-23T21:02:34Zen
dc.date.issued2013-12-12en
dc.description.abstractThe United Nations (UN) Universal Declaration of Human Rights engenders important state commitments to respect, fulfill, and protect a broad range of socio-economic rights. In 2010, a milestone was reached when the UN General Assembly recognized the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation. However, water plays an important role in realizing other human rights such as the right to food and livelihoods, and in realizing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. These broader water-related rights have been recognized but have not yet been operationalized. This paper unravels these broader water-related rights in a more holistic interpretation of existing international human rights law. By focusing on an emerging approach to water services provision—known as ‘domestic-plus’ services—the paper argues how this approach operationalizes a comprehensive range of socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas. Domestic-plus services provide water for domestic and productive uses around homesteads, which challenges the widespread practice in the public sector of planning and designing water infrastructure for a single-use. Evidence is presented to show that people in rural communities are already using their water supplies planned for domestic uses to support a wide range of productive activities. Domestic-plus services recognize and plan for these multiple-uses, while respecting the priority for clean and safe drinking water. The paper concludes that domestic-plus services operationalize the obligation to progressively fulfill a comprehensive range of indivisible socio-economic rights in rural and peri-urban areas.en
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.doihttps://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-013-9499-3en
dc.identifier.issue4en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/75138en
dc.identifier.volume20en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherSpringeren
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internationalen
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/en
dc.subjectHuman right to wateren
dc.subjectMultiple-user water servicesen
dc.subjectDomestic-plusen
dc.subjectLivelihoodsen
dc.subjectGenderen
dc.titleThe Human Right to Water: The Importance of Domestic and Productive Water Rightsen
dc.title.serialScience and Engineering Ethicsen
dc.typeArticle - Refereeden
dc.type.dcmitypeTexten

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