Watered-Down Human Rights

The United Nations General Assembly is going to vote soon on whether or not to make clean drinking water a human right. If passed, 'clean drinking water' would join the ranks of previous legislation declaring "life, liberty, and security of person", the ability to appear as a person before the law, torture, and the freedom from arbitrary arrest (among others) as passed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

It seems pretty obvious to me that water should be a basic human right. People need it to survive! The nature of human rights is always the topic of a debate, and before you know it you're debating cultural relativism and who deserves what, but I think we could all agree that if humans need three things to stay alive, their life, their liberty, and enough water to perpetuate their lives is necessary. Education, shelter, even freedom from being imprisoned before knowing why - those are things that no human should have to live without. Water - that is something that no human can live without.

Oddly enough, the United States, Canada, and Australia are opposed to this motion. Of course, cost is involved. Imagine the cost of the purification systems and the infrastructures that would be necessary to bring everyone clean water! How expensive would that be?

But wait - cost comes before having clean water? I think that in any nation composed of living, breathing, drinking, rational human beings, everyone would be willing to contribute a few extra bucks to make sure some grade school-aged kids have water that isn't contaminated with human waste. Cost shouldn't be an issue - if there is one good reason to raise taxes, it isn't to bail out enormous banks, it's not even to buy million dollar helicopters, but it is to make sure everyone has clean water to drink.

There was a story on the radio last night about a family in Southeast Asia who needs to buy all of their drinking water because the other supply they draw from is in fact contaminated with human defecation. "No," the mother said, "We only bathe ourselves and wash our clothes with that water. It's not safe to drink." Pardon me and my bleeding heart, but no company should control a family's right to have access to clean drinking water. Even if the legislation does go through the UN, that family will still have to wash their bodies and clothes in contaminated water! Why add insult to injury by making them spend what little income comes in on clean drinking water?

This, to me, is the equivalent of having some people pay personal bodyguards to ensure their prolongment of life everyday, or some huge company that sells clean air - there might be safety someplace else, or there might be clean air across the ocean, but for now, you're going to have to pay to preserve your life or breathe this air that hasn't been polluted beyond safe use. It just doesn't seem right!

So let's hope that clean water does end up on the list of human rights. Let's hope that countries, our own United States included, will reconsider not wanting to spend a few million dollars installing drinking fountains and faucets in places that need them. Let's hope that the United Nations can muster the votes to pass the motion, and the resources to enforce it, to make sure than everyone is officially entitled to something as basic as staying healthy and alive.