RES/18/1 The human right to safe drinking water and sanitation / RightDocs - Where human rights resolutions count
RES/18/1
The human right to safe drinking water and sanitation
Original HRC document
PDF
Document Type:
Final Resolution
Date:
2011 Oct
Session:
18th Regular Session (2011 Sep)
Agenda Item:
Item3: Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development
Topic:
Right to water
Main sponsors
Germany
Spain
Co-sponsors
66
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Armenia
Austria
Belgium
Benin
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Botswana
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Cape Verde
Chad
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Côte d'Ivoire
Croatia
Cyprus
Denmark
Djibouti
El Salvador
Estonia
Finland
France
Georgia
Greece
Guatemala
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Italy
Latvia
Lithuania
Luxembourg
North Macedonia
Maldives
Moldova, Republic of
Monaco
Montenegro
Morocco
Netherlands
Nigeria
Norway
Palestine, State of
Panama
Peru
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Senegal
Serbia
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Sweden
Switzerland
Tajikistan
Tunisia
Ukraine
Uruguay
Yemen
Zimbabwe
GE.
A/HRC/18/33.
1-16589
Human Rights Council
Eighteenth session
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council
18/1
The human right to safe drinking water and sanitation
The Human Rights Council
Reaffirming
all previous relevant resolutions of the Human Rights Council, inter
alia, resolutions 7/22 of 28 March 2008, 12/8 of 1 October 2009, 15/9 of 30 September
2010 and 16/2 of 24 March 2011,
Recalling
General Assembly resolution 64/292 of 28 July 2010, in which the
Assembly recognized the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human
right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights,
Recalling
also
the holding of the General Assembly plenary meeting of 27 July 2011
entitled “The human right to water and sanitation”,
Recalling
further
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities,
Recalling
the relevant provisions of declarations and programmes with regard to
access to safe drinking water and sanitation adopted by major United Nations conferences
and summits, and by the General Assembly at its special sessions and during follow-up
meetings, inter alia, the Mar del Plata Action Plan on Water Development and
Administration, adopted at the United Nations Water Conference in March 1977, Agenda
21 and the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, adopted at the United
* The resolutions and decisions adopted by the Human Rights Council will be contained in the report of
the Council on its eighteenth session (A/HRC/18/2), chap. I.
Nations Conference on Environment and Development in June 1992, and the Habitat
Agenda, adopted at the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements in June
1996, Assembly resolutions 54/175 of 17 December 1999 on the right to development, and
58/217 of 23 December 2003 proclaiming the International Decade for Action, “Water for
Life” (2005-2015),
Noting
with interest
relevant commitments and initiatives promoting the human right
to safe drinking water and sanitation, including the Abuja Declaration, adopted at the first
Africa-South America Summit, in 2006, the message from Beppu, adopted at the first Asia-
Pacific Water Summit, in 2007, the Delhi Declaration, adopted at the third South Asian
Conference on Sanitation, in 2008, the Sharm el-Sheikh Final Document, adopted at the
Fifteenth Summit Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Movement of Non-
Aligned Countries, in 2009, and the Colombo Declaration, adopted at the fourth South
Asian Conference on Sanitation, in 2011,
Bearing in mind
the commitments made by the international community to achieve
fully the Millennium Development Goals, and stressing, in that context, the resolve of
Heads of State and Government, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium
Declaration, to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people unable to reach or afford safe
drinking water, and to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation, as
agreed in the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(“Johannesburg Plan of Implementation”) and the outcome document adopted at the High-
level Plenary Meeting of the sixty-fifth session of the General Assembly on the Millennium
Development Goals entitled “Keeping the promise: united to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals”,
Recalling
World Health Assembly resolution 64/24 of May 2011, in which the
Assembly urged Member States to, inter alia, “ensure that national health strategies
contribute to the realization of water- and sanitation-related Millennium Development
Goals while coming in support to the progressive realization of the human right to water
and sanitation that entitles everyone, without discrimination, to water and sanitation that is
sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable for personal and domestic
uses”;
Deeply concerned
that approximately 884 million people lack access to improved
water sources and that more than 2.6 billion people do not have access to improved
sanitation as defined by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s
Fund in their 2010 Joint Monitoring Programme report, and alarmed that, every year,
approximately 1.5 million children under five years of age die and 443 million school days
are lost as a result of water- and sanitation-related diseases,
Affirming
the need to focus on local and national perspectives in considering the
issue, leaving aside questions of international watercourse law and all transboundary water
issues,
1.
Welcomes
the recognition of the human right to safe drinking water and
sanitation by the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, and the affirmation by
the latter that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right
to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest
attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human
dignity;
2.
Also welcomes
the work of the Special Rapporteur on the right to safe
drinking water and sanitation, including the progress in collecting good practices, the
comprehensive, transparent and inclusive consultations conducted with relevant and
interested actors from all regions for her thematic reports and collection of good practices,
as well as the undertaking of country missions;
3.
Acknowledges with appreciation
the third annual report of the Special
Rapporteur,1 and takes note with interest of her recommendations and clarifications with
regard to national and local planning for the implementation of the right to safe drinking
water and sanitation;
4.
Welcomes
the submission of the compilation of good practices on the right to
safe drinking water and sanitation,
A/HRC/18/33/Add.1.
in which the Special Rapporteur put particular emphasis
on practical solutions with regard to the implementation of the human right to safe drinking
water and sanitation;
5.
Reaffirms
that States have the primary responsibility to ensure the full
realization of all human rights, and must take steps, nationally and through international
assistance and cooperation, especially economic and technical, to the maximum of its
available resources, to achieve progressively the full realization of the right to safe drinking
water and sanitation by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of
legislative measures in the implementation of their human rights obligations;
6.
Also reaffirms
the important role that national plans of action can play as
tools for the promotion and protection of human rights, as highlighted in the Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action, adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights
on 25 June 1993, including for the promotion and protection of the human right to safe
drinking water and sanitation;
7.
Calls upon
States:
) To continuously monitor and regularly analyse the status of the realization of
the right to safe drinking water and sanitation on the basis of the criteria of availability,
quality, acceptability, accessibility and affordability;
) To assess existing policies, programmes and activities in the sectors of water
and sanitation, giving due consideration to waste-water management, including treatment
and reuse, and to monitor resources allocated to increase adequate access, as well as to
identify actors and their capacity;
) To develop comprehensive plans and strategies, including the definition of
responsibilities for all water and sanitation sector actors, to achieve progressively the full
realization of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation for all, or re-examine and revise
them where necessary to ensure consistency with human rights standards and principles;
) To assess whether the existing legislative and policy framework is in line
with the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and to repeal, amend or adapt it in order
to meet human rights standards and principles;
) To ensure full transparency of the monitoring and assessment of the
implementation of plans of action, projects and programmes in the sectors of water and
sanitation and to ensure, including in the planning process,
the
free, effective, meaningful
and non-discriminatory participation of all people and communities concerned, particularly
people living in disadvantaged, marginalized and vulnerable situations;
) To set access targets to be reached in short-time periods for universal service
provision, giving priority to realizing a basic level of service for everyone before improving
service levels for those already served;
) To set indicators, including disaggregated data, based on human rights
criteria,
See A/65/254, paras. 22-48 and 53-60.
to monitor progress and to identify shortcomings to be rectified and challenges to
be met;
) To ensure financing to the maximum of available resources in order to
implement all the necessary measures to ensure that water and sanitation systems are
sustainable and that services are affordable for everyone, while ensuring that allocated
resources are not limited to infrastructure but also include resources for regulatory
activities, operation and maintenance, the institutional and managerial structure and
structural measures, including increasing capacity;
) To provide for a regulatory framework aimed at ensuring that all water and
sanitation service providers respect and protect human rights and do not cause human rights
violations or abuses, and to ensure that national minimum standards, based on human rights
criteria, are in place when water and sanitation services are decentralized, in order to ensure
coherence and countrywide compliance with human rights;
) To provide for a framework of accountability that provides for adequate
monitoring mechanisms and legal remedies, including measures to overcome obstacles in
access to justice and other accountability mechanisms, and lack of awareness of the law,
human rights and opportunities to claim these rights;
8.
Invites
States to continue to promote, at all levels, including at the highest
level, the full realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation in
forthcoming national, regional and international initiatives, inter alia, the Global Forum on
Sanitation and Hygiene of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council in
October 2011, in Mumbai, India, and the sixth World Water Forum in March 2012, in
Marseille, France;
9.
Stresses
the important role of the international cooperation and technical
assistance provided by States, specialized agencies of the United Nations system,
international and development partners, as well as by donor agencies, in particular in the
timely achievement of the relevant Millennium Development Goals, and urges development
partners to adopt a human rights-based approach when designing and implementing
development programmes in support of national initiatives and plans of action related to the
right to safe drinking water and sanitation;
10.
Encourages
all Governments to continue to respond favourably to requests
by the Special Rapporteur for visits and information, to follow up effectively on
recommendations of the mandate holder and to make available information on measures
taken in this regard;
11.
Requests
the Special Rapporteur to continue to report, on an annual basis, to
the Human Rights Council and to submit an annual report to the General Assembly;
12.
Encourages
the Special Rapporteur to facilitate, including through
engagement with relevant stakeholders, the provision of technical assistance in the area of
the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation;
13.
Requests
the Secretary-General and the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights to provide the Special Rapporteur with all the resources and assistance
necessary for the effective fulfilment of her mandate;
14.
Decides
to continue its consideration of this matter under the same agenda
item and in accordance with its programme of work.
34th meeting
28 September 2011
[Adopted without a vote.]
A Huridocs Innovation
HURIDOCS
and
Ketse
with generous support from
Permanent Mission of Denmark to the UN in Geneva.
In consultation with