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As I outlined in my first report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, as the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, among the crises we face, one stands as particularly paradoxical: the global water crisis on Planet Water, the Blue Planet, with more than 2 billion people living without guaranteed access to safe drinking water.

In light of this reality, we often encounter assessments claiming that this is due to freshwater scarcity. These arguments insist that only 2.5% of the available water on our planet is fresh and that much of it is contained in glacial masses or deep, hardly accessible aquifers. They are often coupled with concerns that the impact of climate change, as many still argue, will dry up the planet. But the fact is that climate change, far from reducing average rainfall, will increase it. After all, we face a progressive rise in temperatures that will intensify evaporation across the seas, which ultimately means higher average rainfall. The problems are and will be caused by increasing rainfall variability, raising the risk of drought and heavy precipitation while at the same time changing the overall territorial distribution of rainfall. This will intensify the aridity of territories that currently stand at the limit of habitability, meaning they may become genuinely uninhabitable due to physical water scarcity.

However, justifying the global water crisis on grounds of scarcity, with or without climate change, misses the point. In fact, the vast majority of the more than 2 billion people living without guaranteed access to safe drinking water are simply not thirsty—lacking water in their living environments—but severely impoverished people living next to rivers and lakes or above aquifers that are polluted or over-exploited by abusive and unsustainable forms of productive development.

Photo_ Athreya Krishna_ CC BY 2.0

Based on this assessment, I advocate addressing three major challenges: making peace with our rivers and aquatic ecosystems, promoting a democratic governance that understands water as a common good, and making water an argument for peace and cooperation among peoples.

Making Peace with our Rivers and Aquatic Ecosystems

Developing and implementing new technologies is often singled out as a key tool to fast-track the fulfilment of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #6—and thus the universal realisation of the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation. There is no doubt that sophisticated technologies are available to solve every single problem faced by the communities in which these 2 billion live, from bringing water from distant sources to purifying polluted flows from nearby springs using techniques such as reverse osmosis. However, it cannot be understated that we are referring to people and communities who, for the most part, live in conditions of extreme poverty and, therefore, simply cannot afford to pay for these solutions.

In fact, it is becoming increasingly apparent worldwide—and not only for the poorest—that the most effective strategies for drinking water are often Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), which restore the functionality of the natural water cycle, ensuring the health and sustainability of water ecosystems. Furthermore, the most advanced legislations—such as the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive—assume the recovery of the “good ecological status of aquatic ecosystems” as a central objective, as a way of ensuring the proper functioning of the natural engineering systems that govern the water cycle.

For thousands of years, networks of rivers, lakes, wetlands and aquifers have been the natural supply system for all human settlements since they have always been built in their vicinity. A natural network that not only distributes water flows but also fulfils water storage, regulation and purification functions.

Underground aquifers are the water “lungs” of nature on islands and continents. If we protect them and avoid their overexploitation, they can and should work as strategic storages to manage the extraordinary droughts that climate change brings forth.

Wetlands, lakes and riparian ecosystems have vital flood expansion functions, which allow them to subside and reduce flood hazards downstream. This will also be particularly valuable in today’s circumstances, so profoundly conditioned by climate change.

Lastly, wetlands have vital biodiversity-supporting and self-purifying functions. Beyond regulating surface flows, they function as natural macro-purifiers that are particularly crucial for riparian communities—both for their drinking water supply and sustaining fisheries essential to their livelihoods.

Water as a Common Good: Promoting its Democratic Governance

It is well known that water enables the development of productive activities with great economic significance, but first and foremost, water sustains life on this planet and is the key to the territorial consolidation of peoples. It is also the key to social cohesion and coexistence in human societies.

“All fools mistake value for price”, wrote the Spanish poet Antonio Machado. And 2,500 years ago, Aristotle already distinguished “economics” from “chrematistics”. Economics, he argued, is the art of managing household goods, while chrematistics manages the goods that are bought and sold on the market. Now, if we reflect on the values at stake in the management of water, we will see that the most important ones cannot be exchanged for money. For example, what value should be assigned, in euros, dollars or any other currency, to the water needed to safeguard the health of our families? How can we even compare the value of water needed to maintain public health with the value of water to grow avocado exports?

We must discern ethical categories and establish rules and laws that set hierarchies, considering water for life as the highest priority. That is, the water needed to sustain life in general, particularly a life of dignity for all. A second level of priority should be given to uses considered of general interest to society. Thirdly, a water economy encompassing productive uses that can improve living standards. And fourthly, water crimes, regarding uses and activities that endanger public health and the sustainability of ecosystems, and should therefore be outlawed—no matter how profitable they may be for those who promote them. Developing these ethical priorities for integrated, fair and sustainable water management must go beyond the logic of the market.

It is imperative we recognise the water available in each community as a common good, accessible to all, yet not appropriable by anyone. In the same way, aquatic ecosystems must be considered a common natural heritage to be managed in a sustainable way, for the benefit of everyone, including future generations. The water cycle, as part of our planetary climate system, should be managed as a global commons.

Considering available water and aquatic ecosystems as common resources would not only establish access rights for the communities and populations that depend on them but also shared responsibilities. However, given the complexity of today’s society and the magnitude of the challenges that need to be tackled—such as ensuring the sustainability of large river basins—it is essential that states assume public ownership of water and aquatic ecosystems. However, they must do so without losing sight of the fact that managing the commons requires a rights-based, not-for-profit, multi-level governance: at the local level, at the basin level, and even at the cross-border and global levels. A governance that, in turn, guarantees transparency, public participation and accountability.

According to the neoliberal worldview, water is a commodity to be managed according to the logic of the market, which means that water and sanitation services are considered business spaces. This entails that access to water will depend on each individual’s ability to afford it, while information and management are left in the hands of the majority shareholders of the corporations in charge of these services. This not only contradicts the idea of water as a common good but is also inconsistent with a human rights-based approach to water management.

In the 1970s, under the Pinochet dictatorship, Chile saw the privatisation of its waters. Subsequently, Mrs Thatcher privatised water and sanitation infrastructure in the UK. However, the privatisation model that would later spread throughout the world, with the support of the World Bank, was the French model, the so-called “PPP model”, which stands for Public-Private Partnership. This model sees large private operators proposing joint ventures, in which the public entity—often a municipality—usually holds 51% of the shares, while the operator has only 49%. The crux of the matter lies in the sections of the contract whereby the management and direction of the joint venture are awarded to the minority partner—under the alleged argument of know-how and “savoir-faire”. At the same time opening up the possibility for the company to purchase and contract without public tender to subsidiary companies of the operator, significantly increasing costs—which are then passed on to the tariff paid by consumers. The main incentive for municipalities to sign these contracts is often based on the so-called “concession fee” that the operator advances to municipalities—often under severe financial stress—and then recovers this money in the water tariff. Finally, the fact that contracts are signed for long periods—up to 40 years—makes privatisation de facto irreversible, as taking back public management requires huge “compensation” payments to compensate for the “expected profit” over the entire concession period.

On the other hand, water rights markets have been legalised in various countries, as in Spain, with the so-called “transfer contracts”, which marginalise those with less economic capacity, accelerate the eviction of small and medium-sized irrigators, and worsen the degradation of aquatic ecosystems.

Lastly, water financialisation strategies are proliferating, handing over control of these services to large financial corporations driven by short-term speculative interests. A recent example is the entry of California’s water rights into the “futures markets”, ruled by the dynamics of financial speculation.

Photo_ Rafa Morales_ CC BY 2.0

Non-profit “public-public partnership” and “public-community partnership” strategies are also gaining relevance. In them, states, as the ultimate duty bearers of human rights, recognise, respect and support indigenous peoples and rural community authorities, providing the due means for them to secure safe water and sanitation for their communities.

Water as an Argument for Peace and Cooperation Between Peoples

For thousands of years, rivers have united riverside communities across ethnicities, cultures and religious beliefs. Today, however, conflicts and tensions are multiplying between countries that share aquatic ecosystems. Today, 153 countries share river basins, in which 60% of the world’s available freshwater flows.

Furthermore, it is worth remembering that climate change is aggravating the risks of droughts and floods, melting glaciers in the headwaters of rivers—and thus reducing their regulation capacities—which increases flood risks and reduces flows in the summer when they are most needed. In addition, increased evapotranspiration from vegetation at higher temperatures is seriously reducing average runoff and freshwater availability. In this context, it is vital that we realise that climate change cannot be tackled in silos or at the national level. Just as storms and hurricanes do not recognise spaces of national sovereignty, rivers do not care about borders: both watersheds and the impacts of droughts and floods are transboundary. Solutions must, therefore, be transnational.

The traditional approach to water management as a mere national resource fosters competition and conflict between neighbouring peoples, making it challenging to combat climate change. It is urgent, therefore, to move towards an ecosystemic vision that calls on everybody to share the responsibilities—and benefits—in managing these basins without it entailing the weakening of the principle of national sovereignty. The EU provides an excellent example with its Water Framework Directive, agreed without undermining the national sovereignty of member states. It establishes the obligation to share responsibilities in cross—border basins to ensure the good status of aquatic ecosystems and connected ecosystems. The African continent, for its part, leads the way in signing major agreements in transboundary basins such as those of the Senegal River, the Niger, the Okavango or Lake Chad. These agreements highlight the need to prioritise human rights and the basic needs of populations on both sides of borders and show that these transboundary water management institutions can also be tools for mediating potential conflicts.

In my 2023 report to the General Assembly, fully in line with the principles and guidelines established by the UN Water Convention, I insisted on moving towards sustainable water management at a basin scale following human rights-based approaches. This means shifting from resource competition to shared responsibilities in the sustainable management of transboundary aquatic ecosystems—and climate change risks—taking priority to ensure the human rights and basic needs of all inhabitants of each basin. This is not only an ethical and just demand but a global necessity if we hope to tackle the climate crisis and promote peace, security and cooperation between neighbouring peoples.

I concluded that report by urging, echoing what Switzerland and Slovenia in particular are advocating, that the UN Security Council should undertake the management of waters in shared aquatic ecosystems. Under the current circumstances marked by climate change, waters and ecosystems may prove to be a key issue for peace and security.

Today, the people of Gaza live on an average of 4.7 litres of water per person per day, with the aggravating factor that most of the available water is polluted by faecal waste. This has already led to 1.7 million infections—mainly diarrhoea, dysentery and hepatitis A—but also cases of polio and smallpox, among other infectious diseases that could break out into disastrous epidemics. Every day, the lack of clean water, together with the lack of medical care, results in the death of a multitude of babies and children. It is a deadly bomb that is no less lethal for being silent.

Israel’s violation of existing international law, as the courts are already ruling, is widespread and systematic. Both the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Rome Statute, as well as customary international humanitarian law, have been violated daily since the beginning of the war. International law defines the systematic blockade of food as a crime against humanity under the category of a crime of extermination, and it is vital to remember in this regard that water is the main and most essential element of the daily diet humans need to survive.

But the problem extends beyond Gaza and goes back a long way: the weaponisation of water management in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories has been at the heart of a policy of water and territorial apartheid for 50 years that includes the destruction of basic water infrastructure and the systematic dispossession of shepherds and farmers due to lack of water. Palestinians, in their territories, which are illegally occupied by Israel, have no access to the Jordan River and no right to build new wells or water infrastructures. All surface and underground sources have been seized by Israel. Long before this latest war, Palestinians had barely 70 litres per person per day, and many rural communities had as little as 20 litres per day or less. The Israeli population, however, has four times more water on average, with illegal settlers receiving and using 18 times more water for their crops and swimming pools.

We are witnesses to a long and systematic process of marginalisation of the Palestinian people, which, with the latest offensives on Gaza, has already turned into a full-blown genocide. In this context, water, as a weapon of war, plays a decisive role that the international community can neither accept nor tolerate.

The Need for a New Notion of Progress

In my recent 2024 report to the UN General Assembly, I examine the close links between the global food and water crises. These crises are purported to be addressed by food systems based on the myth of unlimited growth in production, brutal inequalities of power and a blind trust that markets will distribute the food produced to those who need it.

The reality is far from that: a third of that food is tossed away and wasted, which means that the water used in its production is also wasted. This shows that the food crisis and the water crisis are different sides of the same coin, as the water wasted in the food industry would more than satisfy the entire world population’s human right to drinking water.

On the other hand, to the 800 million hungry people in the world today, we must add 2.5 billion obese people—mostly concentrated in impoverished populations—who eat unhealthy diets based on ultra-processed foods, the production of which requires, to top it all off, a vast amount of water.

This global water crisis is also being exacerbated by land and water grabs, which dispossess and displace farmers and Indigenous populations to develop intensive mono-crops for export. These monocultures, in turn, destroy forests and break the fertility cycles of the land. In addition, the growth of intensive agriculture and livestock farming—with mass use of pesticides and industrial fertilisers and concentrated manure production—is undermining the sustainability of aquatic ecosystems, as well as the fertility and capacity of soils to retain moisture. As the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) recognises, the accelerated overexploitation, contamination and salinisation of aquifers further outline a prospect of unsustainability.

We need to move towards agroecological systems based both on regenerative agricultural and livestock strategies and on the principles of food sovereignty—which have long been advocated internationally by social movements such as Via Campesina. We need to undertake an agroecological transition that embraces a water governance based on the idea of water as a common good and aquatic ecosystems as a common natural heritage, to be managed sustainably from a human rights-based approach.

As the Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, Olivier de Schutter, rightly argues in his latest report, there is an urgent need to promote a new concept of progress. Now that we are at the threshold of the “post-growth era”, we urgently require a new “progress” based on respect for human rights and the principle of sustainability.

Between the “floor” of human rights and the “ceiling” of sustainability, that’s where humanity has its common home. There, in every territory and throughout the world, we have plenty of space to build a new vision for sustainable and democratic progress, which also holds the key to guaranteeing the human rights to water and food for all.

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