The Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation

A/HRC/RES/27/7No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2014.

What else is in this group?

5 documents · 2011–2014

2014A/RES/68/157The human right to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2014A/HRC/RES/27/7The human right to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2013A/HRC/RES/24/18The human right to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2011A/HRC/RES/18/1The human right to safe drinking water and sanitationCompare with earlier document
2011A/HRC/RES/16/2The human right to safe drinking water and sanitation

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What subjects does this mandate have?

7 topics

Guidelines Human Rights International Obligations Right to Drinking Water Sanitation Sustainable Development Technical Cooperation

What does this mandate say?

22 operative paragraphs

Reaffirms that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is essential for the full enjoyment of life and to all human rights, and recalls that it is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and is inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as to the right to life and human dignity;

Recalls that safe drinking water and sanitation must be progressively made available for present and future generations, without discrimination, and that the provision of services today should safeguard the ability in the future to realize the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation;

Alarmed by the fact that, according to the 2014 Joint Monitoring Programme update, the percentage of the global population without access to an improved sanitation facility decreased by only 7 per cent between 1990 and 2012 and that, if current trends continue, the Millennium Development Goal target on sanitation will be missed by more than half a billion people, and calls upon all Member States to continue to support the global effort to realize the goals of the advocacy campaign “Sustainable sanitation: the five-year drive to 2015”, including action to eliminate the practice of open defecation, as called for by the Deputy Secretary-General on 28 May 2014;

Welcomes the fact that the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals proposed in its outcome document a goal on water and sanitation and targets on universal access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene, highlighting in particular the dimensions of safety, affordability, adequacy, equality, participation and sustainability, that it proposed objectives to end open defecation and to improve wastewater treatment, and that special attention be given to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations, and invites States to consider adequately the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation in the elaboration of the post-2015 development agenda;

Also welcomes the work of the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, the comprehensive, transparent and inclusive consultations conducted with relevant and interested actors from all regions for her thematic reports and the undertaking of country missions;

Further welcomes the annual report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the General Assembly on managing wastewater, curbing water pollution and improving water quality for the realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, in which she emphasized the need to ensure that respect for, protection of and fulfilment of human rights are integrated into wastewater management and to develop a holistic approach to sustainable water resource management, including wastewater management;

Welcomes the annual report of the Special Rapporteur submitted to the Human Rights Council on common violations of the human rights to water and sanitation, and encourages Governments and other stakeholders to use, as appropriate, the “Handbook for realizing the human rights to water and sanitation: from policy to practice”, presented in an addendum to that report as a tool for the progressive realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation;

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 their available resources, to achieve progressively the full realization of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation by all appropriate means, including in particular the adoption of legislative measures in the implementation of their human rights obligations;

Stresses the important role of international cooperation and the technical assistance provided by States, specialized agencies of the United Nations system and 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;

Underlines the importance of an effective remedy for violations of economic, social and cultural rights, including the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and in this regard, of judicial, quasi-judicial and other appropriate remedies, including procedures initiated by or on behalf of individuals or, as appropriate, groups of individuals, and of adequate procedures to avoid infringements of such rights;

Calls upon States:

To achieve progressively the full realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation;

To identify patterns of failure to respect, protect or fulfil the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation for all persons without discrimination and to address their structural causes in policymaking and budgeting within a broader framework, while undertaking holistic planning aimed at achieving sustainable universal access, including in instances where the private sector, donors and non-governmental organizations are involved in service provision;

To ensure that effective remedies for violations of their obligations regarding the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, including judicial, quasi-judicial and other appropriate remedies, are accessible to everyone, without discrimination;

To promote access for judges, prosecutors and decision-makers to adequate human rights education and training, including on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, by, inter alia, promoting or otherwise supporting ongoing training and the inclusion of such human rights curricula in law schools and other higher education, as appropriate;

To promote the ability of human rights institutions and other relevant bodies to identify violations of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, to receive complaints of violations of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and to assist with access to effective remedies for violations of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation;

To provide comprehensive information in their periodic reports to treaty-monitoring bodies, for the universal periodic review process and to relevant regional and other mechanisms, as appropriate, for the identification, prevention and remedy of violations of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation;

Calls upon non-State actors, including business enterprises, both transnational and others, to comply with their responsibility to respect human rights, including the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, including by cooperating with State investigations into allegations of abuses of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, and by progressively engaging with States to detect and remedy abuses of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation;

Encourages the Special Rapporteur to facilitate, including through engagement with relevant stakeholders, the provision of technical assistance in the area of the implementation of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, to identify challenges and obstacles to the full realization of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, as well as protection gaps thereto, to continue to identify good practices and enabling factors in this regard, and to monitor the way in which the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is being realized throughout the world;

Encourages all Governments to continue to respond favourably to requests by the Special Rapporteur for visits and information, to follow up effectively on the recommendations of the mandate holder, and to make available information on measures taken in this regard;

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 the mandate;

Decides to continue its consideration of this matter under the same agenda item and in accordance with its programme of work.

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