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International Law

: Indonesian Law Reporter (ILR)

The human right to water is not a property right

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Recent developments in the right to water saga points out the unlikelihood of the human right system to pinpoint the exact amount of litres as the 'minimum core' on the right to water. Instead, the system leans towards 'reasonableness' approach. According to the Water Law Blog:

Thus, the ex ante standard setting required by the materialisation of a determinate minimum core for human rights to water inevitably leads to the theoretical acceptance of exceptional situations where more water than actually required to cover basic human needs must be provided to a specific individual, BUT ALSO to situations where less water that actually required to cover basic human needs will be provided to a specific individual.

I can't agree more with this approach. The human right to water is not a property right. Property rights follows a 3D rule: defineable, defensible and defeasible. If you want to sell me a land, your certificate better show me the exact boundaries of your property, and that no lien, mortgage or any other forms of encumberances follows. Thus, property rights must be exactly defined. But human rights is anything near that. Even with negative rights. You may ask, how defineable is the freedom of speech? Depends on where you live. If you live in Texas, you can burn any effigies and insult any deities you like.

The human right to water is exactly like that. Fifty litres per day will make you a dignified person in New York or in London. But if you choose to live a nomad life like the Touareg or the Bedouine, perhaps 50 litres per day won't make your camel go anywhere.

Full post as published by Indonesian Law Reporter (ILR) on April 12, 2010 (boomark / email).