Protection of Human Right to Water and Public Advocacy

One of the critical issues of our times is the scarcity of water brought on by overconsumption and lifetime issues, this has led to an acute shortage of drinking water to all humans beings particularly in the third world countries

In his speech delivered today on Human Rights Day at Christ University, Bangalore, senior advocate Mohan Katarki, discusses the rights under International law to portable drinking water and the role of the courts in India in guaranteeing the fundamental right to drinking water.

[dropcap]F[/dropcap]RESHWATER is undoubtedly a precious natural resource but, it constitutes only 3% of the overall water available on the Earth. The rest of the water is in Sea as saltwater.  Out of this 3% of freshwater, actually, 1% is available since the remaining 1/3rd lies under the surface as groundwater and 1/3RD is frozen in glaciers.  1% of available freshwater is partly polluted water and that too, it is spread over hundreds of basins on the Earth. Out of these, 261 basins are a transboundary basin or international basins. The prominent among them are Ganges, Brahmaputra, Indus, Mekong, Jordon, Euphrates-Tigris, Nile, Danube, Seine, Amazon, Colorado and the Rio Grande.

Photo: Senior Advocate Mohan V Katarki delivering his lecture on Human Rights Day at Christ University, Bangalore

The common law juridically addressed water rights as an incident of property inland. If categorisation is permissible for analysis in law, the water rights fall in four categories. The powers of State in regulating the use, control and distribution of waterfalls under natural resources law. The protection of the environment while recognising the right to develop usable waterfalls under environmental law. The protection of the purity of water from polluters and rights of the riparian owner is known as riparian law touching tort. In the emerging concept of Human Right, the water is recognised as an incident of health and life.