Should water be legislated as a human right?

The growing commercialisation of water - and the widespread influence of the bottling industry worldwide - is triggering a rising demand for the legal classification of one of the basic necessities of life as a human right. "We definitely need a covenant or [an international] treaty on the right to water so as to establish once and for all that no one on earth must be denied water because of inability to pay," says Maude Barlow, a senior adviser to the President of the U.N. General Assembly, on water issues. "We've got to protect water as a human right," she said, pointing out that the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva would be the most likely venue to propose such a covenant. But it would be best, she added, if it were ratified by the 192-member General Assembly, currently presided over by Fr. Miguel D'Escoto Brockmann, a former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua. "We need at the United Nations more than a human rights remedy," Barlow told IPS. "We need a plan of action for the General Assembly." The U.N. says that close to 880 million people - mostly in the developing world - lack adequate access to clean water. By 2030, close to 4 billion people could be living in areas suffering severe water stress, mostly in South Asia and China.