The Human Right to Water and Common Ownership of the Earth

Abstract

While we need other nutrients as well we can survive without any one of them for quite some time. Without water we die within days. Water is life-giving and non-substitutable. A second crucial point about water is that it is part of nature. Its existence is not owed to human accomplishments. My goal here is to argue in support of a human right to water and a global water compact to regulate its distribution. I do so in a way that develops the aforementioned two points about water within a theory of global justice I recently presented (Risse (2012)), which is especially suitable to capture the significance of water for human life and to show that there is a genuinely global responsibility for the distribution of water. A human right to water is discussed And right he was. Only oxygen is needed more urgently than water at most times. But a key difference that makes water a more immediate subject for theorists of justice is that, for now, oxygen is normally amply available where humans live. Historically, the same was true of water since humans would not settle in places without clean water. Nowadays, however, water treatment plants and delivery infrastructure have vastly extended the regions where humans can live permanently. Population increases have prompted people to settle in locations where access to clean water is precarious.