The global fight to make water a human right is part of the broader struggle against neoliberalism.

by Meera Karunananthan

With freshwater access declining worldwide, water and sanitation services are increasingly becoming an opportunity for wealth accumulation. Around the world, private water corporations focused on maintaining their rates of return have raised tariffs unsustainably, shut off water to lower-income households, and circumvented quality and environmental standards. Privatization has also meant less transparency and public accountability.

Although official UN sources claim neutrality on whether water and sanitation provision should be privately or publicly provided, grassroots activists have successfully used such provisions to stop corporations from taking over community water supplies, prevent the privatization of drinking water and sanitation services, restrict corporate abuse of freshwater resources, and establish the freshwater rights of people and the needs of the planet above corporate needs.

...given the increasing corporate interest in commodifying water, cordoning off the resource as a human right could serve as a beachhead from which to fight additional neoliberal encroachments.