Something Good for A Change

Sometimes the failures at the UN astound me.  And sometimes, just sometimes, they manage to do the right thing, even when the rich and powerful try to block good people.

In typical fashion, the US wasn't happy

The representative of the United States expressed his Government’s deep commitment to finding solutions to global water challenges, noting that water and sanitation would be an important focus at the upcoming Millennium Development Goal Summit.

Since when have the Millennium Goals been a priority?

The United Kingdom has a reputation to maintain and they did, too

The representative of the United Kingdom said her delegation had abstained for reasons of substance and procedure.  Concerning substance, there was no sufficient legal basis for declaring or recognizing water or sanitation as freestanding human rights, nor was there evidence that they existed in customary law.  As for procedure, it was disappointing that the text pre-empted the work going on in the Human Rights Council, she said, noting that the United Kingdom had supported the resolution establishing the independent expert, as well as the text on human rights and access to safe water and sanitation, adopted in 2009.

Now, access to water?  What good is access to water if that access is understood to mean a human being having the right to enter a shop to purchase the water?  I think we can safely assume the United Kingdom representative was concerned about a UK-based industry that wanted to sell water! 

On the 28th July 2010 the UN passed an important resolution.  Water is now officially a human right.  Clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right.  Surprising that it wasn't already, isn't it given we can't survive without it.  It's a step.  Too many resolutions are ignored.  However, it is an important principle and those who led the demands, and who fought to have the demand for water to be officially acknowledged as a human right, in particlar the Bolivians are to be congratulated.

122 countries voted in favour of the resolution while 41 abstained. There were no votes against the resolution, so we can assume no country had the brass neck to have a vote against this on their record.  Still, the number of abstenntions should have been zero.  The leaders of those 122 countries are decent people and should be congratulated.

I wonder when we will start discussing and pushing for food to be recognised as a human right.  You will die pretty quickly from dehydration.  You will also die from hunger, just more slowly than you would from dehydration.

If you think it is ridiculous that food should be a human right.  As yourself why you do?  Do you have access to land to grow your own?  Can you afford to buy food and see no need.  Well, what about all those denied the ability to buy food?  And just because you can buy food today doesn't mean you will be able to buy food tomorrow.  You may find yourself out of work.  And with the attack on social welfare programmes in the countries that have them, you could very well find yourself in trouble.  Imagine a world when a single large corporation, or government owns all the food and wants to chage you a super-premium price for it?  Those are purely selfish reasons.  They may appeal to those who feel no impulse to reach out and help their fellow human beings, to those who are unable to comprehend what a good life really is.