Is Water a Human Right?

There is a very difficult subject that is constantly being debated about, and that is the debate of whether or not water is a human right.  What do you think?  Is water a human right?  When thinking about this, there are many things to consider.  For example, on the site http://www.unric.org/en/water/27360-making-water-a-human-right , it is explained that the United Nations General Assembly does in fact consider water to be a human right.  They care about the quality of the water, making sure that it is safe to drink, just as much as they care about the availability of the water.  It is not stated that the availability of water is not a human right in the Declaration of Human Rights, but the United Nations considers the availability of water to be a human right because according to them, if that is not a right, then that would also take away other rights, like right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being.  They say that if water is not a human right, and the availability of water is not a human right, then that takes away other human rights, so the question that if water is a human right or not is clear that it is a human right.  According to the site, http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/human_right_to_water.shtml , The United Nations General Assembly declared that water is a human right on July 28, 2010, in Resolution 64/292.  What did this actually do?  Well, in this Resolution, states and international organizations need to provide everything imaginable to provide safe and healthy drinking water for all.  If you would like to learn more about water and why it is crucial that it as well as sanitation are human rights then visit the site http://www.righttowater.info/ .  At this site, you can find out about how you can get involved, or where to learn about the rights of water in some more detail. 

In my opinion, water should definitely be a human right.  I fully agree that if that is not a right, or the availability of water and the access to water is not a right, that other rights would be affected.  Not only that, but water is used in so many different ways.  If water is not a right, and you had to buy it for everything, things would be a lot different because of embedded water, a topic I talked about earlier on the blog.  Basically embedded water is water that you use that you may not be aware you use, for instance the water it takes to make your food and clothes.  It should be a human right because it provides the health and well being as well as a lot of things you use in everyday life.  Water is such a precious resource that if you don't consider it a human right then a lot of things would not be possible in everyday life.  I hope this blog was helpful in describing why water is a human right and why the cleanliness of water is just as important as the access of water.  Just because water is a human right doesn't mean that the access to water is always there.  The access is just as important because it does so many things for health and everyday life.