See Professor Gabriel Eckstein's blog on water issues and his August 3rd posting entitled, "Why do so many governments oppose a human right to water?" The short answer - governments want to avoid liability and responsibilities that come with enforcement of rights. Interestingly, we note that at the same time that many companies are coming out ahead of states and advocating for the right to water. This makes sense as if states have to enforce the right to access water, then they may be forced to turn to the private sector to help them physically realize the goal of providing water to constituents.
http://internationalwaterlaw.org/blog/
2 comments:
Hm, that is interesting. Could be an economic benefit generally too -- as you say, private interests tend to benefit when there is public investment first. This can be a good thing. I suspect a lot of economies would benefit from a foundation of clean, safe water.
Great post
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