All posts in 6th World Water Forum

-Lisa Bjerke & Ken Cline

Past World Water Forums have reverberated with NGO and youth calls for the recognition of water as a human right. After years of campaigning the UN General Assembly declared safe, clean drinking water and sanitation a human right “essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights” on July 28, 2010.  UNGA Resolution A/RES/64/292.

We thought this World Water Forum would be different—we weren’t going to fight about the existence of a right. We could now get down to the important business of arguing about how to implement the right and make it real. The program for the forum enticed with workshops like “Implementing the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water.” So, imagine our surprise when we heard Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, say that the ministerial statement from the forum was going to undermine the UN General Assembly Declaration and backtrack on the human right guarantee.

Ministerial statements from World Water Forums are interesting beasts.  Unlike most UN-sponsored negotiations, the ministers at the WWF feel no obligation to conduct their negotiations in public view. In fact, when we got an excited announcement that the ministerial draft was almost complete prior to the forum, we naively wrote and requested a copy. We were politely informed that the draft was not public and we could not obtain a copy.  Obviously for good reason.

It appears that that the US, Canada, and their corporate allies were not happy with the UN recognition of the Right to Water (the US abstained on the General Assembly vote.) So in the ministerial text they have insisted on a slight change in language that steps away from the UN recognized right to water. The language shift is subtle but powerful. Words matter. They especially matter in international legal texts (even soft and squishy ones).

Although the ministerial statement actually recognizes the UN Resolution, it doesn’t adopt or incorporate the human right obligations declared by the UN. Instead it gives a broad general recognition of generic human rights around water. In practice, the specifically recognized  “Human Right to Water and Sanitation” is different from a general protection of human rights to water.  This is especially important in the case of a right(s) violation. The distinction is similar to that between the general statement that your civil rights have been violated and a statement that your 1^st Amendment Right to Free Speech was violated.   The right to water and sanitation should be as clear and defensible as the right to free speech. If water and sanitation are generally included in an undefined set of human rights (plural), then water and sanitation will not have their own legal status. This could mean that water is treated as a privatized good, and that human rights can be viewed as needs: needs satisfied by large corporations selling water to meet a market demand.

One might think that the extra “s” was simply an oversight or sloppy drafting (perhaps the corporate lawyers weren’t paying attention); and that when the mistake was pointed out the ministers would quickly change it. But we had no such luck. When questioned here in Marseille, the ministers argued that it doesn’t make a substantive difference, after saying the complete opposite at the UN. There may be an innocent way to read the ministerial statement. However, their subsequent arguments before the UNHRC belie such a generous interpretation.

They can’t have it both ways. It is no secret that water multinationals and governments of both the water-commodifying North and parts of the global south do not like the idea of a human right to water. For various reasons (among them the fact that UN General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding) they chose not to make public a stand against the right. However, the closed-door policies of the WWF lets them do in secret what public opinion won’t let them do out in the open. The secrecy of the political process at the World Water Forum is one of the reasons that NGO’s question the legitimacy of this as an international space for policy development.

That needs to change.

-Rachel Briggs

The World Water Forum is organized by the World Water Council, an exclusive group of global water elites—it is not a United Nations process. However, a variety of groups are working to build connections between the Forum and the upcoming Rio+20 conference. Rio+20, falling twenty years after the first Earth Summit in Brazil, is a UN conference focused on Sustainable Development. The specific foci of Rio are the green economy in the context of poverty eradication and framework for environmental governance—and although water is not specifically mentioned in these goals it is a critical element of both.

Various sessions at the WWF have focused on this connection, and panels have been called upon to offer their thoughts on how the two conferences can connect. Yesterday Izabella Teixeira, Brazil’s Minister of the Environment, shared that Brazil is planning a very explicit integration of the two. Between the final preparatory commission and the Rio conference itself,  Brazil will be hosting a series of round table dialogues between governments and civil society—unprecedented in the Commission on Sustainable Development. These round tables will focus on nine key issues related to sustainable development—including water and oceans. Both Teixeira and the President of the Forum, Ben Braga mentioned another element of this connection: The WWF text will feed directly into this Rio process.

Integrating  water into questions of sustainable development  both excites and terrifies to me.   Water is crucial to agriculture and industry, to sustaining the natural resources that form the basis of our economies. Therefore, any form of development—especially sustainable development—is dependent  upon sound water policy. However, the discussions thus far indicate that integrating water into sustainable development also presents an opportunity to reaffirm the notion of water as an economic good—this means that we will continue to distribute water through the market rather than based on need. Also, the WWF severely limits input to their text—only ministers and invited groups get to contribute. Feeding such a biased, one-dimensional text into a global process by-passes opportunities for input and shatters transparency. Assimilating this text into Rio gives an exaggerated platform to the already privileged voices of industry and government.

- Robin Owings

After a morning full of long registration lines and stiff security screenings (whose guards carefully remove water bottles from briefcases and backpacks), attendees swarm into the Palais des Evenements for the Opening Ceremony to the World Water Forum. Young french guides dressed in color-coded suits scan in our plastic nametags and usher us inside. The auditorium is filled with orange padded chairs and the chatter of restless business executives. Auditorium guides hand out headsets to participants which translate the ceremony into 10 different languages; English was streamed on channel 2. Five giant video screens hang throughout the auditorium; each boasts a projection of the Sixth World Water Forum logo (a water droplet). From our balcony seats, the room seems dark, airy, and impatient. As attendees continue to file in, the screens loop several short videos of french athletes who boast the importance of water in Marseilles.

The lights focus on the stage and the screens activate, following a split second behind the live action. The moderator opens the event with a short speech. A video plays, describing several stories of water struggles around the globe. The carefully constructed narrative is both chilling and inspiring. It is a call to action for attendees, reminding them why they have come to the forum and emphasizing the need to produce solutions. As the video fades and the lights dim, a choral group of over 150 children floods through the aisles to the main stage. Each child beats a 5 gallon water jug with a plastic pipe, forming an amplified rhythym which echoes throughout the stadium. They sing “Porte l’Eau,” an original piece composed for the forum by Erik Benzi which is accompanied by projected video and live percussionists. (The song can be found here with a terrible music video attached). Cameras record the performance throughout the audience; their screens light up the seats like a blue electronic sea, acting as their own special effect beside the glow of the stage. The live sound of the children’s voices is poignant; It is a visual and aural reminder that the next generation is malleable, that their future will be shaped by the delegation’s hands. These arts media frame the experience and speak to the ethos of all attendees, and simplify the purpose and affect of the forum. How were these media chosen, and by whom? How much do they contribute to the energy of the first sessions, of the delegations’ views on self-importance and significance, on efficiency?

Following the video and choral performance, several speakers share idealistic goals whose messages ring clearly through the quieted auditorium. “Having access to water is a dream to a large portion of the world.” “Water is like freedom– why have the right to vote if one does not have the right to live?” “If we have a World Trade Organization, why can’t we have a World Water Organization?” “Water is a global priority to be translated into acceptible growth and harmonious development.”  ”It is more than our duty, it is our obligation.” “Sanitation is the greatest issue we must address.”  ”Have you ever experienced real thirst? Do you remember it?” “The victims are always the same. Today I want to enable these people to speak out.” “We have a valuable asset: our dignity.”

“Come in, speak, listen– the world is awaiting our solutions.”

We have just arrived in Marseilles, and I have already experienced the concept of the “elite” at this international conference. When I stepped off the plane onto the runway, I saw two ladies in matching red suits holding 6th World Water Forum signs. All the other suited men and women from the flight gathered around these World Water Forum ladies. Not wanting to miss this opportunity to receive assistance, I joined and followed them. Off we went as chicks in a row, with me the odd duck wobbling behind. Inside the airport building, they ladies asked me politely if I was a delegate for the Forum. “Yeah, of course I am,” I replied as confidently as I could. As the other people waited for their luggage, I followed the information ladies. We passed through two big white doors with guards standing outside. I was escorted inside a room with white leather sofas, wine, hors-d’oeuvres and more people with suits. I was asked again if I was part of a delegation, and this time I admitted “College of the Atlantic.” While the lady checked my passport and printed out my entrance badge I took my one opportunity and grabbed some schnazzy fruit and a refreshment, knowing that they soon would realize that I was just a student volunteering at the Alternative Water Forum. They asked me where I wanted to go, and when I replied that I needed to get to my hostel, they politely pointed me to the bus.  As I walked over to the low carbon emission commuter bus, I saw the rest of the real delegation go into their waiting taxis.