Dear Friends of the ESP,
Yesterday, an important voting took place: 122 of 163 participating countries voted in favor of the resolution to make access to water a human right. The resolution was brought in by Bolivia in June 2010, stating that although humans consist of two thirds of water, and water is the medium of cooling and transportation inside of human bodies, millions of people have to live without safe access to clean water every day. Lack of water kills more people than Malaria, Aids and Rubella altogether.
Although there were no votes against this proposal, 41 countries abstained on this voting, stating that this resolution was unclear. Nontheless, these countries were all among the developed countries, while all third-world and threshold countries voted in favor of the proposal.
As you are aware, this claim was already in the Aachen Declaration 2010, adopted by the second European Science Parliament in March 2010. We all here in the Coordination Office are glad that the UN's plenary meeting is of the same opinion as we were. Even though the right to access water is not enforceable by law, but the inclusion in the bill of human rights has huge symbolic value.
Best regards,
Your ESP-Organisation Team
