Denying Palestinians Fair Access to Water - by Stephen Lendman
Water is essential to life. Denying it is criminal.
Water and sanitation are recognized as indispensable human rights. In July 2010, the General Assembly's Resolution 64/292 affirmed it. It called on member states and international organizations to:
"provide financial resources, build capacity and transfer technology, particularly to development countries, in scaling up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all."
Dozens of countries incorporated water rights in their constitutional or statute laws. Most, however, haven't fulfilled promised goals.
In her 2002 book titled, "Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit," activist/ecologist Vandana Shiva called water rights natural and "usufructuary....water can be used but not owned."
It belongs to everyone as an essential "basis of all life. (U)nder customary laws, the right to water has been accepted as a natural, social fact."
Shiva's nine water democracy principles, include:
(1) it's nature's gift;
(2) it's essential to life;
(3) "life is interconnected through water;"
(4) it must be free "for sustenance needs;"
(5) it's limited and exhaustible;
(6) it must be conserved;
(7) it's a commons;
(8) "no one has a right to overuse, abuse, waste, pollute," or own it; it belongs to everyone; it can't be treated as a commodity; and
