3 November 2022, 13:00-14:00
Event
Nandhu Kumar, Unsplash
The right to water is a vital element for the realization of peasants’ rights, as water is one of the main means of production for peasant agriculture. And vice-versa, peasants’ rights are key for the realization of the right to water in rural areas, as peasants have longstanding knowledge and practices for the sustainable and equitable use of water.
Article 21 of the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas (UNDROP) enshrines the right to water for this particularly vulnerable population; an important step forward in legal terms, According to this article, the right to water is a human right ‘essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights and human dignity’. The main innovation in article 21 has been the consecration of the right to water for food production, including for fishing, livestock keeping and to securing other water-related livelihoods. In fact, the lack of access to water often prevents peasants and other people working in rural areas from producing enough food, from meeting vital needs, thus leading to different kinds of socio-environmental challenges and human rights violations.
In the framework of the current multidimensional crisis and the striking environmental crisis affecting our societies, access to water is becoming more and more challenging for rural workers and people. In this sense, we need to rethink the social and environmental relations that rule the management of water sources. It is precisely here that the UNDROP can play a leading role, in the sense that it indeed represents a concrete and effective leverage for peasants and other people working in rural areas to realize and foster respect for their human right to water.
This side event during the 2022 Social Forum – co-organized with the Permanent Mission of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, La Via Campesina, CETIM, FIAN International and the South Centre – aims at:
Interpretation Spanish – English will be provided.
Adobe
Our new Research Brief The Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment explores the national recognition of this human right.
ICRC
After having provided academic support to the negotiation of the UN Declaration for ten years, this research project focuses on the implementation of the UN Declaration on the rights of peasants and other people working in rural areas.
Paolo Margari
This research aims at mainstreaming the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment and the protection it affords in the work of the UN Human Rights Council, its Special Procedures and Universal Periodic Review, as well as in the work of the UN General Assembly and UN treaty bodies.
Geneva Academy