A/HRC/RES/45/8
United Nations
General Assembly
Distr.: General
9 October 2020
Original: English
Human Rights Council
Forty-fifth session
14 September–7 October 2020
Agenda item 3
Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights,
including the right to development
Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council
on 6 October 2020
45/8.
The human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation
The Human Rights Council,
Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations,
Recalling all resolutions of the General Assembly on the human rights to safe drinking
water and sanitation, in particular resolution 64/292 of 28 July 2010, in which the Assembly
recognized the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is
essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights, and resolution 74/141 of 18
December 2019,
Reaffirming all previous resolutions of the Human Rights Council on the human rights
to safe drinking water and sanitation, inter alia, Council resolution 39/8 of 27 September
2018,
Recalling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities,
Recalling also that the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation are derived
from the right to an adequate standard of living and are inextricably related to the right to the
highest attainable standard of physical and mental health and to the right to life and human
dignity,
Recalling further the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, which reaffirms
that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated, that human
rights must be treated globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing and with the
same emphasis, and that it is the duty of States to promote and protect all human rights, and
which also reaffirms the right to development,
Reaffirming General Assembly resolution 70/1 of 25 September 2015, entitled
“Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, in which States
pledged to leave no one behind,
GE.20-13210(E)