A/HRC/RES/15/9
Noting with interest regional commitments and initiatives promoting the further
realization of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and
sanitation, including the Protocol on Water and Health, adopted by the Economic
Commission for Europe in 1999, the European Charter on Water Resources, adopted by the
Council of Europe in 2001, the Abuja Declaration, adopted at the first Africa-South
America summit in 2006, the message from Beppu, adopted at the first Asian-Pacific Water
Summit in 2007, the Delhi Declaration, adopted at the third South Asian Conference on
Sanitation in 2008, and the Sharm el-Sheikh Final Document, adopted at the Fifteenth
Summit Conference of Heads of State and Government of the Movement of Non-Aligned
Countries in 2009,
Bearing in mind the commitments made by the international community to achieve
fully the Millennium Development Goals, and stressing, in that context, the resolve of
Heads of State and Government, as expressed in the United Nations Millennium
Declaration, to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people unable to reach or afford safe
drinking water, and to halve the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation, as
agreed in the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(“Johannesburg Plan of Implementation”),
Deeply concerned that approximately 884 million people lack access to improved
water sources as defined by the World Health Organization and the United Nations
Children’s Fund in their 2010 Joint Monitoring Programme report, and that over 2.6 billion
people do not have access to basic sanitation, and alarmed that approximately 1.5 million
children under 5 years of age die and 443 million school days are lost every year as a result
of water and sanitation-related diseases,
Reaffirming the fact that international human rights law instruments, including the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 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 entail
obligations for States parties in relation to access to safe drinking water and sanitation,
Recalling resolution 8/7 of 18 June 2008, in which the Council established the
mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the issue of human
rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises,
1.
Welcomes the work of the independent expert on the issue of human rights
obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation, including the progress in
collecting good practices for her compendium,1 and the comprehensive, transparent and
inclusive consultations conducted with relevant and interested actors from all regions for
her thematic reports, as well as the undertaking of country missions;
2.
Recalls General Assembly 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;
3.
Affirms that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived
from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the
highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and
human dignity;
4.
Calls upon the independent expert to continue to pursue her work regarding
all aspects of her mandate, including to clarify further the content of human rights
obligations, including non-discrimination obligations in relation to safe drinking water and
1
2
A/HRC/15/31/Add.1.