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Water Justice: 'We Are the Movement Whose Time Has Come'
Corporate World Water Forum "refuses to acknowledge" recognized right to water and sanitation
At the Alternative World Water Forum, the Forum Alternatif Mondial de l'Eau (FAME) in French, water justice activists are providing a counter-narrative to the corporate-dominated World Water Forum, which "refuses to acknowledge" the recognized right to water and sanitation.
Water rights activists are slamming the World Water Forum as a "trade show" for "big corporations." Food & Water Watch's Wenonah Hauter states that the "World Water Forum is dead" while Maude Barlow declares their forum "pathetic."
Speaking to the water rights activists at the alternative forum, Barlow says that it "is time for us to take our power" and that "we are the movement whose time has come."
* * *
Wenonah Hauter: Why World Water Forum “Solutions” Miss The Mark
Yesterday I walked around the “solution tents” at the 6th World Water Forum, which is more clearly than ever a trade show for the water industry to sell expensive services and products. Arranged as a “village,” the exhibit offered no vision for a future that addresses the source of pollution or the reason that millions of people lack access to water. From the tents labeled “factory” and “slum” to the “bank” and “library” exhibits, the failure to address the real problems was Kafkaesque.
[...] While multinational companies are benefiting from the oil, gold and cocoa in countries like Nigeria or Ghana, the residents of these countries providing this wealth are going without having their basic needs met. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund should start pressuring governments to tax multinational companies, rather than using their political power to force these governments to give tax breaks to multinationals.
It’s also time to start including pollution prevention goals at the forefront of the debate on solving the world water crisis. A forum that does not address pollution or real long-term solutions for providing everyone safe drinking water is not a venue for governments to participate in.
The World Water Forum is dead. Low attendance and a dearth of real solutions make it pale and anemic in contrast to FAME (Forum Alternatif Mondial de l’Eau), the Alternative Forum where thousands of people are gathering across town to discuss implementing the right to water. We are calling on the UN to stop kowtowing to industry and to start a process that looks at the real options for providing water for the thirsty—from the use of development money to the institution of a small charge on financial transactions. The global water justice movement is calling on the UN to hold the next global meeting on water in the fall of 2014.
The time is now for the UN and governments around their world to fulfill their duty and not to delegate it to corporations.
* * *
At the World Water Forum, "the failure to address the real problems was Kafkaesque."
Brent Patterson: The corporate World Water Forum is dead
[...] The challenges that remain are very real. The Ministerial Declaration of this World Water Forum purposely failed to affirm the United Nations recognized right to water and sanitation. This is a declaration that will be used to weaken other international statements on water and sanitation. It is also very clear that this first World Water Forum since the historic UN General Assembly vote on July 28, 2010 is trying to rewrite history, it is trying to erase the historical fact of the resolution that recognized these fundamental human rights.
While the World Water Forum may be dead, like a zombie, it doesn’t seem to understand that just yet. The World Water Council has already publicly stated that the next World Water Forum will take place in Daegu Gyeongbuk, South Korea (’winning’ out over Glasgow, Scotland).
But the water justice movement is actively discussing the idea of democratic, accountable, transparent, non-corporate, and people- and nature-centred international forum on the implementation of the right to water and sanitation to be held by late-2014, several months before the planned corporate gathering in South Korea.
And so while there are still challenges, two key facts remain. 1) The United Nations General Assembly has recognized the right to water and sanitation. 2) The United Nations Human Rights Council has affirmed that these rights are contained in existing human rights treaties and are therefore legally binding and equal to all other human rights. Given that the corporate forum refuses to acknowledge this reality, it’s even more clear, as really was always the case, that they are the ones out of step, and that the Alternative World Water Forum is the true and legitimate water forum!
* * *
Streaming video of the opening plenary of FAME
Maude Barlow: "We are the movement whose time has come."
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39 Comments so far
Show AllMillions in the so called democracies are "VOTING" every term, making it clear they've had it with PRIVATIZATION but it seem the so "CALLED" leaders are not listing, denying one of the key reason d'etre in terms of the fundamental right of the PEOPLE.
World wide PEOPLE are WITNESSING the terrible damage done to the US electoral system, the methods & mechanisms delivering so called governments & leaders is corrupted.
A recipe for SHOCK DOCTRINE.
NO TO PRIVATIZATION OF PUBLIC ASSETS & RESOURCES, it ought to be a key demand of citizens WORLD WIDE, far from being a luxury, whether it is privatization of water or privatization of the military or the electoral system, it is & will REMAIN the very poison that will PARALYZE the living societal ORGANISM that we are, its COMPLEX & DIVERS systems its IMMUNITY its EVOLUTION. It is a task for the 100%.
No terror no torture just truth.
and every drop for sale.
The water bottles, which are used once and then tossed, are a waste of petroleum (and are probably unhealthy). The energy that is wasted to bottle and ship that water hundreds or thousands of miles from its source is another disgrace. And the mass of discarded bottles -- probably 3/4 of which go into landfills and are not re-cycled -- is yet another disgrace.
I really don't get why most people feel compelled to purchase bottled water, except under unusual or extenuating circumstances.
I stayed at a hotel in San Diego where they wanted to charge me $6 for each bottle of water in my room. Six dollars! The water was imported from Fiji (!?). Apparently, some people will actually spend $6 for that purpose, or the hotel wouldn't bother to offer it. (Never mind that the same hotel offered unlimited chilled, good-tasting, lemon-infused water from a dispenser in the lobby downstairs for free. But ... that required walking downstairs. How un-American.)
I swear, our country has gone off the rails.
I await your ideas.
Wenonah Hauter (Food & Water Watch):
>>"The Ministerial Declaration of this World Water Forum purposely failed to affirm the United Nations recognized right to water and sanitation. This is a declaration that will be used to weaken other international statements on water and sanitation. It is also very clear that this first World Water Forum since the historic UN General Assembly vote on July 28, 2010 is trying to rewrite history, it is trying to erase the historical fact of the resolution that recognized these fundamental human rights."<<
I am glad that these activists are on to the shenanigans of these jokers. And I am glad that this kind of an event and the position of the activists is getting coverage. I can't help but wish that such coverage had been given in the liberal media about climate change negotiations and treaties about 15 years ago! Anyway, I would like to refer readers to a recent CD article on the same topic, where I have posted a couple of longer comments:
Water Rights Groups Blast Corporate-Dominated Water Forum
Now, about the the "Ministerial Declaration" of this World Water Forum purposely failing to recognize the UN declaration on the right to water and sanitation, I had posted this link:
Canada blocks right to water in international document at upcoming meetings in Marseille
Brent Patterson (Council of Canadians, chaired by Maude Barlow):
>>"While the World Water Forum may be dead, like a zombie, it doesn’t seem to understand that just yet. The World Water Council has already publicly stated that the next World Water Forum will take place in Daegu Gyeongbuk, South Korea (’winning’ out over Glasgow, Scotland)."<<
What a friggin' joke! This is exactly the kind of weird feeling I got when I checked out the website of the World Water Council the last time around. When I read about the South Korean city of Daegu "winning" the privilege to host the next World Water Forum, I thought, what??? Are these jokers trying to make it into something like the Olympics or the Expo for which cities around the world have to "bid" and "win"? I wouldn't be surprised. Besides, the so-called "Olympic Movement" is itself a huge scam and a racket, but the cities that are pushed into bidding for these probably don't realize it or keep their mouths shut, to enable the profit-making of a few commercial entities.
This study of water as the source of power through many civilizations should wake you up to the dangers we face if a few people gain control over our water supplies.
People go into economic hysteria over rising oil prices, but if you don't have water, you won't have the strength to go into hysteria. People need to stand up and fight before they get handed the bar of soap.
When they kick at your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun
When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting on death row
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton
The Clash, Guns of Brixton
I cut my activist teeth on water issues - they flow in my veins, so to speak ..
You are so right, all the crap we dump on MN she is returning to us with a vengeance, how can we look our kids in the eye ...
Of course we need to always address the petrochemical growers of food - both pesticides and chemical fertilizers are derived from oil, many contain chlorine derivatives - and therefore dioxins - as well.
Buy and grow organic food. Food prices are up and shortages cannot be too far away. Encourage young people to become local, organic farmers. Not monocultures, but healthy diversity in crops with yearly rotations so they don't wear the soil out.
How many people now have clean groundwater in which to drill their own wells? I do, but then I'm up here in rural Maine. Nearby towns' waters are contaminated by the so-called "wild" blueberry growers' herbicides and pesticides, as are the coastal waters.
Maine's rivers, lakes, and streams are contaminated not only by pesticides, but primarily by arsenic, mercury, dioxins, etc. from the coal-burning energy plants in the Midwest, which build high chimneys so their emissions will go "away," but "away" is in the wind - and their "away" poisons land here in Maine and nearby Canada.
There is no "away," not for any toxins. They don't dissipate into air and water; they stay around in their final metabolites virtually forever. DDT is still here in its final metabolite, DDE, which is an endocrine disrupter, which is why the national park here still feeds the resident eagles with cattle carcasses instead of allowing them to eat only wild fish or rabbits, etc. If they ate only the local wildlife with their body burdens of DDE, the eagles' eggs wouldn't hatch.
Speak out at every turn. Act as if your life depended on it - because it does.
The United Nations is at its all time low just now, similar I would think to the League of Nations just before the Second World War - and all at a time when preparations for another war are well underway - with the distinct possibility of escalation to a Third World War, after which, according to Einstein, we will return to fighting with sticks and stones.
The UN Declaration of Human Rights is thus in the same fix as the United States Constitution - all words and no teeth.
Enough of these specialists in causes.
Give me OCCUPY and its concept of universal justice, and we just might have a banner worth fighting under.
Manysummits
=======Really, Mike? So there is nothing worthwhile in what these activists are doing? And it's not a legitimate fight?
>>"The UN Declaration of Human Rights is thus in the same fix as the United States Constitution - all words and no teeth."<<
First of all, it is "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)", adopted by the United Nations General Assembly. It WAS a step in the right direction. A much needed step. Not enough by itself, but still a massively significant step with enormous implications.
The Human Rights Commissions in various countries and states/provinces still have a great deal of credibility -- including in countries ruled by authoritarian and corrupt governments. At the very least, they serve as the conscience of the society, however feeble. In many cases, they shine the light on some of the darker aspects of the society. And in some countries, they even have the legal power to take on the government on specific matters.
Just because the human rights situation is not perfect, does it mean the Declaration itself is worthless? Does it mean that these Commissions are irrelevant? I think it would be a tragedy if such thought were to become "mainstream", and it would set the clock back somewhat.
Among the many battles waged by activists, getting the right to water and sanitation recognized as a universal human right was a significant milestone. The fact that it took so long to recognize something so basic and so obvious shows the kinds of powers at work and the enormity of the struggle. The reason that many rich countries abstained in the first round in July 2010 was precisely because of the legal implications that directly challenge corporate profits. But the activists pushed on, and the resolution passed in September 2010.
As it stands today, according to a news item on the Council of Canadians website, Canada and the South Pacific state of Tonga are the two remaining countries that have refused to recognize the right to water and sanitation.
And more about Canada's official position on the matter:
Canada undermines the right to water and sanitation
Five things you should know about Canada's position on the right to water
I am posting these links just so you can get better informed, and I am pretty sure that your dismissal of the Alternative World Water Forum as "specialists in causes" has nothing to do with Canada's official position. BTW, Maude Barlow is Canadian - who is fighting the good fight on behalf of all people, all over the world, deprived of this basic right. I refuse to accept that the efforts of her's, and of countless other activists involved in this particular fight, as a "specialist cause".
I remember that, when CD posted on this Declaration re water when it was passed, it was met by similar dismissals and I posted sentiments similar to yours. There were darn few comments at all, as i recall, very disappointing ... Maybe the worm is turning - perhaps as folks' glasses get emptier, their voices get louder, but best get very loud very soon, before they become too parched to speak ...
It's time to move on.
Feel good activists who have made an entire career out of greenwash, as James Hansen and others call it, have always made me suspicious - all good intentions on the road to hell.
We have to get past this yuppie activism, and on to something that works.
OCCUPY seems impotent - but I think it's been proven since the first Bruntland Commission, and then the '92 Earth Summit, that it's the activists per se who are impotent.
We need to start winning, and I have the feeling that OCCUPY may be the way.
===========