October, 04 2010, 02:45pm EDT

Corporate Accountability Statement on Passage of United Nations Human Rights Council Resolution on the Rights to Water and Sanitation
Last Thursday, the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution that further recognized the rights to water and sanitation, an important step towards making these rights legally binding. This action underscores the important precedent set by the U.N. General Assembly's resolution [A/RES/64/292], adopted this summer, where governments formally recognized the right to water and sanitation as rights that they must uphold.
BOSTON
Last Thursday, the U.N. Human Rights Council passed a resolution that further recognized the rights to water and sanitation, an important step towards making these rights legally binding. This action underscores the important precedent set by the U.N. General Assembly's resolution [A/RES/64/292], adopted this summer, where governments formally recognized the right to water and sanitation as rights that they must uphold.
The resolution states that the rights to water and sanitation are, at a minimum, inextricably related to other human rights - such as the right to health and to life - which governments have already formally recognized as law through various international treaties. It also calls on governments to adopt policies and mechanisms that will progressively realize people's rights to water and sanitation. These recommendations from the UN's primary human rights body will help push governments to prioritize improving access to water and sanitation for the billions who currently lack such access, and will help enable ordinary people to seek redress when their rights have been violated or have not been met.
Corporate Accountability International is hopeful that passage of this resolution will generate further momentum for the work of the Independent Expert on the Right to Water and Sanitation, who in 2008 was appointed to a three year post by the Human Rights Council to study the legal parameters of the rights to water and sanitation and make recommendations on what policies governments should adopt in order to protect and fulfill these rights. We also hope that Member States will, in the wake of this resolution, take bold steps to become champions of these rights on the ground as well as in the halls of government.
We also remain concerned that some elements of this resolution do not go far enough, and could even be detrimental to the realization of these rights. In particular, we are concerned about operating paragraph (OP) seven of the resolution, which deals with the involvement of non-State actors - including the private sector - in the provision of water and sanitation services. This paragraph says that "States, in accordance with their laws, regulations and public policies, may opt to involve non-State actors in the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation services."
For years, governments and international financial institutions have actively and systematically promoted the involvement of corporations in the provision of water and sanitation services, often at the expense of people's lives and health. Millions of people have seen their water rates skyrocket or their access to water cut off when private corporations have controlled their access to water for profit, or have waited in vain for the promises of these corporations to extend water access to their communities.
If the right to water is to be truly respected, protected and fulfilled, we must have global water policies that do not promote a pre-ordained solution, but focus on truly providing affordable and equitable water and sanitation for all. The current understanding of human rights law with respect to this right supports this principle, in that human rights law is understood to be neutral and does not favor the private sector over the public sector when States determine how to provide people with water and sanitation.
Prior to passage of the Human Rights Council resolution, Corporate Accountability International and eighteen other civil society organizations sent a letter sharing these and other concerns with the members of the Human Rights Council and the members of the U.N. General Assembly (The letter is accessible on our website here).
The final resolution text on this specific subject is an improvement over the original text, but we believe it still falls short. Therefore, the international community must guard against any element of this resolution being used to encourage States to seek involvement of non-State actors, or private water corporations, as a preferential option.
In the wake of this resolution, it is critical that communities, civil society organizations, social movements and people around the world seize the momentum toward realization of our rights to water and sanitation, while urging States to adopt policies that will foster democratic governance and fully participatory decision-making processes regarding these rights. We must ensure that democracy is in the driver's seat when global water policy is being crafted, so that the billions of people who lack access to clean water and sanitation are not only heard but have a lead role in shaping the policies that underpin their basic survival and dignity.
Corporate Accountability stops transnational corporations from devastating democracy, trampling human rights, and destroying our planet.
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'Authoritarian Theater' Meets 'Pure F*cking Idiocracy' as Trump Promises White House UFC Match
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP," said one critic. "But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn. America F-Yeah!"
Jul 05, 2025
Critics of President Donald Trump's announcement of a planned Ultimate Fighting Championship event on White House grounds to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial next year took to social media Friday to call the proposal something "straight out of 'Idiocracy'"—the comedy cult classic about a dumbed-down 26th-century America—and condemn what one detractor called "authoritarian theater."
"Every one of our national park battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honor of America 250," Trump said at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Thursday. "We're going to have a UFC fight—think of this—on the grounds of the White House."
Yearning for a time when every new day isn't exponentially dumber than the day before.
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— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM
While Octagon aficionados cheered the prospect of a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue fight card, many observers couldn't help but notice parallels with the plot of Mike Judge's 2006 film "Idiocracy," a satirical skewering of issues including the erosion of White House decorum in a future when IQs have plummeted and a sports drink corporation owns the country, whose voters elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, "five-time ultimate smackdown champion and porn superstar," as president.
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Yet another social media critic joked that "'Idiocracy' was actually a documentary from the future, sent back in time as a warning to us all."
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Others noted the "bread and circuses" vibes of Trump's proposed event, which some called a cynical ploy meant to distract from the devastating impact of policies like Friday's signing of a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations, while ballooning the deficit and leaving millions of Americans without desperately needed health insurance coverage and food assistance.
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP. But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn," New York Times opinion contributor Wajahat Ali wrote on Bluesky. "America, F-YEAH!"
Writing for The Guardian Saturday, Karim Zidan asserted: "Donald Trump's UFC stunt is more than a circus. It's authoritarian theater."
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As catastrophic flooding left scores of people dead and missing in Texas Hill Country and President Donald Trump celebrated signing legislation that will eviscerate every aspect of federal efforts to address the climate emergency, officials in the Lone Star State blasted the National Weather Service—one of many agencies gutted by the Department of Government Efficiency—for issuing faulty forecasts that some observers blamed for the flood's high death toll.
The Associated Press reported Saturday that flooding caused by a powerful storm killed at least 27 people, with dozens more—including as many as 25 girls from a summer camp along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County—missing after fast-moving floodwaters rose 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour before dawn on Friday, sweeping away people and pets along with homes, vehicles, farm and wild animals, and property.
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Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said during a press conference in Kerrville late Friday that 24 people were confirmed dead, including children. Other officials said that 240 people had been rescued.
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After media reports & experts warned for months that drastic & sudden cuts at the Nat Weather Service by Trump could impair their forecasting ability & endanger lives during the storm season, TX officials blame an inaccurate forecast by NWS for the deadly results of the flood.
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— Ron Filipkowski (@ronfilipkowski.bsky.social) July 5, 2025 at 3:19 AM
"Listen, everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service," Kidd reiterated. "You all got it; you're all in media. You got that forecast. It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw."
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice also said during the press conference that the storm "dumped more rain than what was forecasted" into two forks of the Guadalupe River.
Kerr County judge Rob Kelly told CBS News: "We had no reason to believe that this was gonna be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever."
Since January, the NWS—a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)—has reduced its workforce by nearly 600 people as a direct result of staffing cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as part of Trump's mission to eviscerate numerous federal agencies.
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Many of the fired NWS staffers were specialized climate scientists and weather forecasters. At the time of the firings, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, was among those who warned of the cuts' deadly consequences.
"People nationwide depend on NOAA for free, accurate forecasts, severe weather alerts, and emergency information," Huffman said. "Purging the government of scientists, experts, and career civil servants and slashing fundamental programs will cost lives."
Writing for the Texas Observer, Henry D. Jacoby—co-director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change—warned that "crucial data gathering systems are at risk."
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On Friday, Trump put presidential pen to congressional Republicans' so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a $4 trillion tax and spending package that effectively erases the landmark climate and clean energy provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act signed by then-President Joe Biden in 2022.
As Inside Climate News noted of the new law:
It stomps out incentives for purchasing electric vehicles and efficient appliances. It phases out tax credits for wind and solar energy. It opens up federal land and water for oil and gas drilling and increases its profitability, while creating new federal support for coal. It ends the historic investment in poor and minority communities that bear a disproportionate pollution burden—money that the Trump administration was already refusing to spend. It wipes out any spending on greening the federal government.
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Muhannad al-Lili's killing by Israeli airstrike came as the world mourned the death of Portugal and Liverpool star Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva in a car crash in Spain.
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Al-Maghazi Services Club announced al-Lili's death in a Facebook tribute offering condolences to "his family, relatives, friends, and colleagues" and asking "Allah to shower him with his mercy."
The Palestine Football Association (PFA) said that "on Monday, a drone fired a missile at Muhannad's room on the third floor of his house, which led to severe bleeding in the skull."
"During the war of extermination against our people, Muhannad tried to travel outside Gaza to catch up with his wife, who left the strip for Norway on a work mission before the outbreak of the war," the association added. "But he failed to do so, and was deprived of seeing his eldest son, who was born outside the Gaza Strip."
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The Palestine Chronicle contrasted the worldwide press coverage of the car crash deaths of Portuguese footballer Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva with the media's relative silence following al-Lili's killing.
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