The UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to water and sanitation, Léo Heller [official profile], on Tuesday urged the international community involved in development cooperation to work toward ensuring that people everywhere have rights to water and sanitation [press release]. Heller stated that development programs for developing countries can better achieve these rights if they are guided by a human rights approach. He further urges that these programs prioritize helping the most disadvantaged groups and for states to develop strong legal frameworks to focus on water and sanitation. Heller is continuing to conduct research on these issues to present a report to the UN in October.

People throughout the world still lack access to drinking water and adequate sanitation. Last year Human Rights Watch reported that the Bangladeshi government has failed to respond adequately [JURIST report] to naturally occurring arsenic in rural drinking water. In March 2010 Bolivian President Evo Morales called on the UN [JURIST report] to declare access to safe drinking water a basic human right and introduced a resolution to that effect. In July of that year the UN General Assembly adopted [JURIST report] a resolution declaring that access to clean and sanitized drinking water is a basic human right. The resolution passed by a vote of 122-0. One of the Millennium Development Goals [official website] to reduce social and economic harms by 2015 includes decreasing by half the number of people who cannot reach or afford safe drinking water and do not have basic sanitation. The resolution expressed concern that approximately 884 million people are without access to safe drinking water and more than 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation.