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Is potable water a human right?

Cassandra

Cassandra

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Is potable water a human right?

It is increasingly a scarce commodity.

Should a fair market value be placed on it even though some people will have difficulty paying for it?
 
Who will be required to supply that right? If people living in an arid region have 10 children per family, and there is a shortage of drinkable water, is it the requirement that someone else step in and provide this 'right'?

Some people also view healthcare as a human right. If modern healthcare is a right, then surely clean drinking water is one.

If people have no water where they currently live then is it their right to move somewhere where there is water to drink?
 
Cassandra said:
Is potable water a human right?

It is increasingly a scarce commodity.

Should a fair market value be placed on it even though some people will have difficulty paying for it?
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Not sure exactly what you are asking. Most potable water already has a fair market value due to the cost for its treatment and is recovered through user fees from those that consume it.
 
MyOwnDrum said:
Who will be required to supply that right? If people living in an arid region have 10 children per family, and there is a shortage of drinkable water, is it the requirement that someone else step in and provide this 'right'?
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I don't think there's an easy answer to that. It depends on a number of factors...are they able to move to another region, did they have 10 children because they're irresponsible or because of economic reasons, is their government capable of providing them with water, etc.

MyOwnDrum said:
If people have no water where they currently live then is it their right to move somewhere where there is water to drink?
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I'd like to think so. But in practice, countries are very stingy with their visas. There are some countries that are mostly arid, where people do not have the option of just moving to a more fertile part of the country, and aren't able to emigrate.

Water is the source of more wars than most people realize IMO. The unspoken reality about the Israel/Palestine conflict is that water is a primary cause.




Anyway, my answer to the OP is yes. Countries should do everything possible to provide their citizens with clean water. Different solutions are appropriate for different countries. Purification, desalination, irrigation, transporting water to arid lands, transporting people out of arid lands, etc. When they cannot afford it on their own, Westerners should offer a helping hand IMO.
 
No, it is not a right if someone else must labor to supply it.

On the other hand it is a necessity, acquiring it in the face of opposition will justify warfare.

Needs are infinitely more fundamental than rights, but no one should feel compelled by government to provide them for strangers.
 
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MyOwnDrum said:
Who will be required to supply that right? If people living in an arid region have 10 children per family, and there is a shortage of drinkable water, is it the requirement that someone else step in and provide this 'right'?

Some people also view healthcare as a human right. If modern healthcare is a right, then surely clean drinking water is one.

If people have no water where they currently live then is it their right to move somewhere where there is water to drink?
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NO!......:2wave:
 
Oftencold said:
No, it is not a right if someone else must labor to supply it.

On the other hand it is a necessity, acquiring it in the face of opposition will justify warfare.

Needs are infinitely more fundamental than rights, but no one should feel compelled by government to provide them for strangers.
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What do you propose should be done if someone can't get potable water then?
 
the makeout hobo said:
What do you propose should be done if someone can't get potable water then?
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Stop over breeding?.....
Liberals are constantly hand wringing over the poor starving multitudes...
While they deny the fact that handouts only serve to bolster unsustainable population growth....
The resultant starvation is self fulfilling prophesy...
There is a cause and effect relationship, that nature understands, but man fails to.....
As the sage Sam Kinnison said, "It's f'in sand, you can't eat it"....;)
 
Coon County said:
Stop over breeding?.....
Liberals are constantly hand wringing over the poor starving multitudes...
While they deny the fact that handouts only serve to bolster unsustainable population growth....
The resultant starvation is self fulfilling prophesy...
There is a cause and effect relationship, that nature understands, but man fails to.....
As the sage Sam Kinnison said, "It's f'in sand, you can't eat it"....;)
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Yes, but what about the ones already alive? I think birth control programs for the third world are great but that's not the issue at hand.
 
Cassandra said:
Is potable water a human right?

It is increasingly a scarce commodity.

Should a fair market value be placed on it even though some people will have difficulty paying for it?
Click to expand...

The reflexive answer is yes.

The real answer is no.

Just like with the concept of peace, we humans do not do what we all claim we want to do.

Still, I support any means, ends, international agreements, deceptions, military force, economic power, lies; anything to get the most clean drinking water to the most people.

Some times you have to be bad to be good.

And you always have to be as flexible as a Circus Sole acrobat to be good.
 
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Coon County said:
Life is cheap in those places, I really don't have much sympathy for those who would go hack their neighbors to pieces with a machete....
Live like animals die like animals.... ;)
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Not all places in the third world have factional violence. What if it was your family that was parched of thirst?
 
If a private company is poisoning public waters, you bet it is my right to expect my government to come down upon them. Companies don't get a free pass to destroy resources that benefit everyone.
 
Aside from the annoying fact that "human rights" are nothing more then government given (and conversely taken away) privileges, people should have the right to access to purchase potable water at reasonable prices.

Free water does not work as shown in Africa.
 
obvious Child said:
Aside from the annoying fact that "human rights" are nothing more then government given (and conversely taken away) privileges, people should have the right to access to purchase potable water at reasonable prices.

Free water does not work as shown in Africa.
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So governments should have the right to sell our lakes and streams to the highest bidder, so they can in turn privatize it and resell it to us at higher cost? How is that a better solution?

I should be able to walk to a river, take a bucket of water out of it, and boil it for drinking without getting seriously ill or dying. If the government isn't protecting that ability, then we have no future. None at all. Same goes for air, soil, etc.

The idea that these things are commodities is laughable. There is enough for everyone, especially in North America. I don't see why one organization should get the say-so to package it and ship it wherever, while the general public gets shafted from that discussion.
 
the makeout hobo said:
What do you propose should be done if someone can't get potable water then?
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There are a number of aspects to my answer.

Governments should feel no compulsion to provide potable water to non-allied aliens. None.

On the other hand, an individual should feel a fundamental duty to see that no one goes without, if it can be provided without causerie greater harm. (Example, providing water to a country determined to wage aggressive war and likley to do so would negate much of the moral duty to simply provide them with the means of survival.)

You have probably seen other posts I've made where I assert the simple fact (to much weeping and gnashing of teeth,) the any act of government about the level of an extended family is enforced through the threat of deadly force. In that light, I am very dubious about the justification for any officially sanctioned charitable acts (robbery and redistribution of spoils.)

There are many acts that I consider a human duty, that are not the duty of Government which is inhuman and mechanical.

So, to try to answer you question, the society should find someway to aid the thirsting people you posit. However the "Robin Hood" approach of stealing from one group (taxation) to aid another is at best, an emergency measure that will produce inferior results.
 
Oftencold said:
There are a number of aspects to my answer.

Governments should feel no compulsion to provide potable water to non-allied aliens. None.

On the other hand, an individual should feel a fundamental duty to see that no one goes without, if it can be provided without causerie greater harm. (Example, providing water to a country determined to wage aggressive war and likley to do so would negate much of the moral duty to simply provide them with the means of survival.)

You have probably seen other posts I've made where I assert the simple fact (to much weeping and gnashing of teeth,) the any act of government about the level of an extended family is enforced through the threat of deadly force. In that light, I am very dubious about the justification for any officially sanctioned charitable acts (robbery and redistribution of spoils.)

There are many acts that I consider a human duty, that are not the duty of Government which is inhuman and mechanical.

So, to try to answer you question, the society should find someway to aid the thirsting people you posit. However the "Robin Hood" approach of stealing from one group (taxation) to aid another is at best, an emergency measure that will produce inferior results.
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My issue is that if we just wait for private charity to take care of the problem, and it doesn't, then people die needlessly. I'm fairly results oriented, and I'd rather have a Robin Hood tax system, assuming it can be changed democratically, than have people needlessly die.
 
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