In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared that water is a basic human right. 122 countries voted in favour of the resolution: none against but 41 countries abstained (including Australia, Canada, Korea, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, and the USA). Also, unlike other issues which are now considered to be basic human rights because of very specific international treaties, UNGA resolutions are non-binding.
The lecture will focus on the following issues. To what extent the UNGA resolution has accelerated clean water provisioning when at least 3.5 billion people lack access to it? How may this resolution advance water management practices and processes and help handle some of the major challenges the world is facing at present to implement the concept that water is a human right?
The lecture will also discuss the efforts of Pope Francis to further the implementation of this notion through an interfaith dialogue in the Vatican, 23-24 February 2017, which the author helped to organise, including the potential impacts of the latest Vatican declaration.