EU WATER LAW and POLICY

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A - An original pillar of EU environmental policy
3 - Towards the explicit recognition of the right to water

 

3 - Towards the explicit recognition of the right to water

The fundamental rights to a healthy environment, or even the right to water, are not explicitly recognised in EU Law. However, the EU and its Member States must ensure that procedural rights of access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters are respected (Aarhus Convention 1998, into force in 2001 Click here for more information!).

Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodityClick here for more information!. In 2013, the European Citizen Initiative (ECI) Right2Water – the first successful initiative which collected 1,659,543 signatures, called for the strengthening of inclusive governance through a broader human rights approach and urged the Commission to “propose legislation implementing the human right to water and sanitation”. The organisers argue for a strengthened human rights approach to environmental issues following the UN dynamic for the widespread recognition of the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation Click here for more information!. In response, the Commission recognises the inextricable links between access to drinking water and sanitation and the right to life and human dignity as guaranteed by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. It underlines that such fundamental rights “can be interpreted as also being of direct relevance for access to safe drinking water and improved sanitationClick here for more information!. The Commission emphasises the importance of the “Human right dimensions of access to safe drinking [water]” and concludes that access to safe drinking water and sanitation is already an essential component of EU fundamental rights. Highly critical of this response, the European Parliament (EP) calls on the Commission and EU to recognise “universal access and human right to waterClick here for more information!. The EP states that “one million people in Europe have no access to water and eight million have no sanitation Click here for more information!”. At international level, the SDG 6 states that all people should have “universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water”. The recast of the Drinking Water Directive 98/83/EC Click here for more information! aims, in particular, to respond to the ICE Right2Water by incorporating new provisions to strengthen access to water for all in the Member States. According to the new article 16 of the Drinking Water Directive 2020/2184, the Member States (MS) “shall take the necessary measures to improve or maintain access to water intended for human consumption for all, in particular for vulnerable and marginalised groups as defined by the Member StatesClick here for more information!.
Pending explicit recognition of rights to the Environment, including the right to water in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights Click here for more information!, these new obligations are part of the promotion of a rights-based approach to environmental protection. In addition, the 8th Environmental Action Programme states that “action to achieve the Union’s environmental and climate objectives needs to be carried out in line with the implementation of the European Pillar of Social RightsClick here for more information! In this regard, the principle 20 of the European Pillar of Social Rights proclaimed in 2017, explicitly states that “everyone has the right to assess essential services of good quality, including water, sanitation (…)Click here for more information!.
More recently, the promoters of the “rights of nature” theory are spreading their ideas in many forms at different scales in several Member States Click here for more information!. Already in 2016, the Province des Iles Loyalty of New Caledonia stated in its environmental code that “certain elements of nature may be ecognized as having a legal personality with rights of their own, subject to legislative and regulatory provisions in forceClick here for more information!. In 2022, the Spanish Congress of Deputies decided to examine the legislative proposal on the rights of the Mar Menor lagoon and its basin resulting from a popular legislative initiative under the emergency procedure Click here for more information!.