A/HRC/6/3
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the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights adopted the draft guidelines for the realization of
the right to drinking water supply and sanitation (the Sub-Commission’s guidelines), which refer
to a right to drinking water and sanitation.10 The Sub-Commission’s guidelines are intended to
assist Governments, policymakers, international agencies and members of civil society to
implement the right to drinking water and sanitation.
(f) Plans of action referring to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right: a
number of plans of action have also referred to water and sanitation as a human right.
Agenda 21, adopted at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED) in 1992 states that “the commonly agreed premise was that ‘all peoples, whatever
their stage of development and their social and economic conditions, have the right to have
access to drinking water in quantities and of a quality equal to their basic needs’”.11 In the
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (1994),
States affirmed that all people have “the right to an adequate standard of living for themselves
and their families, including adequate food, clothing, housing, water and sanitation”.12 The
UN-Habitat Plan of Action (1996) subsequently recognized water and sanitation as a human
right.13
(g) Other recognition of safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right: the former
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan emphasized that “access to safe water is a
fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right”.14 In its 2006 Human
Development Report, Beyond scarcity: power, poverty and the global water crisis, the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) stressed the importance of recognizing and
implementing the right to water.15 The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also stressed
that “access to sanitation facilities is a fundamental human right that safeguards health and
human dignity”.16 The United Nations Millennium Project Task Force on Water and Sanitation
10
Realization of the right to drinking water and sanitation: report of the Special Rapporteur,
El Hadji Guissé (E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/25, para. 2).
11
Agenda 21, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development 1992, chapter 18,
para. 47.
12
Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development,
Cairo, 1994, Principle 2.
13
The Habitat Agenda Goals and Principles, Commitments and the Global Plan of Action, 1996,
para. 11.
14
Message of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on World Water Day 2001,
available at: http://www.worldwaterday.org/wwday/2001/news/msgun.html.
15
Pages 3-4.
16
Sanitation for All, page 3, UNICEF January 2000.
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