Term 3 Week 2 (Blogging Assignment)

An article entitled 'The Religion of Water' was published in The Straits Times on 7 July 2011. In the article, it was mentioned that ' within countries, there is debate over whether water should be treated as a human right or as a commodity, access to which is determined by the market.' Please read the article.

Is there a difference between treating water as a human right and as a commodity? In your opinion, should water be treated as a human right or as a commodity?

Post your 300 word response on your blog.

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Water is a very important factor in our lives. Without water, there will be no food, then there will be no life on Earth. "The human right to drinking water is fundamental to life and health. Sufficient and safe drinking water is a precondition for the realization of human rights."

— United Nations 'General Comment' on the Right to Water.  There is no substitute for water in the maintenance of human life. With increasing population and growing water usage, water shortages have become a source of potential and ongoing conflicts. One of the main issues is the competing claims of upstream and downstream nations. 


As downstream nations (for example, Egypt, Israel, Iraq and Vietnam) attempt to win more water rights, upstream nations (in the above examples, respectively Ethiopia, Lebanon, Turkey and China) try to keep control of the water resources in their territories through such means as irrigation schemes, reservoirs and hydro-electric projects. While current resources are insufficient in many regions, water will become ever scarcer in the future due to phenomena such as climate change, population growth, the exhaustion of ground-water reservoirs, and the increase in per capital water use associated with economic growth. Thus tensions are likely to rise further over the next decades; some experts are already predicting armed conflicts over the control of water resources in areas such as Africa and the Middle East. 


Humans, as aqueous creatures, are dependent on water for sustenance. Water cannot be substituted, unlike some other forms of resources. The preservation of life is solely dependent on water. While food is also a fundamental element to sustain life, food is a variation of different items which can effectively substitute one another. "Every eight seconds, somewhere in the world, a child dies from a disease related to shortage in drinking water and health services." (WHO, 2000).


Some may say that making water a commodity will allow people to start on water conservation. However, when it comes to the time where people conserve water because it is made commodity, many poor families will start dying because they cannot afford the water. Sacrificing those who are poor to let others realise the preciousness of water is not fair. The wealthy people are not in any way more deserving of Earth's water than the poor people.