HRC57 - Interactive dialogue with the SR on Water and Sanitation

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HRC57 - Interactive dialogue with the SR on Water and Sanitation

16.09.2024 Press and information team of the Delegation to the UN in Geneva

United Nations Human Rights Council

57^th Session

Interactive dialogue with the SR on Water and Sanitation

16 September 2024

EU statement

Mr. President,

The EU welcomes the report of the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitations and firmly supports this mandate.

Water is the essence of all life. Without water, the human right to life itself is in jeopardy. Over the past decades, we have come a long way in realizing this right and setting in motion a whole network of water-related initiatives within the UN, including the United Nations Water Conference of 2023 and the United Nations' System Wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation. As the EU, we are supporting these efforts not least by implementing our 33 voluntary commitments to the Water Action Agenda.

And yet, as you, Mr. Special Rapporteur, point out in your latest report, despite the increasing focus on water, we are losing perspective of water as a human right. A human rights lens in policy and practice adds to the global efforts regarding Water and Sanitation by underlining the obligation of states as duty bearers and by putting focus on the most vulnerable and those most at risk of being left behind.

Mr. Special Rapporteur,

how can member states help to ensure that in the upcoming United Nations Water Conferences, the Human Rights to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation are put where they belong - at the center of the discussion?