The Political Economy Of The Human Right To Water

A agua e essencial a sobrevivencia humana. Uma economia politica humanizada, isto e dirigida para a satisfacao das necessidades basicas, deve preocupar-se com a questao da disponibilidade e distribuicao de agua. No que diz respeito a satisfacao das necessidades basicas, podemos afirmar que e relativamente facil e barato fornecer agua para todos. Porque razao, entao existe uma desigualdade na distribuicao? Esta desigualdade representa uma violacao seria de um direito humano, como sera desenvolvido a frente, e nao devera ser tolerada. Este artigo trata do papel que a economia desempenha no desigual exercicio do direito humano de acesso a agua potavel. Este artigo examina como o discurso da economia dominante pode entrar em conflito com os direitos humanos em geral, e o direito a agua em particular. No âmbito da teoria economica dominante, a satisfacao de necessidades implica a utilizacao de conceitos como preco, oferta, procura, custos e beneficios, e por conseguinte a questao e capacidade de pagar ou poder de compra. Com os direitos, o assunto e diferente, sendo a questao principal, o criterio de acordo com o qual um individuo esta habilitado a usufruir dos direitos, nao podendo por isso ser utilizado o criterio do poder de compra. Para a economia e perfeitamente admissivel excluir do acesso a agua aqueles que nao tem capacidade de pagar, violando principios basicos dos direitos humanos. A economia dominante ao por toda a enfase no mercado como a instituicao reguladora, torna invisivel o direito humano a agua. Por um lado o mercado e ineficiente em atingir uma cobertura universal de agua potavel e por outro lado o mercado e uma instituicao que nao presta contas e a satisfacao dos direitos humanos precisa por principio de ser submetido ao controlo democratico. ---------------------------------------------Water being essential to human survival, a humane political economy, in other words a political economy directed to satisfying human basic needs, should be especially concerned with the issue of water availability and distribution. In what the satisfaction of basic needs is concerned, one could fairly safely state that it is relatively easy and cheap to provide access to water to everybody. Why is there such inequality in its distribution then? This inequality represents a serious violation of a human right, as it will be developed in the paper, and, therefore, should not be tolerated. The issue this paper wishes to address concerns the role played by economics in the unequal assertion of every people’s human right to clean water. First of all, what are we talking about when we talk about economics? A rapid overview can identify at least twenty schools of economic thought, from neoclassic to evolutionary, from Marxist to post-Keynesian. If one had to be accurate, a paper on the impact of economics on the human right to water human rights would, then, have to be divided in at least twenty chapters. The sort of economics we will be referring to in this paper results from a considerably narrower point of view, though. Economics, here, will be mainstream economics, the school of thought which dominates not only within the academia, but also within the political cabinets and the media. More specifically, this paper will examine how mainstream economics discourse can be conflictive with human rights in general and the right to water in particular. First of all, within mainstream economic analysis satisfying wants implies the use of concepts like prices, supply and demand, or cost and benefit, and therefore, the issue is capability to pay, in other words purchasing power. With rights, on the other hand, the issue is quite different; the heart of the matter here concerns entitlement, the criteria according to which an individual should qualify to enjoy rights, purchasing power being obviously excluded, and the consequences of the use of such criteria. Therefore it is perfectly admissible for economics to exclude from access to water those that do not have the capability to pay violating the basic principles of human rights. Secondly by putting emphasis on the market as the default regulation institution mainstream economics also hinders the human right to water because on the one hand the market is inefficient in reaching universal coverage of water supply and on the other hand it is an unaccountable institution and human rights purveyors need by principle to be submitted to democratic control.