Water has no enemy – water as a human right

by | Mar 27, 2014 | Justice Archive, Trócaire, ZZ_All

In this extract from the Trócaire 2014 Lenten Lecture, Fr Orobator asserts that access to fresh water is a universal and inalienable human right.

Full lecture also available – click here

Water Has No Enemy

Speaker – Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, SJ
Location: Pontifical University, Maynooth, Ireland
Date: 26 March 2014

Extract –

It may be true that water has not enemy, but this vital substance is anything but ethically neutral. Water creates many enemies! … water and the quest for it render it a highly ethically charged substance with monumental consequences…

… Thus I believe that what Catholic social thought designates as the principle of the common good offers us an ethical framework for a substantive consideration of the panoply of issues around water security, especially through the perspective of rights. The commodification of water as a privatized tradable resource, the inaccessibility of water to the most vulnerable populations and the indiscriminate pollution of water bodies all constitute a grave assault on this most vital and essential common good and the right of human and natural ecologies that depend on it for survival…