Dublin Statement

The Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development, also known as the Dublin Principles, was adopted by the United Nations on the 31st of January 1992 at the International Conference on Water and the Environment (ICWE), Dublin, Ireland, organised on 26-31 January 1992. This conference was the last technical preparatory meeting before the UN Conference on Environment and Development (the "Earth Summit") in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992.

The Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development recognises the increasing scarcity of water as a result of the different conflicting uses and overuses of water. The statement is generally referred to as the UN document that declares water a finite natural resource with economic value.

The Dublin Principles

The declaration sets out recommendations for action at local, national and international levels to reduce the scarcity, through the following four guiding principles^[1]:

Principle 1: Fresh water is a finite and vulnerable resource, essential to sustain life, development and the environment

Principle 2: Water development and management should be based on a participatory approach, involving users, planners and policy-makers at all levels

Principle 3: Women play a central part in the provision, management and safeguarding of water

Principle 4: Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) is inspired by the four Dublin Principles^[2].

Water as universal right or economic good?

The emphasis of the Dublin Statement on the economic value of water rather than water as a universal right is highly contested by NGOs and human rights activists. Up till today it is still the only binding UN document that makes a statement on the issue.

In november 2002, however, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights adopted General Comment No. 15, which was formulated by experts as a comment on articles 11 and 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights^[3]. In this comment, water is recognised not only as a limited natural resource and a public good but also as a human right. This step - adopting General Comment No. 15 - is seen as a decisive step towards the recognition of water as universal right, although the document has no legally binding power.

See also

• Integrated Water Resources Management
• Global Water Partnership
• Right to water
• Water scarcity

References

1. ^ http://www.wmo.ch/pages/prog/hwrp/documents/english/icwedece.html
2. ^ http://www.gwpforum.org/servlet/PSP?iNodeID=1345
3. ^ http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=1764