The Right to Water in China

A gLAWcal comment on

Global Law and Sustainable Development

As noted by the author Roberto Soprano, in the chapter China and the Recognition and Protection of the Human Right to Water: “The right to water imposes a burden on China to develop new policies and rules to supply and ensure safe drinking water for its population, which might have an impact on current water diversion projects.” Indeed, as noted by the author, “in 2010, China voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution to recognize the right to water as a human right.” As such, the Chinese government has an obligation of ensuring the access to water to the citizens of the country despite the fact that the surface waters of the country are heavily polluted while the groundwater resources in Northern China are being depleted.

Water is set to replace oil and gas as the most precious natural resource in the coming years due to the increasing water scarcity as a result of several factors. Indeed, even though the majority of the planet is made of water, only three percent of this resource is considered as fresh water. Moreover, almost two-thirds of these fresh waters are trapped in the polar ice and are expected to mix with seawater once melted. As such, one could actually say after taking into consideration the current climate change events, global population increase as well as the pollution of many of the current available fresh water sources, that there is a high risk that future armed conflicts would take place as a result of water shortage. The current existing fresh waters sources are divided into surface and ground waters. The former has been used extensively in the last century where there was a need to regulate the management of rivers, lakes, canals and so on. As such, the extensive use of this source has resulted in over-exploitation as well as the pollution of the surface waters in plenty of places in the world. Another direct consequence of the irresponsible management and exploitation of surface waters is the exploitation of groundwater sources in plenty of places in the world especially in the last fifty years. However, again, currently, ground waters, in particular, the ones trapped in transboundary aquifers that are shared between several states have either suffered the same consequences of surface waters or facing similar threats due to the lack of good governance practices when it comes to the management of this source. Groundwater and surface water must be managed in a different manner. For instance, the process of cleaning a groundwater reservoir is much longer than the one for surface water in particular if groundwater is trapped in a non-rechargeable aquifer which means it would be almost impossible to use this source effectively. In the chapter “China and the Recognition and Protection of the Human Right to Water,” the author Roberto Soprano have examined the current situation of freshwater resources in the People’s Republic of China. The author analyzed the pollution levels of surface and ground waters as well as whether the Chinese citizens have the capability to access fresh waters in accordance with the international conventions in place. In this regard, it is important to mention that “in 2010, China voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution to recognize the right to water as a human right.” As such, the Chinese government has an obligation of ensuring the access to water to the citizens of the country despite the fact that the surface waters of the country are heavily polluted while the groundwater sources in Northern China are being depleted. Hence, this chapter will shed some lights on the current issues revolving around the right to water in China.

PDF PDF