Our friends at the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions have let us know that last week the governments of Germany and Spain introduced a resolution to the 47-member United Nations Human Rights Council that would both confirm that the right to water and sanitation is legally binding in international law through the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as part of the human right to an adequate standard of living, as well as establish a UN special rapporteuer for the right to water and sanitation.

Disappointingly, Canada has raised some twenty objections to this resolution, including references to the right to water and a special rapporteur.

It is anticipated that a vote in the UN Human Rights Council on this resolution will occur possibly within the next week or so.

We will hopefully have more information for you soon, as well as an action alert directed at Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier demanding that the Government of Canada support this resolution at the United Nations.

This makes our upcoming World Water Day actions all the more significant as we head into this vote.

To read more about the Council of Canadians campaign in support of the right to water please go to,
http://www.canadians.org/water/issues/right/index.html