PERMANENT MISSION OF INDIA
GENEVA
27th Session of UN Human Rights Council
[9 September 2014]
Clustered Interactive Dialogue:
Special Rapporteur on hazardous substances and wastes and Special Rapporteur on safe drinking water and sanitation
Statement by India
Mr. President,
1. We thank the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation Ms. Catarina de Albuquerque for a comprehensive report. We also appreciate her effort in coming up with a detailed handbook for realizing the human rights to water and sanitation. We commend her efforts over the last six years of her mandate, which have greatly contributed in advancing the normative understanding on this subject.
2. In her latest report, the Special Rapporteur has attempted to compile the full range of possible violations of the right to safe drinking water and sanitation and draws attention to access to justice for these violations at a more structural or systemic level. Identification of violations of rights is, indeed, the first and critical step to ensure their effective redressal and prevent their recurrence. We have noted her observations with respect to different dimensions of States obligations in realizing the rights to water and sanitation.
3. We concur with the Special Rapporteur that violations of the human rights to water and sanitation directly correlate with broader deprivations and other violations, including of the human rights to life, health, food, housing, education, work and a healthy environment. They also have huge implications on gender equality and elimination of discrimination against marginalised groups. As mentioned in the SR’s report, Supreme Court of India has been liberally interpreting these implications - it has observed that lack of toilets in school is a direct violation of right to education - and accordingly ruled on that the government takes measures to fulfil its obligations.
4. It is with the full recognition of these linkages between the right to access to sanitation and safe drinking water and the realization of other human rights that Government of India has accorded highest priority to the universal coverage of water and sanitation facilities. A nationwide ‘Clean India initiative’ has been launched to ensure sanitation facilities in rural areas. In December 2013, the Government of India changed its sanitation policy and guidelines to clearly articulate menstrual hygiene and link it to budgets in the areas of demand creation and breaking the silence, management and disposal. India is one of the few countries with Menstrual Hygiene Management clearly articulated in its policy. This policy seeks to ensure that water and sanitation put people at the centre, recognizing that women and girls have different and specific needs linked to their monthly cycle. Ignoring these needs has a negative effect on health and well being.
5. The National Water Mission aims at conserving water, minimizing wastage, ensuring more equitable distribution and management of water resources and to optimize water use efficiency by 20%. Government of India is determined to devote sufficient financial and institutional resources to achieve the MDG target related to safe drinking water and sanitation.
6. The Special Rapporteur has given examples when, in her understanding, extraterritorial violations may occur. Access to technology and resources is central to the efforts of the developing countries towards fulfilling their obligations in realizing the right to water and sanitation for its peoples. In this regard, does the Special Rapporteur consider that States also have an obligation to transfer essential technologies and whether failure to do so constitutes a violation of the right to water and sanitation?
Mr President,
7. We congratulate Mr Baskut Tuncak on assuming the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for hazardous substances and wastes and thank him for his initial report.
8. We welcome his focus on having a life cycle approach to the environmentally sound management of hazardous chemicals. We also welcome his choice of the topic focusing on the right to information in the context of the safe disposal of hazardous substances and wastes for his next thematic report. The SR has rightly pointed out that access to, and the communication of, information about hazardous substances and wastes and their effects on the environment are essential to guarantee certain other rights, such as the rights to life, to health and to adequate food.
9. We are pleased to inform that India has enacted the landmark Right to Information Act in 2005, which guarantees access to information through mandatory disclosure by the public authorities. The Constitution of India has laid down various safeguards to secure the health of the citizens. We have put in place several legislations to regulate illegal trans-boundary waste.
10. We encourage the Special Rapporteur to continue the work of his predecessor and identify the regulatory gaps in the existing global and regional instruments and identify best practices for the protection of environment and the rights of workers and consumers.
11. We look forward to receiving the updates of his work and wish him all the best.
I thank you.
