Green Water: Can Rio+ 20 Succeed Where Others Have Failed?

The Stockholm Declaration was the first international instrument to acknowledge the imperative to safeguard water resources for present and future generations. In the years following Stockholm, water become a specific issue of environmental and humanitarian concern, with a number of instruments including the Mar del Plata Action Plan, Agenda 21, Rio Declaration, Convention of the Rights on the Rights of the Child, Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, United Nations Watercourses Convention, Millennium Development Goals and most recently resolutions from the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council acknowledging the right to water within international law and providing a framework for sustainable water management. However, as the world prepares for Rio + 20 this June, there remains approximately between 3 – 4 billion individuals without access to adequate water services. Consequently, despite the plethora of law making and commitments that have been made over the past forty years, water resources remain under pressure and additional mechanisms are still needed to balance human and ecological need. This paper will consider the key outcomes of Rio + 20 in the context of water supply and ask whether the Conference’s commitments have the capacity to both protect water resources and meet consumptive needs. Specifically, it will examine the implications of the ‘Green Economy’ for water supply and ask whether a return to sustainability has the potential to enhance the initiatives undertaken during the era of the Millennium Development Goals. As part of this discussion, the paper will explore the meaning of sustainability and question how such an approach may vary from previous initiatives. It will also consider how the acknowledgement of the right to water has changed the landscape of water management. Since acknowledging the need to conserve water resources, the international community has struggled to reconcile resource conservation with consumptive need. Rio + 20 provides another opportunity for the world to provide the framework and mechanisms through which both outcomes can be attained