More than 2 billion people, or approximately one quarter of the world鈥檚 population, lack access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene according to the . Today, 16 years after the U.N. General Assembly recognized this access as a , its legal protection is well established but the reality on the ground lags behind.
Protecting the human right to water means preventing harm before it occurs rather than assigning responsibility afterward, University of Notre Dame researchers argue in a new commentary published ahead of a major global water conference.
Keough 91视频 of Global Affairs faculty members and 鈥� who also holds a joint appointment in the 鈥� are among the authors of the commentary in that calls for better implementation of as part of the U.N.鈥檚 Sustainable Development Goals. They say a prevention-first approach can provide an effective blueprint to protect human rights for communities worldwide.
The need to accelerate progress on safe water and sanitation will be on the agenda at the December 2026 , co-hosted by Senegal and the United Arab Emirates.
鈥淲e hope that this convening will help catalyze new ways for policymakers and practitioners to consider what more we can do as we approach the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals,鈥� said Adams, associate professor of geography and environmental policy in the Keough 91视频 and a core-affiliated faculty member of the school鈥檚.
Why prevention first
In their commentary, the researchers called for focusing on how different actors, including private companies and government regulators can help prevent harm from occurring in the first place rather than assigning responsibility once it has already occurred.
鈥淲e need more proactive approaches in order to realize the human right to water.鈥�
Adams said one issue with looking backward is that harm sometimes surfaces long after the activity that caused it, making it harder to remediate. A mining company, for instance, might leave behind toxic chemicals from its work. Years later, when a community begins to show the effects, the company may be long gone or bought out by another company that hopes to avoid taking on damages.
Desierto said that remediation may no longer be sufficient to restore the global water cycle to what it once was.
鈥淎t this stage of our climate crisis, prevention is an inevitable strategy to an era of water inadequacy for present and future generations,鈥� said Desierto, professor of law and global affairs. 鈥淲e need more proactive approaches in order to realize the human right to water and the related right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.鈥�
A contextual approach
Adams said the approach links water-security and governance conditions to challenges in achieving clean water as a human right. Context is critical to protecting that right when communities have different views of what constitutes harm.
鈥淲ater is never just water,鈥� said Adams, who is also affiliated with Notre Dame鈥檚 and 鈥淲hen two communities say their right to water has been violated, it doesn鈥檛 mean the same thing.鈥�
Protecting the right to water requires understanding what water means to different communities.
For one community, he said, the harm might be mining pollution that affects the food supply. For another, it may be water that鈥檚 unsafe for mixing infant formula or making tea. For still others, it may be damage to a water site that is important for prayer, meditation or other cultural and religious activities.
Laws and institutions matter too, he said. For example, in Chile, the long treated water as an economic good over a cultural one, so a mining company鈥檚 use could take priority over a community鈥檚 cultural claim.
Working with the private sector
Companies in water-intensive industries 鈥� including mining, agriculture, beverage and garment 鈥� can integrate this approach into existing due-diligence processes that examine water risk, stewardship and human rights, Adams said. Such a move fits into the private sector鈥檚 growing recognition of the need for corporate social responsibility, he added.
That was the approach that Adams and other Notre Dame researchers presented to the U.N. at a in Geneva. They shared a framework aimed at helping communities .
That project now includes a for companies to use in order to assess the potential risks involved in their work before projects begin. Users enter proposed activities, and the tool maps documented water-security and governance red flags onto a human-rights risk profile, working much like a traffic light to encourage preemptive risk assessment.
The work was commissioned by the mining company BHP, which had no role in the design, analysis or conclusions of the research.
鈥淭his was a way to show that scholars and the private sector can work together, and the U.N. wanted our project to highlight that,鈥� Adams said. 鈥淭hese companies already conduct due diligence activities. A mining company, for instance, wants to know how long a project would last and how much of a mineral would be recovered. We want them to take that same analysis and time frame and incorporate the human right to access water.鈥�
Engaging business is not an endorsement of any industry, researchers said. The goal is coordination among all the actors involved.
鈥淥ur interdisciplinary research provides legal, hydrological and environmental guidance for water-intensive activities that can help coordinate prevention by engaging both the public and private sectors,鈥� Desierto said.
A future phase of the project would put the dashboard to use in places with proposed water-intensive industrial projects, Adams said. Researchers hope future work will examine how it performs in practice and said it can also serve as a teaching tool.
Engaging community and government stakeholders
Adams stressed that a better process is intensely consultative, involving communities and national government delegates in addition to private companies.
For governments, that means consultation and education. States are the guarantors of the right to water, Adams said, but the average policymaker may not know what that entails. Governance operates at national and communal levels, he said, and consultation often needs to reach beyond the mining site to communities downstream or upstream and across borders where water is shared.
As the U.N. looks to accelerate innovation to provide universal clean water access, Adams said the prevention-first model that acknowledges the need to work with public and private sectors could yield better results.
鈥淭his is a good time for us to take stock and think about what more we need to do,鈥� Adams said, 鈥渁nd we think this approach can help protect the human right to water in different global contexts.鈥�
Adams and Desierto co-authored the commentary with Marc F. M眉ller and Julie C. Faure, researchers who are both affiliated with the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.
Originally published by at .