Abstract
The bottled water industry is a strong manifestation of privatization of water as a resource, which is often promoted by protagonists as a means to improve “accessibility” to “safe” water for all at “affordable” prices. However, for antagonists, the sole aim of the bottled water industry is to earn profit out of a generally minimally priced resource, even at the cost of human health and well-being. This chapter aims to examine the implications of bottled water for realization of the human right to water, arguing that it fails to meet most of the criteria for enjoying the right, considering the circumstances of the consumers of bottled water as well as the residents of the areas from where bottled water is mined.
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Notes
- 1.
Mega right stands here as a key to other rights in the same sense in which Yehezkel Dror has used the term “mega policy” (1971).
- 2.
Social interests are claims or demands or desires involved in social life in civilized society and asserted in title of that life (see Pound 1943).
- 3.
Salmond defines “rights” as legal interests (Salmond 2013 [1910]).
- 4.
As this right is to be read in Article 21 of the Constitution which has a normative character.
- 5.
“[T]he right of property in water is usufructuary, and consists not so much of the fluid itself as the advantage of its use.” Capital Water Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n, 262 P. 863, 870 (Idaho 1926).
- 6.
1 US<Footnote ID=”Fn6”><Para ID=”Par38”>1 US$ = Rs. 55 (approx.).</Para></Footnote>#x2009;= Rs. 55 (approx.).
- 7.
For details, see http://www.nrdc.org/Water/Drinking/bw/exesum.asp
- 8.
μg/L is micrograms per liter.
- 9.
The study suggested that “In Bisleri, pesticide concentration levels was 79 times higher than the stipulated limits. Kinley had concentration levels 14.6 times above the maximum permissible amounts. Aquaplus, favored by the Indian Railways, topped the dubious list, crossing the limit by 104 times.”
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Shukla, R.S., Singh, N. (2016). Human Right to Water in a Bottled Water Regime. In: Singh, N. (eds) The Human Right to Water. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40286-4_7
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