by Martín Hevia
Access to drinking-water is obviously necessary to lead a healthy life. However, in Latin America, many lack access to this vital resource.
Very recently, in December 2, the Argentine Supreme Court discussed the legal status of access to drinking-water in the Argentine legal system (the case is “Kersich, Juan Gabriel y otros c/Aguas Bonaerenses y otros s/amparo”). The Argentine Constitution does not explicitly recognize a right to have access to drinking-water. The Court discussed the claim of citizens of 9 de Julio against “Aguas Argentinas,” which was allegedly providing water with levels of arsenic higher than those allowed by Argentine law. In deciding the case, with the vote of 4 of the 5 Supreme Court judges, the Court reached two important conclusions.
First, invoking General Comment 15 on the right to water of the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Court concluded that Access to drinking water is a fundamental human right: it is necessary to lead a life with dignity, as well as necessary to fulfill other human rights, mainly, the right to health. The Court also invoked human rights treaties incorporated to the Argentine Constitution such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child – its Article 24.2.c mandates providing clean drinking water to combat disease.
Second, the Court held that the provision of drinking-water is a community interest. Thus, the right to access to drinking water is a “collective right” (the Spanish term is “derecho de incidencia colectiva”): drinking water is one of the elements of the environment, which is collective good under Section 41 of the Argentine National Constitution.
Although the Court discussed the particular claim of the inhabitants of 9 de Julio, and it ordered lower courts to analyze again the case on the basis of the aforementioned two conclusions, it is worth asking about the legal implications of this decision for the Argentine legal system. The decision of the Court expressly recognizes access to drinking water a collective constitutional right. This means that, from now on, inhabitants of Argentina will be able to file collective claims to demand both the Federal and the Provintial States that they make access to drinking-water a priority. Not doing so will entail not taking the Constitution seriously.