Let's talk about water, human rights and public policies: The human rights indicators to water and sanitation for Mexico.

Water is a natural substantive element not only for life, but also for guaranteeing people's dignity (Aragón and Arrojo, 2018). It is essential for health, a healthy environment, decent housing, children's higher rights, the rights of indigenous peoples, the right to development, education, science, citizen participation and many other human rights (Human Rights) (Rojas-Rueda, 2020). Despite this wide interrelationship between water and various human rights, it is common to hear that it is mainly associated with two human rights: water and sanitation (Wilder, Martínez, Hernández, & Cruz, 2020).

Human rights to water and sanitation are of recent recognition. In 2002, derived from General Comment No. 15 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the human right to water was recognized for the first time (United Nations, Economic and Social Council, 2002); in July 2010, the General Assembly of the United Nations recognized the human right to water and sanitation (United Nations, General Assembly, 2010); and, in 2012, the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States (CPEUM) incorporated them into its fourth article (Official Journal of the Federation, 2012).

Originally, these rights were integrated as a single human right, but over time they became distant, to a large extent, derived from the work carried out by the first two special rapporteurs on human rights to water and sanitation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Catarina de Albuquerque and Leo Heller (Heller, 2017).

Today, both rights are recognized as independent human rights with clear verifiable differences in the dimensions that characterize them: sufficiency, affordability, accessibility and security (quality). This determines, among other things, that for its full exercise, different measures and the participation of different authorities are required.

When talking about water, human rights and public policies, it is important to consider the obligated subjects: the authorities.
However, human rights are the prerogatives of all people and, when thinking of communities, also of communities (not companies or government institutions). The obligation to comply does not belong to individuals or market actors, but is the exclusive responsibility of the authorities, who therefore have obligations in the area of human rights (Ávila-García, 2020; CNDH, 2020). Hence, the authorities, as actors in the sphere of government, are of particular relevance in achieving the fulfillment of these rights (Anglés, 2016).

This is reinforced in the Mexican case, with the incorporation in 2011 into the first article of the CPEUM, the recognition of the State's obligations in the area of human rights: to promote, respect, protect and guarantee human rights (Official Journal of the Federation, 2011).

For all these reasons, since 2011, at least in Mexico, one cannot think about public policies without incorporating the human rights approach (Giménez, 2010; SEGOB, 2014). Water matter is no exception.

Now, when we think about public policies, we seek attention to problems of public interest. This implies finding mechanisms to monitor progress in achieving the objectives of such public policies. Information translated into indicators allows us to know the state of the problem and the effectiveness or not of the policies (United Nations, 2012). Thus, indicators become a substantial element for transparency and accountability processes, in addition to allowing timely changes to be made in the design of policies when the desired effects are not achieved.

If we think of this in human rights language, then when designing these indicators, we should consider an approach that verifies compliance with the State's obligations in the area of human rights, which implies not only changing the way we present information, but also the way we think about the indicators (United Nations, 2012).

In the case of human rights to water and sanitation, indicators associated with coverage or infrastructure are traditionally used, which after knowing the dimensions of these two rights, are limited in verifying their compliance.

Water policies must be designed in the language of rights, focusing on ensuring that the State is able to fulfill those obligations. New international obligations, such as those that will result from the Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean, also known as the Escazú Agreement (ECLAC, 2018), will imply having baselines and mechanisms to verify compliance. Thus, human rights compliance indicators will be of great help for this purpose.

Currently, the Ministry of the Interior coordinates the National System for the Assessment of the Level of Compliance with Human Rights, through a platform (https://snedh.segob.gob.mx/) that allows any person or decision maker to know the status of the rights included therein. Unfortunately, as of today, human rights to water and sanitation are not included in this platform.

At the IMTA, in collaboration with the OHCHR office in Mexico, we are developing indicators to assess the level of human rights compliance with water and sanitation for Mexico, which will also be the first of their kind on a global scale.

Notes:

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