Report on the October 25, 2011 Roundtable Meeting with the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, Catarina De Albuquerque

Abstract

On October 25th, 2011, the Carr Center Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Program at Harvard Kennedy School hosted Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation for a roundtable discussion on the human rights to water and sanitation. At this meeting were25 scholars from multiple academic institutions including Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Law School, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts, and Northeastern, as well as NGO practitioners. These scholars represented various disciplines, including engineering, law, philosophy, design, history and economics. The goal of the meeting was to facilitate a dialogue between the Special Rapporteur and scholars working on various aspects of realizing and implementing the rights to water and sanitation. This report summarizes the key themes that emerged at the workshop.

Keywords: human rights, water, sanitation, Special Rapporteur