Comitato italiano Contratto Mondiale sull’acqua-
Onlus
Italian Committee for Global Water Contract
www.contrattoacqua.it - segreteria@contrattoacqua.it
Via Rembrandt, 9 20147 Milano - Tel. 02-48703730 - Fax. 02. 4079213
G-8 meeting in L’Aquila
Plea for “Water as a Human Right”
to the President of United States of America Mr. Barack Obama
Nobel Prizes and Academy Awards support the plea on “Water as a Human
Right”
promoted by the Italian Committee for Global Water Contract
Dear Mr. President Obama,
You will have a determining role in the days of the G8, even more so concerning
climate change. We think
this is an opportunity to pose you a question we consider fundamental
for humanity: the water crises .
Mr. President, your election has raised expectations all over the world.
You have been seen as a Leader capable of telling your country and to
the entire world, that we will solve the
terrible problems of the planet only together.
We are convinced of this.
Particularly we subscriber of this letter, who believe the access to water
is a human right, still denied to 1.2
billion people.
We believe that the big issue will be the World Water Crisis, as it was
declared by the U.N. in 2006, and that
the universal commodification of water currently underway will have devastating
effects on the lives of billions
of people.
Water and the water market are at a paradigm shift that will draw new
geographic boundaries of exclusion and
conflict. In the coming decades, if no remedy is implemented, half of
the world’s population will have no access
to potable water, and half of the demand for water will not be met. For
these reasons 200 to 300 million people
around the world will migrate, food prices will see steep rises, and there
will be wars worse than those fought
over oil.
In this scenario politicians delegate the governance of this resource
to the stockholder market, the same
market forces that have brought your Country and the entire world in the
current economic crisis.
You, Mr. President, have put back into politics the value of common and
public interests. You have spoken of
public health as a common good, and you have inaugurated the “era”
when conflicts are met with “let’s talk
about it…”.
We would like to submit to you, about water crises, four simple levels
of the problem:
• at the start of the XXI century international Institutions still
refuse to declare water an inalienable
human right, and your country, the USA, is among the strongest supporters
of such refusal;
• the guide lines of the world’s agenda on water are defined
every three years by the World Water
Forum, a private entity, financed by multinational corporations;
• water is being made into a commodity, bought and sold on the stock
exchange, even in its most
indispensable uses;
• in the negotiations on climate change the water crisis is completely
ignored, it is treated as an
economic good, and priority is given to its uses in energy production.
Four simple requests Mr. President, that we pose to you, because we think
that your “let’s talk about it” means
listening, face, and deal with the problems, even when they are not raised
by the powers that be.
To us, the answers are a given of the natural order of things:
• water is a human right;
• water is not a commodity but a common good;
• water must be governed by legitimate institutions like the United
Nations, whose authority
must be restored;
• water must be inserted in the Copenhagen agenda on climate change.
We do not know your thought on this matter. We hope you share it for the
good of humanity.
We hope to have a response, as a sign that also for the social movements,
civil society, and culture, an “era of
change” in the relationship with politics and politicians has begun.
Best regards.
Emilio Molinari – Rosario Lembo
Italian Committee for Global Water Contract
Comitato italiano Contratto Mondiale sull’acqua- Onlus
Italian Committee for Global Water Contract
www.contrattoacqua.it - segreteria@contrattoacqua.it
Via Rembrandt, 9 20147 Milano - Tel. 02-48703730 - Fax. 02. 4079213
First subscribers:
Rita Levi Montalcini e Dario Fo (Nobel Prize)
Bernardo Bertolucci e Nicola Piovani ( Academy Award)
Ermanno Olmi (director Palma d'oro a Cannes)
Franca Rame (actress), Dacia Maraini (writer), Oliviero Toscani (photographer),
Fratelli Taviani (director),
Silvio Garattini (doctor), Renato Mannaheimer (journalist), Giorgio Galli
(policy expert) Vittorio Gregotti
(architect), Gad Lerner (journalist), Fulvio Scaparro (doctor), Marco
Vitale (economist), Nando Dalla Chiesa
(writer), Franco Pacini (astrophysics), Riccardo Petrella (economist),Paolo
Rumiz (journalist) Umberto
Veronesi ( doctor/researcher).
Artists: Nuccio Ambrosino, Claudio Bisio, Eugenio Carmi, Fabrizio Cattani,
Lella Costa, Eugenio Carmi,
Angela Finocchiaro, Fabrizio De Giovanni, Paola Gassman, Lella Lugli,
Moni Ovadia, Mauro Pagani, Ugo
Pagliai, Paila Pavese, Alvaro Piccardi, Silvano Piccardi,Ottavia Piccolo,
Paolo Rossi, Renato Sarti, Silvio
Soldini, Bebo Storti,
Journalists: Claudio Agostoni, Gianni Barbacetto, Maria Teresa Celotti,
Massimo Cirri, Andrea Di Stefano,
Sergio Ferrentino, Rinaldo Gianolla, Rosanna Massarenti, Micaela Nason,
Saverio Paffuni, Silvia Palombi,
Federico Pedrocchi, Giovanna Pezzuoli, Guglielmo Ragozzino, Marina Terragni,
Valeria Palumbo, Giovanna
Pezzuoli, Marina Tognolo, Maria Rosa Vismara.
Professor and researchers: Daniele Bettini, Roberto Biorcio, Alessandro
Carrera, Eva Cantarella, Pier
Giorgio Duca, Daniela Fantini, Paolo Farneti, Simonetta Genovesi, Franco
Paul Ginsborg, Alessandro
Liberati, Chiara Lista, Piergiorgio Lombardi, Lea Melandri ,Giancarlo
Mariotti, Guido Marinotti, Costanza
Papagno, Luigi Pagliaro, Paolo Beck Peccoz, Giovanna Procacci, Michele
Salvati, Anna Spada, Gianni
Tamino, Gianni Tonioni, Umberto Tartari, Gianluca Vago.
Professionals: Pietro Barbieri, Emilio Battisti, Augusto Bianchi, Elia
Biganzoli, Annibale Biggeri, Luigi
Bisanti, Marco Bobbio, Daniele Busetto, Vittorio Caimi, Roberto Carrara,
Lionello Cerri, Renzo Chiesa, Gianni
Ciccone, Sabina Ciuffini, Daniele Coen, Agostino Colli, Antonio Colombi,
Giorgio Costantino, Pietro Dri, Pier
Giorgio Duca, Piergiorgio Faggiano, Graziella Filippini, Mirella Frequelli,
Umberto Giani, Roberto Grilli, Stefano
Guzzetti, Paolo Lauriola,Tiziano Lenzi, Giuseppe Liverani, Paolo Longoni,
Nicola Magrini, Fabio Malcovati,
Giuseppe Masera, Franco Merletti, Rocco Micciolo, Maurizio Migliori, Lorenzo
Moja, Stefano Nespor, Luigi
Pagliaro, Lionel Pasquon, Guido, Pollice, Franca Regina, Antonio Russo,
Maria Anna Sabelli, Aldo Sachero,
Roberto Satolli, Fernando Schiraldi, Nereo Segnan, Italo Siena, Benedetto
Terracini, Maria Grazia Valsecchi,
Luciano Vettore, Paolo Vineis.
Ecclesiastical representatives: Don Raffaello Ciccone - (uff. pastorale
lavoro Milano), Mons. Marco
Ferrari - (vescovo emerito ausiliario), Don Gabriele Scalmana - (pastorale
lavoro Brescia), padre Alex Zanotelli
- (missionario).
Associations: Acea-onlus e Sistema Solidale, ACRA, Casa della Pace di
Milano, CEVI, CIPRA – Italia,
Circolo Ilaria Alpi, CIPSI, Comitato territoriale Novarese, Comunità
Sant'Angelo Solidale, COSPE, Fratelli
dell’Uomo, Mani Tese, Mountain Windelness, Principia, Soroptimist,
Verdi ambiente e società - Onlus.
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