Last year, seven decades of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the main document that underlies the elaboration of several international treaties and covenants as well as serving as a model for many national constitutions, were completed. Adopted in 1948 by 48 countries and reiterated in 1993 through the Vienna Declaration of Human Rights signed by 171 countries, it remains the basis for many international agreements.
The drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gave rise to two main Covenants, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. The first one consists of a set of rights that aim at individual freedoms and procedural guarantees of access to justice and political participation. On the other hand, the second group brings together the rights related to the state of social welfare, for which the State must intervene to ensure a more fair and egalitarian society [1, 2].
Despite of having two covenants, human rights must be seeing as a system where all rights are interdependent, indivisible and interrelated. According to Minkler and Sweeney [3] the vision of a comprehensive human rights system was built on the understanding that, in order to guarantee the dignity of the human person, all human rights should be reached. In this way, the integral human rights system is established where the violation of one of them, either civil or political right; or economic, social and cultural, damages the achievement of the others.
In the following decades, the main United Nations General Assembly resolutions reaffirmed the vision of the interdependence of human rights – “All human rights are universal, interdependent and interrelated. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equitable manner, on equal terms, and with the same emphasis.” [4] - and the Vienna Declaration, renewed and expanded this understanding by stating that there is interdependence between human rights, democracy and development.
However, the indivisibility of human rights is a contested point on which scholars disagree. Neier [5], Roth [6], Nickel [7] challenge the effectiveness of economic, social and cultural rights, and point out that a very large number of human rights make it difficult to implement, making it almost impractical. However, authors such as Feinberg [8], Copp [9] and Sen [10, 11] point out that the understanding of human rights as essential to provide the basic needs of individuals and guarantee freedom, justifies the role of economic, social and cultural rights. In this scenario, Minkler and Sweeney [3] point out that until this issue is solved, researchers should focus on the human rights considered to be basic.
According to Payne [12] the basic rights, defined by Shue [13], would be those that ensure self-respect and survival, and are therefore necessary for the guarantee of all others. For this author there were two types of basic rights: the rights related to security and the ones related to subsistence. Security rights refer to civil rights as those that protect the human being from torture, rape, assault and death. Subsistence would correspond to economic, social and cultural rights such as access to water, food, clothing, shelter and health care. Thus, when taken together, these rights would be mutually indispensable and equally necessary for the guarantee of other rights. Therefore, all other non-basic rights would rely on these rights.
Some authors argue that the interdependence and indivisibility of human rights will be ensured when the most vulnerable, socially excluded and marginalized populations are included [2, 14]. For them, the economic, social and cultural rights are more addressed to this population, favoring the social inclusion and the construction of a more egalitarian society. Thus, to neglect these rights would be a reflection of societies marked by injustices and social disparities.
Within this scenario, one finds the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation (HRWS), recognized by the United Nations Assembly in 2010, through resolution A/RES/64/262 [15], which are closely related to the right to a dignified life. The right to water is described in General Comment N° 15 [16], adopted by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and affirms that it is the right of all, without discrimination, to access safe water for drinking, cooking and hygiene of the home and belongings. In 2015, after understanding that sanitation has distinct characteristics that specify it, and that when separating it from the water it would be possible to give greater visibility to its peculiarities, it became an independent right. Thus, resolution A/RES/70/169 defined sanitation as a separate but integrated right to the human right to water.
General comment number 15 points out the normative content of access to water and defines that the access to this resource should be within the human rights framework, therefore, it is necessary to ensure availability, quality and safety, accessibility, affordability and acceptability. For sanitation, hygiene, privacy and dignity must be ensured as well, as attested by the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation [17]
The JMP report, published in 2017, which has been monitoring global progress on access to water and sanitation, showed that 844 million people lack access to basic water and 2.3 billion lack access to basic sanitation. Vulnerable populations are the ones that suffer more from the lack of those services [18]. It is necessary to remember that 193 Member States from United Nations, including Brazil, signed the Sustainable Development Goals. The goal 6 meant to achieve universal access to water and sanitation for all. By 2030 no one should be left behind [19].
The homeless live in a vulnerable situation and do not have access to a minimally adequate housing [20]. The United Nations estimates that, in the world, 100 million people are homeless [20]. In Brazil, it is believed that this population is around 101 thousand [21].
Walter’s [22] study on access to water and sanitation for homeless in India verified that these people have the HRWS violated, affecting, among other things, their health and dignity. For this author the reach of the HRWS for this population goes beyond technical questions demanding an understanding of how the vulnerability situation of these individuals was created and is maintained, in this way, these people would be exposed to structural and social iniquities that include the violation of rights.
These findings are aligned to Udin et al. [23] who carried out a survey in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and concluded that the lack of access to water is related to a marginal position in society, preventing the access to basic services such as housing, education and health, besides water and sanitation. For these authors, this lack of access reflects an asymmetric distribution of power and opportunity, and vulnerability is a result of the inequities in power relations that would lead to rights’ violation. Hence, these individuals would face difficulties accessing subsistence rights, but also claiming them. In this scenario, the authors draw attention to the importance of the concept of indivisibility of human rights. For them, the guarantee of HRWS should be rooted on the concept of a right-based approach, which broadly acts in all the rights that are mostly denied to vulnerable and marginalized people.
Neves-Silva and Heller [24], evaluated homeless’ access to water and sanitation in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and verified that the lack of these accesses implies, among other things, in health problems, physical and psychological violence by the society and public administration, mainly municipal officers, and the risk of violence against women. In addition, it has been found that the normative content of both the right to water and sanitation is generally not respected, as are human right principles such as non-discrimination, access to information and participation. These findings reinforce the importance of discussing HRWS using the concepts of interdependence and indivisibility.
Therefore, based on the idea of a comprehensive human rights system and the importance of access to economic, social and cultural rights by the marginalized population with a view to establishing a more egalitarian society, this article aims to explore the extent to which violation of HRWS of homeless population at Belo Horizonte, Brazil, interferes with the guarantee of other rights, addressing the principles of interdependence and indivisibility among them.