Further Step Towards World Unity - Water and Sanitation Recognized as Human Right

Well worth noting: The process of uniting the human family is steadily progressing, as evidenced by this latest UN resolution (not to deny the fact, though, of the intensified sufferings that humanity is being subjected to at the other end of the scale - as in the increasing crime, terrorism, famine, neglect of basic human rights etc. the world is experiencing):

U.N. Declares Water and Sanitation a Basic Human Right  Thalif Deen UNITED NATIONS, July 28 - When the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) back in December 1948, 58 member states voted for a historic document covering political, economic, social and cultural rights.   On Wednesday, nearly 62 years later, a widely-expanded 192- member General Assembly adopted another memorable resolution: this time recognising water and sanitation as a basic human right. (Full story is here.)

From the UN News Center:

Safe and clean drinking water and sanitation is a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights, the General Assembly declared today, voicing deep concern that almost 900 million people worldwide do not have access to clean water.

The 192-member Assembly also called on United Nations Member States and international organizations to offer funding, technology and other resources to help poorer countries scale up their efforts to provide clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for everyone.

The Assembly resolution received 122 votes in favour and zero votes against, while 41 countries abstained from voting. (From the UN Dispatch)

Dicta:

 

In such a world society [the] enormous energy dissipated and wasted on war, whether economic or political, will be consecrated to such ends as will extend the range of human inventions and technical development, to the increase of the productivity of mankind, to the extermination of disease, to the extension of scientific research, to the raising of the standard of physical health...

(Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, 203-4)

The second attribute of perfection is justice and impartiality... It means to consider the welfare of the community as one's own. It means, in brief, to regard humanity as a single individual, and one's own self as a member of that corporeal form, and to know of a certainty that if pain or injury afflicts any member of that body, it must inevitably result in suffering for all the rest.

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Civilization 39)

[I]n a world of inter-dependent peoples and nations the advantage of the part is best to be reached by the advantage of the whole, and...no abiding benefit can be conferred upon the component parts if the general interests of the entity itself are ignored or neglected.

(Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, 198)

 
 

True peace and tranquillity will only be realized when every soul will have become the well-wisher of all mankind. 

(Baha'u'llah, Tabernacle 7)

Further Step Towards World Unity - Water and Sanitation Recognized as Human Right

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