Abstract
In 2013 the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ‘Right2Water’ collected 1.9 million signatures across Europe against water privatization. It became the first ever successful ECI and has built a Europe-wide movement. Right2Water sought for Europe’s legal enforcement of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation (HRWS) as a strategic political tool to challenge European Union market policies. The paper examines the ECI from a social movement perspective. Although the European Commission subscribed that ‘water is a public good, not a commodity’, its implementation is subject to continuing politics and socio-political struggle, with growing urgency in times of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis.
Original language | English |
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Journal | International Journal of Water Resources Development |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 6 May 2021 |
Keywords
- Covid-19
- European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI)
- European Commission
- Human Right to Water
- privatization
- social movement