About Maude Barlow
Check out Maude Barlow’s Democracy Now! interviews on the UN declaration of water as a human right, the G20 summit, and Tmore water justice issues.
Maude Barlow, best-selling Canadian author and human rights activist, is the chair of the board of Food & Water Watch. She is also an executive member of the San Francisco–based International Forum on Globalization, founder of the Blue Planet Project, and a Councillor with the Hamburg-based World Future Council.
Maude is the recipient of ten honorary doctorates as well as many awards, including the 2005 Right Livelihood Award, the Citation of Lifetime Achievement at the 2008 Canadian Environment Award, and the 2009 Earth Day Canada Outstanding Environmental Achievement Award. In 2008/2009, she served as Senior Advisor on Water to the 63rd President of the United Nations General Assembly. Read more about Maude.
What’s New?
- Rio+ 20 Suffers Leadership Void Weeks Ahead of Summit
- New report exposes Canadian connection to controversial dams and mines in Chile
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Barlow skeptical of UN claim of achieving MDG target on water
- Barlow joins growing chorus calling on U of A to revoke honorary degree for Nestlé CEO
- Expiring nuclear waste shipping licence gives feds a second chance to do it right, says Barlow
- Barlow takes on Nestlé in ‘Bottled Life’ documentary
- Canadian and American Advocates Join to Promote Big Oversight Idea of the “Commons”
- Ecosalon Honors Maude Barlow as One of 10 Women to Watch
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Featured Reports
Paying for Water in Canada in a Time of Austerity: A Discussion Paper
The paper seeks to harmonize the seemingly contradictory views of conservationists, who tend to favour high prices to discourage consumption, and anti-poverty advocates, who want to ensure affordability. Given the need for underfunded municipalities to levy service charges, Barlow lays out a clear set of guidelines to ensure respect of the right to water and the principle of water as a commons.
This paper is meant to serve as a background document to help civil society groups fighting for water justice and their governments take historic UN Human Right to Water resolutions and make them work. It traces the history of the struggle for the right to water and lays out the case for why the recognition of the human right to water is needed. It also outlines what is now expected of governments under this new rights regime, and most importantly, what communities, human rights, development and indigenous groups, and others can do to realize the great potential of this new rights framework.
A Review of Private Sector Influence on Water Policies and Programmes at the United Nations
Maude Barlow: “We invited Julie Larsen, an environmental and international researcher with extensive international experience, to write a detailed report on the influence of the private water sector at the UN. We are very proud to make this report and Julie’s recommendations available to the public so that UN agencies, the General Assembly, member governments, the media and the global water justice movement can assess this influence for themselves and make more informed decisions and strategies when working for change at the UN and elsewhere.”
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Recent Books
The Right to Water: Politics, Governance and Social Struggles
The right to clean water has been adopted by the United Nations as a basic human right. Yet how such universal calls for a right to water are understood, negotiated, experienced and struggled over remain key challenges. The Right to Water elucidates how universal calls for rights articulate with local historical geographical contexts, governance, politics and social struggles, thereby highlighting the challenges and the possibilities that exist.
Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
A follow-up to the best-selling book Blue Gold, Blue Covenant details the looming water crisis and the powerful interests that are fighting to privatize and capitalize on dwindling fresh water supplies. The book highlights the burgeoning global water justice movement and calls for a covenant between nations to define the world’s fresh water as a human right and a public trust rather than a commercial product.
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