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Schmidt argues that the prevailing norms of global water governance have focused on water scarcity and security, shaping approaches to policy solutions. Schmidt calls for redefining community and overcoming problems of utilitarian governance approaches. While pricing water may not be inherently bad, it should not be used as a catch-all policy. The challenges of operationalizing human right to water include disagreeing on appropriate policy tools, as access for all is prioritized over other considerations.

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102 views1 page

Sample Academic MEMO

Schmidt argues that the prevailing norms of global water governance have focused on water scarcity and security, shaping approaches to policy solutions. Schmidt calls for redefining community and overcoming problems of utilitarian governance approaches. While pricing water may not be inherently bad, it should not be used as a catch-all policy. The challenges of operationalizing human right to water include disagreeing on appropriate policy tools, as access for all is prioritized over other considerations.

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markkkkkkkheeess
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Sample Academic MEMO

Schmidt, J. J. (2012). Scarce or insecure? The right to water and the ethics of global water governance. In
F. Sultana & A. Loftus (Eds.), The right to water: Politics, governance and social struggles (pp. 94–109).
London, UK and New York, USA: Earthscan.

Schmidt argues that while we (as scientists, an epistemic community) may agree that scarcity and
security are two states of the current hydrological systems on planet Earth, these are primarily
judgments, but these same arguments and agreed-upon ideas shape what we believe and how we
approach policy solutions to solve global water governance problems.

“The right to water must take up a position that counters the prevailing norms that have led to the
problems it seeks to address. The coordinating norms of global water governance have been primarily, if
not exclusively utilitarian, and these, in turn, have sought to install the propositions of water scarcity
and water security as judgments of an epistemic community that uses these propositions to support
governance norms across all scales of governance. “(Schmidt 2012, p. 105)

Schmidt calls for a redefinition of community in such a way that we may overcome the problems that
utilitarian governance presents us with.

Interestingly, Schmidt argues that pricing water may actually NOT be a bad idea and governance
mechanism, but warns us against using it as a catch-all policy instrument. My view (RPV) is that Schmidt
is right, and that’s perhaps one of the problems with operationalizing the human right to water properly
– that we don’t actually know exactly how to use the right policy instruments because we are so
obsessed with the notion of making water accessible to all (see Mirosa and Harris 2012, and Mirosa
2015, but also Gupta and Obani and my own work, Pacheco-Vega 2015 on bottled water).

One interesting and somewhat contrasting view of the idea that Schmidt is posing re: community is that
of Risse (2013) who argues that we should conceptualize ourselves as the stewards of Earth and Earth’s
resources and thus enacting and implementing the human right to water is an obligation that we all
have (contrast with Schmidt’s view of community – doesn’t contradict, but looks interesting)

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