A Very English Water Crises

A Very English Water Crisis: A Briefing on the United Kingdom’s Implementation of the ‘Safe and Sufficient Water’ Element of the Right to a Healthy Environment Submission by Kate Mackintosh and XuChen Zhang of the UCLA Law Promise Institute Europe with Jack Sproson, Tomas Hamilton and Gregory Chilson of Guernica 37 Chambers to the Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to a Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environm

Safe and sufficient water is one of the six substantive elements of the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. Despite this, the UK is presently experiencing a water crisis, played out in the dire ecological status of its waterways. In a series of scandals, water companies have been criminally prosecuted for discharging raw sewage during dry weather and failing in their sewage-treatment duties, while government enforcement has been criticised as insufficient.

Although these failures could amount to a crime of ‘ecocide’, this briefing looks primarily at the UK’s implementation of the human right to a clean, health and sustainable environment in ensuring access to safe and sufficient water. In doing so, it seeks to summarise the present concerns over the UK’s waterways and highlight deficiencies in the protection of the relevant rights. It notes in particular the negative impact of the privatisation of England’s water and sewage companies.

It also highlights the Environment Agency’s major and unprecedented criminal investigation that has been ongoing since November 2021 involving all English water companies, which has already resulted in criminal sentences.

Read or download the full submission here.