Dublin Statement

The 1992 International Conference on Water and Environment, held in Dublin, Ireland, marked the first concerted effort on the part of transnational water corporations to gain access to the fresh water commons. The principles developed at the conference, which constitute the Dublin Statement, have had a significant impact on the way in which NGOs, global governing institutions, transnational corporations and states view fresh water. The Dublin Statement is regarded as the basis for water sector reform today. Moreover, from the point of view of transnational water corporations, the Dublin principles represent the necessary vindication for the commodification and privatization the world’s fresh water goods and services.

Critics of the Dublin Statement are concerned with the statement’s provision that suggests, “Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good”. Indeed, the Dublin Statement is predicated on the idea that water is an economic good, and therefore a commodity that may be bought and sold on the free market. In support of the Dublin Statement the UN suggests that “past failure to recognize the economic value of water has led to wasteful and environmentally damaging uses of the resource” and therefore “managing water as an economic good is an important way of achieving efficient and equitable use, and of encouraging conservation and protection of water resources”.

Though the Dublin Statement is presented as an effort to better manage fresh water goods and services, the principles outlined within the statement have been met with scepticism as critics argue that these principles represent key ideological underpinnings marking a transformation in the way we conceptually view fresh water. Gleick suggests that transforming water as a commons into an economic good “challenges traditional approaches to government provision of basic water services”. He notes that the idea of water as an economic good that should be subject to the rules of the marketplace is “among the most powerful and controversial new approaches to water policy…”.

Touted by neoliberal governments, NGOs and transnational corporations alike, the ‘Dublin Principles’ are consistent with the processes of economic globalization and are intended to garner public support for the creation of a global water market. The Dublin Statement notes that “a high priority should…be given to the preparation and implementation of integrated management plans, endorsed by all affected governments and backed by international agreements”. Integrated management plans, otherwise known as Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is a form of governance that recognizes the social aspect of water management while enhancing the economic priorities of water planning. Effectively the Dublin Statement endorses the processes of economic globalization which seek the total, or at least, partial privatization of fresh water goods and services.

Under the ‘Capacity Building’ provisions that internationally coordinate commodification and privatization efforts, the Dublin Statement suggests that governments are “required” to act judicially in creating an “enabling environment in terms of institutional and legal arrangements…””. This implies that governments are required to formalize the commodification and privatization of fresh water goods and services thereby actively creating an ideal environment for private interests to operate. Furthermore, the statement notes that these principles should be “backed by international agreements” suggesting that globally, there needs to be a common conceptual understanding of fresh water in terms of consistent property framework (i.e., private property).

Many suggest that the Dublin Statement resonates with Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons that when a resource is free people do not regard it as valuable. It follows, then, that the operation, maintenance and investment in fresh water utilities should be covered by payments by consumers and not by state subsidies. Moreover, as Gleick suggests, “economists seized upon the idea to argue that water should be treated as a private good, subject to corporate control, financial rules, market forces, and competitive pricing”.

In effect, the Dublin Statement is the conceptual leverage for gaining widespread support for the ideological shift in the way in which transnational actors, including national states, view fresh water goods and services. However, the rhetoric utilized to describe commodification and privatization within the Dublin Statement is such that it withholds the nature of this ideological transformation. Analysis of the Dublin Statement reveals the neoliberal underpinnings with which these policies are consistent.

Barlow and Clarke note that the Dublin Conference, along with the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro that same year, were significant not only for redefining water as an economic good, but also for the fact that the conferences served as fora where the proponents of the commodification and privatization of fresh water formed a series of organized networks of international water agencies". In fact, as Black notes, it has been widely reported that many of the policy fora at these conferences were co-opted, “by international exponents of the neoliberal agenda and their corporate allies".

Three agencies in particular were founded as a result of these two meetings, namely: the World Water Council (WWC), the Global Water Partnership (GWP), and the World Commission on Water for the 21st Century (WCW). Effectively, these organizations are think tanks that serve as a critical link between transnational water corporations and the policy makers of global governing institutions. Luoma notes, “through these partnership, the economic motives of the major water companies become rationalized as, or embedded in the façade of, broader public interest objectives”. The policy frameworks and operations of all three of these agencies – based on the principles of the Dublin Statement – reflect their ideological support for the commodification and privatization of fresh water goods and services.