Through the aqueduct and the courts: An analysis of the human right to water and indigenous water rights in Northwestern Mexico |
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| Institution: | 1. Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES), United Nations University, 01067, Dresden, Germany;2. Institute of Soil Science and Site Ecology, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Technische Universität Dresden, 01737, Tharandt, Germany;3. Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, Chinese Academy of Forestry, 100091, Beijing, China;1. Department of Environmental Science, International Islamic University, Sector H-10, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;2. Department of Politics and International Relations, International Islamic University, Sector H-10, Islamabad 44000, Pakistan;1. School of Economics, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States;2. Tilburg Sustainability Centre and Department of Economics, Tilburg University, The Netherlands;1. Department of Geoinformatics – Z_GIS, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria;2. Research Section, Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Head Office, Berlin, Germany;3. German Aerospace Center (DLR), German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD), Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany;4. Global Witness, London, UK |
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| Abstract: | This article examines the relationship between the human right to water and indigenous water rights as articulated in the legal strategies of indigenous Yaqui (Yoemem) leadership in Mexico, and in the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Human Rights System. Accelerated urban growth and climate change in the area of study are rekindling historical water conflicts between rural indigenous communities and state authorities encouraging urban development. This configuration is not unique to Northwestern Mexico and, thus, offers an instructive case for exploring contradictions and alignments between indigenous right claims and the human right to water. This article addresses the following questions: What role does the human right to water play in the competing claims of state authorities and indigenous Yaqui leadership in Mexico? To what extent can the human right to water be reconciled with the collective rights of indigenous peoples? And in particular, what can be learned from international jurisprudence in this regard? Through content analysis of legal documents and media sources I show that even when Yaqui claims over water are advanced in the arena of international human rights, the human right to water does not have a primary role in framing their demands. In fact, I show that the human right to water was primarily mobilized to uphold rural-to-urban water transfers and undermine indigenous opposition to large-scale infrastructure development. This article produces new empirical knowledge to contribute to scholarship examining what a human right to water means in practice. This line of research is particularly timely as the human right to water becomes institutionalized in the context of growing public debate and legal discussions on collective indigenous rights. |
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| Keywords: | Human right to water Indigenous rights Infrastructure Water Mexico Political ecology |
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