The Potential Role of the Human Right to Water in the Management of Indonesia’s Water Resources

Jakarta, a city with 9 million populations is suffering from acute water and sanitation problems. Only half of Jakarta’s population is connected to the network and the rate of non revenue water is almost 50%. With only 1.9% of the population is connected to sewerage, Jakarta’s rivers and canals is the regular dumping site of daily wastes. Groundwater is polluted with pathogens. Jakarta has 13 major rivers, in which only 1 (one) is healthy. On the upstream, riverbanks are occupied by settlers, farming and industry. Upstream catchment areas are deforested and occupied by villas, causing flood to Jakarta during monsoon rains. Experts warn that unsustainable abstraction of groundwater alone (not combined with climate change threats and upstream deforestation) would be able to drawn Jakarta further into the sea by 2025. Can the Human Right to Water fill in the gap on the existing effort in mitigating this disaster or, on the contrary, will act as an impediment towards an ongoing reform? This paper will start by elaborating the concept of the human right to water and its linkages with water quality. It will then evaluate the legal and regulatory framework of water resources management in Indonesia. The expected result is a constructive criticism of the legal and regulatory framework on water resources management – from a human rights perspective.