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Five years ago this week, the United Nations adopted a historic resolution recognizing the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as "essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life." For those of us in the balcony of the General Assembly that day, the atmosphere was tense. A number of powerful countries had lined up to oppose it, and we expected the vote to be close.

As the world looks for innovative solutions to solve the rapidly worsening water crisis, two Salvadoran experts toured Canada this month to promote a simple strategy that could save the public billions of dollars.

German chancellor Angela Merkel will be in Ottawa for a visit on Monday, but she may not be bringing the news Stephen Harper wants to hear when it comes to the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

That's because the German government wants to reopen CETA and amend the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism. This controversial provision allows a transnational corporation to sue a national government that passes public interest or environmental legislation that impacts their future profits.

Today, October 20, two UN experts, Catarina de Albuquerque, the special rapporteur on the human right to drinking water and sanitation and Leilani Farha, the special rapporteur on housing, will visit Detroit Michigan to assess the charges that water cut-offs violate the human right to water and sanitation. This is a very important development in the ongoing struggle for water justice in Detroit and the experts will be welcomed by the civil society movements there.