WATER RIGHTS IN THE AMAZON AND FUTURE GENERATIONS

Abstract

The purpose of this article is an analysis of poor management of water resources in the Amazon and its disastrous consequences for future generations. With the scope to guide the study, we used the descriptive and inductive method, taken from official public sources of law, as well as interdisciplinary materials and specialized literature. The waters allocated in the Amazon basin represent one of the most important existing environmental treasures on the planet, essential to the intergenerational perpetuation as a result of their physicochemical and biological functions vital as a means for the maintenance of human life and the guarantee of this right of future generations. Although Amazon hosts the largest fresh water reservoir in the world, paradoxically, it does not even offer drinking water to most urban, rural and coastal communities to meet their basic needs. Sanitation, even though it represents a minimum right to human dignity, is still very poor in the Amazon, constituting another serious problem. Given this paradoxical framework, namely, the existence of fresh water in abundance, however, improper for human consumption. Although celebrated international declarations, established constitutional principles and existing pieces of legislation that attempt to manage water resources, it was found that the origin of this problem stems from the ineffectiveness of public policies towards the fulfillment of the legal norms, which, unequivocally, compromise the rights of future generations.