Victims of water deprivation suffer in silence. Each day around 3900 children die in the arms of their family from causes like diarrhoea, usually a result of unsafe drinking water. Not every case of water contamination, and lack of access to affordable water services, can be considered a human rights violation. The international community recognised this fundamental right as long ago as 1977, at the Mar del Plata World Water Conference. In 2001, the European Council of Ministers stated that ‘Everyone has the right to a sufficient quantity of water for his or her basic needs’. The UN Commission on Human Rights in a 2004 resolution on toxic wastes recognised that the right to water was adversely affected by illegal dumping.