Maude Barlow is the chairperson of the Council of Canadians, and the founder of the Blue Planet Project. She is a recipient of Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award, and a Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship. As well as being a noted human rights and trade activist, Barlow is the author of a number of books on water rights — including Blue Gold, Blue Covenant, and Blue Future. She has been particularly vocal on the impact of trade and investment agreements upon water rights. Barlow has been critical of the push to include investor-state dispute settlement clauses in trade agreements — such as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP). She has also been concerned by the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) leaked by WikiLeaks.

In her book Blue Future, Maude Barlow reflects upon the recognition by the United Nations General Assembly of the human right to safe and clean drink water and sanitation as ‘essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life’. She observed:

Recognizing a right is simply the first step in making it a reality for the millions who are living in the shadow of the greatest crisis of our era. With our insatiable demand for water, we are creating the perfect storm for an unprecedented world water crisis: a rising population and an unrelenting demand for water by industry, agriculture, and the developed world; over-extraction of water from the world’s finite water stock; climate change, spreading drought; and income disparity between and within countries, with the greatest burden of the race for water falling on the poor.

Barlow enunciates several principles for a water-secure future. First, she emphasizes that water is a human right. Second, Barlow emphasizes that water is a common heritage, and must not be allowed to become a commodity to be bought and sold on the open market. Third, she makes the case for the protection of source water and watershed governance. Finally, she hopes that communities can ‘come together around a common threat — the end of clean water — and find a way to live more lightly on this planet’. Barlow maintains that ‘the grab for the planet’s dwindling resources is the defining issue of our time.’ She contends: ‘Water is not a resource put here solely for our convenience, pleasure, and profit; it is the source of all life.’

Barlow is concerned about how water rights will be affected trade and investment agreements — such as Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the European Union, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Agreement (TTIP), and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA).