"Water—whether we treat it as a public good or as a commodity that can be bought and sold—will in large part determine whether our future is peaceful or perilous,” wrote the scholar Maude Barlow.

This summer in Italy, an overwhelming number of people (96 per cent of the 57 percent of the population that voted) cast their ballots for a peaceful future based on shared ownership of water.

The referendum they passed overturned a law passed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government, which would have encouraged private companies to buy up public water utilities and guaranteed them a profit on their investment, opening the door to rate hikes. The referendum also stripped Berlusconi government ministers of special court privileges and reaffirmed public opposition to nuclear power. 

According to a recent report in Nation of Change, the vote reflects an international grassroots movement working to make sure that water is treated not as a commodity to be bought and sold but a common heritage to be shared by all.

The report goes on to point out that Water privatization is a contentious issue the world over, with corporations angling to control scarce water resources and The World Bank and other international donors often obligating countries to privatize their water systems—or, at a minimum, to enter into public-private partnerships—as a prerequisite for investments. Meanwhile, an international grass roots movement is pushing back, working to make sure that water, that basic building block of life, is treated not as a commodity to be bought and sold, but a common heritage to be shared by all.