Water in Chile: inbetween human rights and the rules of market

Abstract

¿Which is the state of hydric resources in Chile? The following text gives us an exhaustive analysis of the situation of water in Chile, bringig up elements of standing laws and the use of such laws by privates, mainly on the mining sector, the hydroelectrical industry and the export-oriented agoindustry. The creation of a water market based on solely mercantilistic criteria, constitutes one of the most important consequences of such transformation in the last thirty years. The demand of the comunity brought forth during the nineties, in regards to a better control over the use of the hydric resources, is in the core of cititzen’s reivindication, which demands more and better answers from political power.