Sixteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Before, it was believed that three major things were needed by human beings: housing, clothing, and food. The issue of water was taken for granted as universally available for everybody until it is privatised due to globalisation subscribed to by the state. South Africa’s Constitution of 1996, section 27, as amended promised food and water as human rights to its citizen. There are many other international regimes, which the state belongs such as the Southern Africa Development Community, African Union, BRICS and the United Nations that call for access to food and water within available resources of the state. As a member of the World Trade Organisation, an institution that calls for ultra-capitalism, the question of the veracity of the state intentions to provide these commodities is apparent. Forces of demand and supply continue to determine how, where, when and to who water and food will be made available. It is the intention of this paper to interrogate the conflict of interests between the state’s constitution and membership of international organisations that put a limit to the social contract between a government and its people. In trying to do this, we intend to adopt embedded liberal thesis where environmental variables determine how liberal theory is conceptualised for the sake of human security in the age of climate change. Triangulation data collection will our information gathering techniques.