The Right to Know
Our 9-page paper on the eight rights behind every glass, the question each one asks of your water, and where to start.
The right to know · A free paper from Aquagenuity®
Every glass of water comes with eight rights. Do you know them?
President Kennedy named four in 1962. The United Nations added four more in 1985. Together they shape how the world buys food, medicine, cars and credit. They've never been fully applied to the one product every person drinks every day.
The gap
Water is the product with no label.
Every glass of tap water is sourced, treated, piped, priced and sold. Yet it's the product we know least about and control least of all. You can read the label on a cereal box. You can't read one on your kitchen sink.
The eight
Eight rights.
One glass.
Four from Kennedy, 1962. Four from the United Nations, 1985.
- 01
The right to safety
The water that reaches my tap won't harm my family.
Kennedy · 1962 - 02
The right to be informed
I can see what's in my water, in words I understand.
Kennedy · 1962 - 03
The right to choose
I have real options: filters, sources, a say in who runs my water.
Kennedy · 1962 - 04
The right to be heard
My voice counts when decisions about water are made.
Kennedy · 1962 - 05
The right to basic needs
Clean water I can afford, even when disaster comes.
UN guidelines · 1985 - 06
The right to redress
When water harms us, someone answers for it and makes it right.
UN guidelines · 1985 - 07
The right to education
I know enough to protect my family and to teach others.
UN guidelines · 1985 - 08
The right to a healthy environment
The rivers, air and soil around me stay clean for the next generation.
UN guidelines · 1985
September 4, 2026
A federal appeals court ruled you don't have a constitutional right to clean water.
Four Jackson, Mississippi residents sued over lead in their tap water. The full Fifth Circuit ruled against them, 10 to 5.
Source: Sterling v. City of Jackson, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (en banc), decided September 4, 2026.
So we wrote the rights down.
Water is not a political issue. It's a human issue.
What lands in your inbox
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