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Access to clean water may not be enshrined in the US constitution, but it’s not accurate to say it’s not “any sort of basic right.”

It’s enshrined explicitly as such in a variety of UN documents and EU laws and instruments.

I wish more of my fellow Americans had a better idea of what fundamental rights the US has chosen not integrate into domestic law over the past 8 or so decades.

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I might be mistaken, but when an international treaty is ratified, it has the same weight as a constitutional amendment. I’m sure the US ratified something around those lines.

It is unfortunately not that straightforward in the case of the US. For example, the ICCPR was ratified by the US, but declared “not self-executing.” The ICESCR was never ratified.

Well... The US has been getting away with all sorts of shenanigans for the past century. I think it's time to grow up and behave like an adult country.

Which won't happen until it has an adult president, but that's a different story.

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