Saneamento básico no Brasil : desenho institucional e desafios federativos

Basic sanitation services have been undergoing substantial institutional change since the adoption of the new Brazilian National Sanitation Law, in 2007 (Federal Statute n. 11.445/2007, hereinafter LNSB [Lei Nacional de Saneamento Básico]), both as an industrial chain for the provision of public goods, and as a network of public services for the realization of social rights. Although basic sanitation is not explicitly provided for in the Constitution as a social right, we can consider that it encompasses all services that are indispensable to the fulfillment of the social right to "adequate housing" and to the "improvement of all aspects of hygiene," in accordance with Articles 11.1 and 12.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR, adopted by the United Nations' General Assembly on December 16, 1966, internalized in Brazil by Legislative Decree No. 226 of December 12, 1991, and promulgated by Decree No. 591 of July 6, 1992). In the specific case of basic sanitation, the issue of a new institutional frame is of great importance. For the purposes of this chapter, we shall define basic sanitation as the industrial chain and the network of public services necessary to the procurement, processing, supply and distribution of drinking water and the collection, removal, treatment and disposal of sewage. Although they enjoy a common institutional framework with those activities, this chapter will not deal with public street cleaning and the disposal of solid waste, nor with the drainage and management of urban rain water (LNSB, Article 3).