I’m moving this back up to the top with several new links, and a few minor modifications. We’re hoping to add a fourth speaker; more on that soon.

The Fourth Annual Felician Institute Fall Symposium–“The Ethics, Politics, and Economics of Water”–will take place on Saturday, October 24, 2015 between 1 and 5 pm in the Education Commons Building on Felician’s Rutherford, New Jersey campus. Speakers include Joshua Briemberg, Representative for Program Development, WaterAid; Britt Long, Esq., an attorney in private practice and one-time litigator for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation; and Donald R. Conger III, PE – Project Director with CH2M Operations & Management Services for the North Hudson Sewerage Authority. This event is co-sponsored by the Felician Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs, the Felician College Pre-Law Program, and the Felician College UN Fellows Program.

Moderator: Irfan Khawaja, Director, Felician Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs.

If you’re in the area, please stop by. The event is free and open to all. Refreshments will be served (yes, fresh water, too). For GPS purposes, the street address is: 223 Montross Ave., Rutherford, New Jersey, 07070. Please park in Lot D on Montross Avenue. The Ed Commons is the new, mostly steel- and glass-constructed, modern-looking building directly on Montross.

Here are some interesting water-oriented links worth reading to whet your appetite for the event and offer a sense of the range and ubiquity of the issues involved (not necessarily indicative of the content of any given speaker’s presentation):

Philosophical discussions 

• Barbara Bleisch, “The Human Right to Water–Normative Foundations and Ethical Implications,” Ethique et Economique vol. 4.2 (2006), pp. 1-23. [gated]
• Matthias Risse, “The Human Right to Water and Ownership of the Earth,” Journal of Political Philosophy vol. 22.2 (June 2014), pp. 178-203. [gated]
• The Ownership and Control of Water (Foundation for Economic Education blog post), with response by Murray Rothbard, “Who Owns Water?”
• Here’s a link to F.A. Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty, which discusses the famous “oasis in the desert” example in property theory (p. 136) also discussed in Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 179n (but erroneously credited by Nozick to Hastings Rashdall). The distant ancestor of the Hayek-Nozick discussion is of course Locke’s Second Treatise, Book V, paragraphs 30-33.
• Walter Block and Peter Lothian Nelson ed., Water Capitalism: The Case for Privatizing Oceans, Rivers, Lakes, and Aquifers. (book)

Ali: This is my well. Lawrence: You obviously have not been keeping up with the literature on water rights, Ali. Have you not read Mattias Risse in JPP? That was last year. Are you not registered for the Felician Institute event on water? It’s in ten days. Ali: Did I happen to mention that this is my well? And that I’m the one with a gun?

Policy-based and journalistic discussions from a global perspective

• UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation.
• Norman Gall, “Why the Water Is Running Out,” New York Review of Books (paywall) (review of two recent books on water-related issues)
• Charity: Water, Pakistan
• Water and Theocracy in Pakistan (PoT blog post)
• Visualizing Palestine: Not Enough Water in the West Bank?
• Diaa Hadid and Wissam Nassar, “As Egypt Floods Gaza Tunnels, Smugglers Fear an End to their Trade,” New York Times. 

Policy-based and journalistic discussions with a domestic (American) focus

• U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Basic Law of Water Boundaries (PDF)
• Denise D. Fort, “Water and Population in the American West”
• NPR: Water Wars: Who Controls the Flow? (Klamath River Basin Controversy)
• California Drought Page
• Monica Davey, “Flint Officials No Longer Saying the Water Is Fine,” New York Times. 
• Michael Wines, “Toxic Algae Outbreak Overwhelms a Polluted Ohio River,” The New York Times. 
• Bloomfield, New Jersey Under Drought Watch/Mandatory Use Restrictions; About Your Drinking Water (monitoring requirements not met).