David Boyd

David R. Boyd is one of Canada’s leading environmental lawyers. He is a Trudeau Scholar at the University of British Columbia, an Adjunct Professor at Simon Fraser University, and a Research Associate at the University of Victoria. Boyd has advised the governments of both Canada and Sweden on environmental issues and is currently the co-chair of Vancouver’s Greenest City Action Team along with Mayor Gregor Robertson.

His most recent publication is a best-seller co-authored with David Suzuki titled David Suzuki’s Green Guide which shares great ideas about how to find fresher, tastier, healthier food, create an eco-friendly home, make sustainable transportation choices, reduce consumption, and be a green citizen.

Boyd also wrote Prescription for a Healthy Canada: Towards a National Environmental Health Strategy, Sustainability Within a Generation: A New Vision for Canada and the award-winning Unnatural Law: Rethinking Canadian Environmental Law and Policy. His essays appear regularly in The Globe and Mail and other Canadian newspapers.

David is the former Executive Director of the Sierra Legal Defence Fund (now Ecojustice), Canada's leading public interest environmental law organization.

Fellowship Project Description

Constitutional Protection of the Right to Water A compelling argument can be made that one of the most powerful tools available to strengthen water policy and protect water for future generations is to recognize a legal right to water (ideally in a constitution, as is the case in South Africa and several other nations). Recognition of the right to water would have substantial implications for all aspects of water policy, including watershed governance and transboundary water security.

To take the example of South Africa, the entrenching of a right to water in the new constitution in 1996 has had a profound impact. Article 27 of the South African Constitution states:
27. Health care, food, water, and social security
(1) Everyone has the right to have access to— ...
(b) sufficient food and water...

(2) The state must take reasonable legislative and other measures, within its available resources, to achieve the progressive realization of each of these rights.

National legislation governing water in South Africa has been completely rewritten in order to comply with their Constitution (which also incorporates the right to live in a healthy environment). In the mid 1990s, approximately 14 million people in South Africa, predominantly poor blacks, lacked access to clean drinking water. More than ten million people have gained access to potable water since then. Nelson Mandela describes the progress in providing potable water to poor South Africans as “among the most important achievements of democracy in our country.”

Recognition of the right to water could give citizens and communities the leverage they need to break out of the current paradigm, which is clearly unsustainable. A right to water in Canada would be of greatest utility to First Nations who face the nation’s most severe drinking water problems.

Relevant Publication

David Suzuki's Green Guide By: Dr. David Suzuki and David R. Boyd
David Suzuki Foundation and Greystone Books, 2008

Prescription for a Healthy Canada: Towards a National Environmental Health Strategy, Sustainability Within a Generation: A New Vision for Canada

Unnatural Law: Rethinking Canadian Environmental Law and Policy
Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004
-Shortlisted, 2004 Donald Smiley Award, Canadian Political Science Association
-Winner, 2004 Best Book of the Year(Environment), Canadian Geographic Magazine
- Shortlised, 2004 Walter Owen Book Prize, Foundation for Legal Research