FRAGMENTOS DE UM MODELO: A PRIVATIZAÇÃO DA ÁGUA NO CHILE, DESIGUALDADES E A URGÊNCIA DA GOVERNANÇA HÍDRICA COMO DIREITO HUMANO FUNDAMENTAL

This article offers a critical and interdisciplinary analysis of water privatization in Chile, the only country in the world with a fully commodified water system, where water rights are traded like commodities. Approved in 1981, the Chilean Water Code decoupled land ownership from water rights, granting them free and perpetual to private individuals and large corporations, culminating in a high concentration of water rights and profound inequalities in access to the resource. The research addressed the socio-environmental impacts resulting from this model, highlighting conflicts between large companies (mining, agro-industrial, and electricity companies) and local communities, including the Mapuche-Huilliche and Aymara indigenous peoples, who see their territories, ways of life, and worldviews directly threatened by water scarcity and contamination. The article will analyze the communities' resistance strategies, their legal battles, and the gap between the international recognition of the human right to water (by the UN in 2010) and the persistence of a model that allows for profiting from scarcity. The article argues that, although global indicators of access to drinking water appear positive, the local Chilean reality reveals profound inequality and conflict, demanding a critical reassessment of the role of the State and public policies in guaranteeing a resource essential to life.