Human rights and food

It is a well-known fact that millions of people all over the world do not have access to food on a daily basis or face hunger, malnutrition and starvation, despite the fact that their governments have ratified international treaties in which the right to food takes a prominent place. There is thus a big gap between rhetoric and reality, between theoretically having the right to food and enjoying it in practice. The present contribution deals with ways in which to realise the right to adequate food. It suggests the adoption of a framework law as a means of strengthening the implementation of the right to food at the domestic level. In the first part, the article discusses the right to adequate food from an international human rights perspective. It deals, amongst others, with the background, aim and contents of a national framework law on the right to food. In the second part, attention is given to the role of civil society in the promotion of a framework law. This is illustrated by using the example of South Africa, where the lack of availability and accessibility of food to the poor would justify the adoption of a framework law.

Hunger is needlessly killing millions of our fellow humans, including 3.1 million young children every year, condemning many others to life-long exposure to illness and social exclusion. With the dominant no money-no food rationality, hunger still prevails in a world of abundance. This paper argues this narrative has to be re-conceived and a binding Food Treaty, based on a commons approach to food, will create a more appropriate framework to work together towards a fairer and more sustainable world. The eradication of hunger no later than 2025 would be the main objective within a broader framework whereby food and nutrition security shall be understood as a Global Public Good. Within the treaty framework, those governments that are genuinely determined to end hunger (a coalition of the willing) could commit themselves to mutually-agreed binding goals, strategies and predictable funding. The paper presents the rationale to substantiate the treaty, as well as objectives, provisions and a possible route map for the process.

La crisis alimentaria mundial más reciente ha puesto de manifiesto la incapacidad del derecho a la alimentación para atender y prevenir este tipo de situaciones. Ahora es el momento hacer más fuerte y eficaz este derecho, pasando de directrices de cumplimiento voluntario a leyes vinculantes. Como todos sabemos, no hace mucho tiempo, la FAO patrocinó la creación de directrices para el cumplimiento del derecho a la alimentación. Su publicación fue ampliamente celebrada, y se consideró que era el texto más detallado y completo que hubiera existido para hacer que este derecho sea una realidad para millones de personas que padecen hambre. No hay duda de que estas directrices proporcionan un marco exhaustivo para la acción y ofrecen una cobertura detallada de los temas importantes. Sin embargo, las nuevas realidades que han surgido en los últimos años, tal vez con demasiada rapidez y de forma inesperada, han puesto de manifiesto la necesidad de una regulación más completa del derecho a la alimentación que la proporcionada por las directrices. Idealmente, por tanto, su texto debería ser modificado y actualizado.

El propósito de este libro es indicar algunas áreas y temas que tendrán un gran impacto en los próximos años en relación con la aplicación del derecho a la seguridad alimentaria y a los alimentos y que actualmente disponen de escasa o nula regulación. Estos son los nuevos retos a los que va a enfrentarse el derecho a la alimentación en el siglo XXI...

By considering how the right to adequate food has been interpreted and applied in international law, I argue that there are important pragmatic reasons to appeal to the right to adequate food in promoting and ensuring food security.  I respond to practical and conceptual objections against recognizing the right to adequate food as a human right.  First, I consider the objection that the right to adequate food, like other socio-economic rights, is not a real human right because it cannot be enforced by courts in the same way as civil-political rights (the justiciability objection).  In addition to considering how the right to adequate food and other socio-economic rights have been legally enforced by courts or monitoring bodies in international law and in other domestic legal systems, I also consider how some socio-economic rights have been protected in state constitutions within the United States and how courts have enforced these, an area that is often neglected in discussions of socio-economic rights in the United States.  I also respond to a more conceptual objection that the right to adequate food and other rights to goods and services are not real rights or real normative claims since it is not clear who has a duty to fulfill these rights (the claimability objection).  Onora O’Neill provides the strongest defense of this objection.  While I agree that these rights will remain empty manifesto rights until corresponding duties are specified and allocated, I argue that duties need to be defined automatically from the idea of the right itself or pre-institutionally, as O'Neill suggests.  In my response, I consider different dimensions of the right to adequate food and recent issues in the United States that can be addressed by this right, such as food deserts.

Although the recently approved Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) explicitly mention access to water, health and education as universally guaranteed human rights, access to affordable and sufficient food is not given such recognition. The SDGs road map assumes that market mechanisms will suffice to secure nutritious and safe food for all. We question how and why the right to food has disappeared from such an international agreement and we will provide insights on the likely causes of this and the options to make good on such a regrettable omission. Analysis of political stances of relevant western stakeholders, such as the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), is also included.

This 5-page brief surveys proposes policy consideration of the extraterritorial domain of state's legal obligations, most urgent and relevant to the current world situation. The author takes this question form the perspective of the human rights to food priority in their cross-border impacts.