UN assembly urged to pressure states to make food a legal right
UN special rapporteur Olivier De Schutter said the “forgotten” right to food is a basic human necessity which needs to be enshrined in global law. His views are outlined in a new report he has submitted to the UN, based on 11 UN country missions in different regions globally which he praises for making progress over the past decade on the right to food.
South Africa, Kenya, Mexico and Niger have all taken steps to incorporate rights to nutrition into their constitutions. A number of South American countries, including Argentina, Guatemala, Brazil and Colombia, have adopted food and nutrition security laws.
But De Schutter wants the UN to press governments to combine laws with food and nutrition strategies to ensure greater progress. He told the EU news service Euractiv that the right to food needs to be upheld by the courts to safeguard people’s wellbeing in the face of likely future food shortages.
“Treating food as a human right brings coherence and accountability. It helps to close the gaps by putting food security of all citizens at the top of the decision- making hierarchy, and making these decision- making processes participatory and accountable,” he said.
“Often we labour under the misconception that the right to food is not like a political right such as freedom of speech. But economic and social rights — to food, water, housing, social protection — are just as real, just as binding, and can be upheld just as legitimately in court.”
In 2012, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Economic Community of West African States Court of Justice ruled that Nigeria had violated the right to food of the Ogoni people by failing to protect their land from environmental damage in the Niger delta.
But the Ogoni, a southwestern group of one million people, has benefited from strong civil society support. The campaign group Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People has previously led large protests against Shell Oil, which is active in the delta.
The Indian Right to Food Campaign uses social audits and freedom of information laws to assess compliance with decisions by the courts, for example, the distribution of food and delivery of school meals.
De Schutter said: “Civil society has an indispensable role to play at every level: driving forward right to food movements, participating in the design of policies, taking part in monitoring, and developing new forms of accountability.”
UN-funded studies also project world population will increase to nine billion by 2050. The growing middle class in countries such as China and India, will lead to a 50% increase in demand for food production by 2030.
Meanwhile, the European Commission development group EuropeAid has a target to cut the number of people suffering from hunger by half by 2015.
More than 900 million people are estimated to be malnourished — most of them in Sub-Saharan Africa and in South Asia.
Even if food prices eased in the second half of 2008, they are still very high and subject to volatility in some developing countries, affecting access to food for low income groups.
In response, the European Commission has adopted a policy document entitled Enhancing Maternal and Child Nutrition in external assistance: an EU policy framework. The new EU policy aims to improve the nutrition of mothers and children to reduce mortality and diseases, as well as the impediments to growth and development caused by under-nutrition.
