Right to food


The right to food, and its variations, is a human right protecting the right of people to feed themselves in dignity, implying that sufficient food is available, that people have the means to access it, and that it adequately meets the individual's dietary needs. The right to food protects the right of all human beings to be free from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition..
The right is derived from the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which has 170 state parties as of April 2020. States that sign the covenant agree to take steps to the maximum of their available resources to achieve progressively the full realization of the right to adequate food, both nationally and internationally. In a total of 106 countries the right to food is applicable either via constitutional arrangements of various forms or via direct applicability in law of various international treaties in which the right to food is protected.
At the 1996 World Food Summit, governments reaffirmed the right to food and committed themselves to halve the number of hungry and malnourished from 840 to 420 million by 2015. However, the number has increased over the past years, reaching an infamous record in 2009 of more than 1 billion undernourished people worldwide. Furthermore, the number who suffer from hidden hunger – micronutrient deficiences that may cause stunted bodily and intellectual growth in children – amounts to over 2 billion people worldwide.
Whilst under international law, states are obliged to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food, the practical difficulties in achieving this human right are demonstrated by prevalent food insecurity across the world, and ongoing litigation in countries such as India. In the continents with the biggest food-related problems – Africa, Asia and South America – not only is there shortage of food and lack of infrastructure but also maldistribution and inadequate access to food.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative measures the right to food for countries around the world, based on their level of income.

Definition

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recognizes the "right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food", as well as the "fundamental right to be free from hunger". The relationship between the two concepts is not straightforward. For example, "freedom from hunger" could be measured by the number of people suffering from malnutrition and at the extreme, dying of starvation. The "right to adequate food" is a much higher standard, including not only absence of malnutrition, but to the full range of qualities associated with food, including safety, variety and dignity, in short all those elements needed to enable an active and healthy life.
Inspired by the above definition, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food in 2002 defined it as follows:
The right to have regular, permanent and unrestricted access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensure a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear.

This definition entails all normative elements explained in detail in the General Comment 12 of the ICESCR, which states:
the right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, have the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.

Dimensions

The former Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, defined three dimensions to the right to food.
  • Availability refers to the possibilities either for feeding oneself directly from productive land or other natural resources, or for well functioning distribution, processing and market systems that can move food from the site of production to where it is needed in accordance with demand.
  • Accessibility implies that economic and physical access to food is to be guaranteed. On the one hand, economic access means that food should be affordable for an adequate diet without compromising other basic needs. On the other hand, physically vulnerable, such as sick, children, disabled or elderly should also have access to food.
  • Adequacy implies that the food must satisfy the dietary needs of every individual, taking into account age, living conditions, health, occupation, sex, culture and religion, for example. The food must be safe and adequate protective measures by both public and private means must be taken to prevent contamination of foodstuffs through adulteration and/or through bad environmental hygiene or inappropriate handling at different stages throughout the food chain; care must also be taken to identify and avoid or destroy naturally occurring toxins.
Furthermore, any discrimination in access to food, as well as to means and entitlements for its procurement, on the grounds of race, colour, sex, language, age, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status constitutes a violation of the right to food.

Agreed-upon food standards

Regarding the right to food, the international community also specified commonly agreed on standards, such as in the 1974 World Food Conference, the 1974 International Undertaking on World Food Security, the 1977 Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, the 1986 Declaration on the Right to Development, the ECOSOC Resolution 1987/90, the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the 1996 Istanbul Declaration on Human Settlements.

History

Negative or positive right

There is a traditional distinction between two types of human rights. On the one hand, negative or abstract rights that are respected by non-intervention. On the other hand, positive or concrete rights that require resources for its realisation. However, it is nowadays contested whether it is possible to clearly distinguish between these two types of rights.
The right to food can accordingly be divided into the negative right to obtain food by one's own actions, and the positive right to be supplied with food if one is unable to access it. The negative right to food was recognised as early as in England's 1215 Magna Carta which reads that: "no one shall be 'amerced' to the extent that they are deprived of their means of living."

International developments from 1941 onwards

This section provides an overview of international developments relevant to the establishment and implementation of the right to food from the mid-20th century onwards.
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control".

Amartya Sen won his 1998 Nobel Prize in part for his work in demonstrating that famine and mass starvation in modern times was not typically the product of a lack of food; rather, it usually arose from problems in food distribution networks or from government policies.