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A Human Rights Vision for a Sustainable Food System

The world produces enough food to feed itself. And yet more than 900 million people – three quarters of them children – suffer the indignity of hunger and malnutrition.

Agricultural policy at both the national and international levels is at the centre of efforts to eradicate hunger and promote development. However, the prevalence of hunger amid such plenty is dramatic proof that existing policies are not resulting in fair and equitable access to adequate food.

Behind such ineffectual policies is a lack of political will to stop what has been called a "silent massacre" of hundreds of millions of people. The world’s hungry need leadership and commitment now, particularly among the donor community of wealthy nations who have acted too often in their own best interests while failing to take the developmental needs of poorer countries into account.

Rights & Democracy's experience tells us that short-term responses to hunger such as food aid will not provide solutions for the hunger crisis we face today. It has become abundantly clear that long-term approaches are needed to deal effectively with the myriad of inter-connected issues affecting access to food, especially in the most marginalized of communities. Difficult and contentious challenges such as unfair economic agreements, climate change, and financial speculation must be confronted as part of a global effort to reverse the growing inequity in our world.

Freedom from hunger is a human right based on international legal norms and obligations, as well as on our common human dignity. In the course of our work in countries as diverse as Malawi, Nepal and Haiti, Rights & Democracy has documented a systemic failure to respect this right, and even to acknowledge the basic responsibilities of government and its institutions to ensure that no child, no mother and no neighbour goes to sleep hungry. In Malawi, international financial institutions had forced liquidation of grain reserves despite chronic food shortage in the country. In Nepal, local officials colluded with corrupt landowners to force farmers off their land. And in Haiti, which only 20 years ago produced almost all of its own food, dependency on food imports forced thousands to the point of starvation when international prices sky-rocketed early this year. For those suffering the consequences, there are few options.

Governments must prioritize policies and strategies that enable them to meet their human rights obligations whether they are domestic policies related to land rights, agricultural development and patents, or international policies regarding trade, investment and aid conditionality. Governments must implement such policies and strategies without discrimination towards any group and do so in a measurably progressive manner. Further, a human rights vision requires that governments work in cooperation with each other to ensure that their activities do not undermine human rights in any country.

The implementation of right to food policies requires the full participation of all segments of society, especially those most susceptible to hunger. Specifically, people need to have access to information and they need to be able to express their opinions without fear of intimidation or arrest. More than this, full participation in decision-making requires an expectation that fully transparent and accountable processes are in place otherwise participation lacks meaning. In this era of globalization, participation, transparency and accountability must be extended to the international level because international commitments determine what is possible at the national level.

When human rights violations occur people must have access to an effective remedy otherwise rights remain theoretical. In this sense a human rights approach empowers people by providing a set of universal standards and norms protected by an international system of rules and monitoring mechanisms to which they can turn. While the system is weakened by the reality of power relations, it can be strengthened by increased demands and use by individuals, communities and peoples' movements.

In an era when breaking trade rules is more serious than violating human rights, we must stand together and be counted. Together we can abolish hunger. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reminds us, "the recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world". 

Published in the Calgary Herald, December 1, 2008