The ‘right to food’ is not merely the right to an adequate ration of calories; its recognition requires a realignment of moral standards, political will and power relations.
Critically discuss this statement.
‘It is paradoxical, but hardly surprising, that the right to food has been endorsed more often and with greater unanimity and urgency than most other human rights, while at the same time being violated more comprehensively and systematically’
Alston 1984
The right to food is an arresting concept, appealing to ‘deeply-rooted human feelings’ (Spitz 1985) and ‘touching our most natural instinct for life in community’ (Lappe 2006). However, despite its repeated affirmation over the last few decades, and the fact that the world produces more than enough food for its population, more than 850 million of the world’s population is still deprived of food (according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization). To assess why so many human beings remain hungry, and how the right to food can be more universally upheld, it is necessary to trace the development of the right to food concept, and evaluate the concomitant legal, moral and political contexts, while considering international and national power relations.
Article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserted that ‘everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services’ (from fao.org). The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in 1966 made the right to food more explicit, declaring both the ‘right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food’ (article 11 paragraph 1), and also the ‘right of everyone to be free from hunger’ (article 11 paragraph 2) (in Alston 1984). The Covenant affirms that states must devote ‘the maximum available resources’ to realizing these rights, although this is not clearly defined, and is open to contestation (Robertson 1996). The right to an adequate supply of calories is extended by Eide (1989), who suggests ‘everyone requires access to food which is (a) sufficient, balanced and safe to satisfy nutritional requirements, (b) culturally acceptable, and (c) accessible in a manner which does not destroy one’s dignity as human beings’ (in de Waal 2002). The Right to Food Unit of the FAO are dedicated to ‘realizing the human right to adequate food, through it being respected, protected and fulfilled everywhere’. Its own definition of the right to food builds on that of the UN Special Rapporteur 2002 and declares ‘the right to food is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient, nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active, healthy life. It is the right to feed oneself in dignity, rather than the right to be fed’ (fao.org). The FAO describes the four pillars of food security as availability, stability of supply, access and utilization, and from 2004 have developed Voluntary Guidelines that aim to effect these. By 2006 22 countries had included the right to food in their constitutions, either for all citizens or for children (Lappe 2006), but this is evidently not sufficient to adequately provide for the world’s hungry. Not all relevant meetings have followed up the right; the 1993 United Nations Conference on Human Rights made no mention of the right to food (Tomasevski 1994 in de Waal 2002).
