The Right to Food

Dr Su-ming KhooSchool of Political Science and SociologyNUI Galway s.khoo@nuigalway.ie

Legal, political and human implications for a food security agenda

Trocaire Development Review Launch Dublin, Nov 12, 2010

Overview Food security as a ‘wicked problem’ FAO and food security Background: wider project of development and rights R2F Framework, incl. 2004 FAO Guidelines Civil society and “adequate food” - India and RTF RBA and the wicked problem: mobilizing change The contribution from ‘development’: entitlement,

capability, dignity

Food? Security? Hunger? Food security as a ‘wicked problem’ Differing goals cause policy fragmentation

Freedom from want...adequate std of living (UDHRArt25) Nutrition and health Disposal of grain surplus – food aid 1972 food crisis – food security (famine warning) Increasing production Controlling trade Entitlement failure – employment, safety nets Structural justice vs. Structural adjustment

Hunger and malnutrition repeatedly sidelined, despite efforts

Right Time for Right to Food 1996 WFS – Kairos for RTF? (Ziegler)

Hunger has a unique universal appeal. Nothing touches the consciousness as much as hunger. It brings into man’s immediate consciousness the social injustices and inequalities, the divisions between man and man that encrust the social structure everywhere

B.R. Sen, FAO D-G (1957-67)

1996 Rome Declaration ‘cumbersome and unclear’ but by 2000 RTF as an instrument to deal with ‘a totally unacceptable situation’

Jones & Stokke, 2005, Human rights discourse increasingly frames approaches to development:

Previously, “human rights” and “development” lay as if two distinct islands in mutually uncharted waters

Socio-economic issues comprised a vast channel that put great distance between human rights and development

RTF within RTD approach

3 ‘planks’ bridging development and rights Recovering indivisibility Democratising development Humanising rights

RTD approach: a vector of all indivisible rights (Sengupta) and people-centred process

Realization of RTD: 3 immediate action areas Food, Education, Health

CESCR Comment 12

Comment 12 The right to adequate food (Art.11) E/C.12/1999/5. “the most authoritative”

http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/0/3d02758c707031d58025677f003b73b9

Art 11.1 ICECSCR"the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living

…including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions", Art.11.2 immediate and urgent steps …to ensure "the fundamental right to freedom from hunger andmalnutrition".

Hunger as Rights failure India: Ambekar’s Directive Principles – democracy

“a form and method of government whereby revolutionary changes in the economic and social lifeof the people are brought about without bloodshed”

Sen’s entitlement theory: no famine in a democracy But a ‘nutrition emergency’ - 47% of Indian children

undernourished gender discrimination Education is affected Intergenerational injustice

The Right to Food in India

2001 petition in Rajasthan by C Gonsalves (PUCL)following food crisis Court accepted petition, extended to whole India GoI - many schemes already existed Landmark Interim Order covered 8 federal schemes

Focus on School Mid-day Meal Scheme New emphasis on politics and governance

5 recommendations

FAO 2004 Guidelines

2004 Guidelines reframe Food Security as context for RTF

FAO not Party to ICECSR, so indirectly binding, but play a key role

Recommend national actions: framework law, coordination, accountability, participation

Also non-state actors – TNCs, NGOs Pressure by NGOs and civil society a major driver

transforming abstract right

Human development theory Sen, Amartya (1999) Development as

Freedom Removing ‘the major sources of unfreedom’. Focus on ‘instrumental freedoms’ and public

policy Capability – valued beings and doings complexity of what is valued by humans De Herdt – plurality of concerns (ability to

appear in public without shame)