1. Dr Annamaria La Chimia Associate Professor University of Nottinham
The Right to food
Dr Annamaria La Chimia
Associate Professor University of Nottinham

2. The right to food The problem History and Definition of the R2F
International instruments
Duty bearers: States’ Obligations at national and international level
Right holders
Measuring the progressive realization of the right to food

3. The problem More than one billion people are undernourished
Over two billion suffer from a lack of essential vitamins and minerals in their food.
Nearly six million children die every year from malnutrition or related diseases, that is about half of all preventable deaths.

4. The problem: who is affected by Food Insecurity?
Smallholders or landless people,
Mostly women and girls living in rural areas without access to productive resources (lack of access to Land, no inheritance rights, no land titles)
Only about 10 per cent of food-insecurity related deaths are the result of armed conflicts, natural catastrophes or exceptional climatic conditions. The other 90 per cent are victims of long-term, chronic lack of access to adequate food

5. More than a moral duty, a legally binding obligation
1948 UDHR (adequate standard of living art 25)
National constitutions and regional agreements
1966 ICESCR art 11
1999 GC 12 (non binding but authoritative interpretation)
MDGs
2004 FAO guidelines (non-binding)
SDGs
International Humanitarian Law
Free from Hunger as a customary principle of international law binding on all states

6. Definition: an inclusive right (more than just calories)
The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.
available, accessible and adequate

7. Definition: misconceptions
The right to food is NOT the same as a right to be fed.
but primarily the right to feed oneself in dignity
The denial of the right to food is NOT a result of a lack of food in the world
The right to food is different from food security and food sovereignty
The right to adequate food is NOT the same as the right to safe food

8. Link with other Human Rights
Human rights are interdependent, indivisible and interrelated.
Right to health, rights of the Child, etc
violating the right to food may impair the enjoyment of other human rights,

9. Legal instruments
UDHR “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, ...” (art. 25).
ICESCR recognizes the right to adequate food as an essential part of the right to an adequate standard of living (art. 11 (1)). It also explicitly recognizes “the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger” (art. 11 (2))
International Humanitarian Law

10. OBLIGATIONS ON STATES:
Three types of obligations
Respect, protect fulfil (promote, facilitate)
Progressive and immediate obligations
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11. OBLIGATIONS ON STATES Obligations of immediate effect:
Non discrimination
Obligation to “take steps”
Prohibition of retrogressive measures
Protection of minimum essential level of the right to food

12. Obligations with international dimensions
Aid and Assistance

13. The responsibilities of others
International Organizations
NGOs
Business and Corporations (UNGPs)

14. Implementations, monitoring and remedies
Legislation
Institutional framework
FAO methodological toolbox
The OHCHR indicator framework for the right to food
The Special Rapporteur on the right to food
Universal periodic review process of the Human Rights Council

15. Class exercise: How does the right to food apply to specific groups ?
Rural poor/Cities
Indigenous people
Women
Children
corporations