Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 18
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- Second, in situations of natural disaster or conflict, or "whenever an individual or group is unable, for reasons beyond their control, to enjoy the right to adequate food by the means at their disposal, States have the obligation to fulfil (provide) that right directly" (see E/C.12/1999/5, para. 15). This component of the right to food has been invoked successfully before courts in recent years. In Nepal, the Supreme Court issued an interim order in 2008 for the immediate provision of food in a number of districts that food distribution programmes were not reaching, confirming and extending its initial order on 19 May 2010. It acted at the request of the non governmental organization Pro Public, which invoked the provisions of the 2007 interim Constitution of Nepal guaranteeing the fundamental right to food sovereignty and the right to a dignified life, as well as the international obligations of Nepal to fulfil the right to food. In Mexico, relying on the recent amendment to article 4 of the Constitution and the 2009 Food and Nutrition Security Law of the Federal District, one homeless person obtained on 22 March 2012 an injunction from the First District Administrative Judge of the Federal District, directed in particular against the Secretariat for Social Development and the National Coordination Office of the "Desarrollo Humano Oportunidades" programme for a failure of the authorities to comply with their obligation to protect the rights to health, to food and to housing. In May 2013, a juvenile court in Guatemala ordered 10 Government institutions to adopt a set of 26 specific measures to compensate damages caused to five children in two villages of Camotán, who were left malnourished as a result of the State's failure to provide support. The order was based on the 2005 Food and Nutrition Security Law and Guatemala's obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. It included such restitution and compensation measures as food assistance, land distribution, water access, agricultural training and seed provision. Where the situation of individuals or communities is so desperate as to condemn them to hunger unless they are given support, courts routinely have relied on the right to life to impose such obligations to provide.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Food, Report to the UNGA (2013), A/68/288, para. 18.
- Paragraph number
- 18
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Date added
62 relationships, 62 entities