Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 13
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- The obligation to protect requires that the State protect individuals' enjoyment of the right to food against violations by third parties (namely, by other individuals or groups or private enterprises), including by establishing an adequate regulatory framework. Courts too may play a role by intervening where private actors violate the right to food. For instance, in a case on which the Special Rapporteur wrote a letter of allegation, the High Court of Uganda at Kampala ordered on 28 March 2013 that compensation be paid to 2,041 individuals who had been evicted from their land in August 2001, when the Government of Uganda gave the land to a German company to establish a coffee plantation. The Court not only held agents of the State liable but also stated that the investors "had a duty to ensure that our indigenous people were not exploited. They should have respected the human rights and values of people and as honourable businessmen and investors they should have not moved into the lands unless they had satisfied themselves that the tenants were properly compensated, relocated and adequate notice was given to them." This illustrates how courts are in a position to protect individuals against the action of third parties and how private enterprises also have a responsibility to respect human rights and to carry out human rights due diligence to identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their impacts on human rights, as stipulated in the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (see A/HRC/17/31, annex, paras. 6 and 17-21).
- 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)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- Ethnic minorities
- Year
- 2013
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Reference
- SR Food, Report to the UNGA (2013), A/68/288, para. 13.
- Paragraph number
- 13
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