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Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- Under such clauses, firms may reject delivered products by stating falsely that they do not conform to quality regulations, thus transferring financial losses to farmers when market prices are low. Firms can manipulate prices when the price mechanism specified by the contract is not transparent, using complex price formulas, quantity measurements or price measurements. They also can manipulate delivery schedules to benefit from market price changes or from changes in a product's qualities upon which prices are based (for example, delaying the purchase of sugar cane when prices are based on sucrose levels because sucrose levels decline rapidly after harvest).
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2011
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- Two interesting attempts to link small-scale farmers to local consumers through a redefinition of local food systems are found in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Durban, South Africa. Both examples were studied closely by the Special Rapporteur when he conducted official missions to those countries in 2009 and 2011. In 1993, Belo Horizonte adopted a municipal law, setting out a policy framework based on the concept of food sovereignty and established a secretariat for food policy and supply. Under this framework, it sought to create various channels of affordable access to healthy food. Because conventional markets were often found to be too expensive for low-income groups and because the poorest parts of the city, the favelas, were usually not well served with respect to food distribution, the secretariat established mobile food distribution services. It sought to support family agriculture through government food purchases and incentives prioritizing local producers, seeing such support as a key to reducing migration to the cities and encouraging organic production methods. The local food system of the city was rethought by integrating the logistics and supply chains of the entire food system and by tying local producers directly to consumers to reduce prices. In 2008, 34 producers from eight rural municipalities of Belo Horizonte, selected through a public process, were assigned fixed sale points throughout the city, and the price and quality of their produce were regulated to ensure that the food would be affordable and healthy. In the same year, the city operated 49 conventional and 7 organic markets, benefiting 97 small producers from surrounding areas.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
Paragraph
The right to an adequate diet: the agriculture-food-health nexus 2012, para. 24
- Paragraph text
- The requirement of participation, consistent with guideline 10.3 of the Right to Food Guidelines, ensures that local agricultural and nutrition contexts be considered. It also means that solutions will be demand-driven, that local partners will be identified, and that country-led action will not be equated with government-led action. It also allows identifying alternative solutions based on local knowledge and conditions, such as homestead or community gardens. Participation requires that beneficiaries take part in the process of evaluation, and co-design the solutions that could benefit them most. This is not only empowering, but also enhances the effectiveness of interventions because it builds a feedback loop to facilitate ongoing learning and improvement of policies.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 20
- Paragraph text
- Policies aimed at eradicating hunger and malnutrition that are grounded in the right to food shall redefine as legal entitlements benefits that have traditionally been seen as voluntary handouts from States. The right to food requires that schemes providing benefits, whether guaranteeing access to food or promoting agricultural and rural development and national social protection floors, be consolidated into legal entitlements, clearly identifying the beneficiaries and providing them with access to redress mechanisms if they are excluded. In the same spirit, paragraph 7 of International Labour Organization (ILO) Recommendation No. 202 concerning national floors of social protection provides that "national laws and regulations [establishing basic social security guarantees] should specify the range, qualifying conditions and levels of the benefits giving effect to these guarantees. Impartial, transparent, effective, simple, rapid, accessible and inexpensive complaint and appeal procedures should also be specified. Access to complaint and appeal procedures should be free of charge to the applicant. Systems should be in place that enhance compliance with national legal frameworks".
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 8
- Paragraph text
- The contribution of the right to adequate food to the eradication of hunger and malnutrition operates at three levels. First, as a self-standing right recognized in international law and in a range of domestic constitutions, it imposes on States obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate food. Second, the right to food encourages the transformation into legal entitlements of social welfare benefits that individuals or households receive under governmental food security schemes. Third, the right to food requires that States adopt national strategies to progressively realize the components of the right to food that cannot be immediately guaranteed. The significant progress achieved at each of these levels in recent years has been brought about by the interplay of different actors, including courts, parliaments, governments, national human rights institutions, civil society and social movements.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- While there has been considerable legislative and judicial progress in many countries throughout the world since the adoption of the Voluntary Guidelines a decade ago, many challenges remain. In order to ensure the progressive realization of the right to food at the domestic level, it is imperative that constitutional principles and framework laws are established as a means of providing an appropriate institutional structure. The adoption of sectoral legislation will ensure that States adequately address various sectors that impact significantly on levels of food security.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 21
- Paragraph text
- While the right to food may once have been a controversial "positive" right, it is now enshrined in international law and States are obliged to ensure its progressive realization through ratification of international treaties and the development of supportive domestic and national legislation. However, many countries have failed to develop a judicial culture of recognition in practice, or the necessary legal frameworks required to ensure that the rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights are justiciable. Accountability at both international and national levels is paramount to ensuring that the right to food and its correlative obligations are being implemented.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 42
- Paragraph text
- The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights recommends that States parties to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights work towards "the adoption of a national strategy to ensure food and nutrition security for all, based on human rights principles that define the objectives, and the formulation of policies and corresponding benchmarks" (see general comment No. 12, para. 21). Similarly, Guideline 3 of the FAO Right to Food Guidelines encourages the adoption of "a national human-rights based strategy for the progressive realization of the right to adequate food … [which] could include objectives, targets, benchmarks and time frames; and actions to formulate policies, identify and mobilize resources, define institutional mechanisms, allocate responsibilities, coordinate the activities of different actors, and provide for monitoring mechanisms".
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 23
- Paragraph text
- Despite the scepticism that persists in a number of States, courts in several countries have been proactive in stepping in to prevent situations in which survival was threatened due to government inaction or inefficiency in realizing the right to food. The majority of cases relate to failures by authorities to provide minimum levels of subsistence for affected individuals or communities. The right to food is now enshrined in the constitutions of more than 20 countries, together with legal provisions that allow for judicial protection by invoking the right to life, respect for human dignity, the right to health, the right to land, respect for ethnic and cultural rights, the right to housing and consumer rights.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- The strengthening of local food systems would also improve the resilience of cities. By 2050, when the world population will have reached 9.3 billion, about 6.3 billion of these inhabitants, more than two in three, will be urban, at current rates of rural-to-urban migration. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the rural population is expected to decline globally after 2020: there will be 300 million fewer rural inhabitants in 2050 than there were in 2010. As the competition increases between putting land to urban or to industrial use in the urban and peri-urban perimeter, and as increased food supplies create unprecedented logistical challenges for food distribution and transport systems, it is vital that cities assess their food dependencies, identify weaknesses and potential pressure points and, where possible, develop a variety of channels through which they can procure their food. Urban and peri-urban agriculture, as well as the development of short food chains connecting cities to their local foodshed, will therefore play an increasingly important role.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 29
- Paragraph text
- Firstly, certain types of agricultural development can combine increased production, a concern for sustainability, the adoption of robust measures to tackle unsustainable consumption patterns, and strong poverty-reducing impacts. Governments could achieve this by providing strong support to small-scale food producers, based on the provision of public goods for training, storage and connection to markets, and on the dissemination of agroecological modes of production. In addition, measures should be taken to develop local markets and local food processing facilities, combined with trade policies that support such efforts and at the same time reduce the competition between the luxury tastes of some and the basic needs of the others.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 9
- Paragraph text
- Finally, because global food systems have been shaped to maximize efficiency gains and produce large volumes of commodities, they have failed to take distributional concerns into account. The increases in production far outstripped population growth during the period from 1960 to 2000. But these increases went hand in hand with regional specialization in a relatively narrow range of products, a process encouraged by the growth of international trade in agricultural products. The associated technological and policy choices concentrated benefits in the hands of large production units and landholders at the expense of smaller-scale producers and landless workers, resulting in the growth of inequality in rural areas and a failure to address the root causes of poverty. Of course, there were important evolutions throughout the period. The 1960s and 1970s were characterized by a State-led type of agricultural development, under which governments, eager to provide urban populations with affordable food or to export raw commodities in order to finance import substitution policies, either paid farmers very low prices for the crops produced or supported only the largest producers who could be competitive on global markets, thus accelerating rural migration. In the 1980s, the introduction in most low-income countries of structural adjustment policies resulted in a retreat of the State from agricultural development. It was anticipated that trade liberalization and the removal of price controls would encourage private investment, making up for the reduction of State support. Overproduction in the highly subsidized farming sectors of rich countries put downward pressure on agricultural prices, however, discouraging the entry of private investors into agriculture in developing countries. If there was private investment at all, it went to a narrow range of cash crops grown for export markets.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Poverty
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 44
- Paragraph text
- States should ensure that their policies and practices do not lead to violations of the right to food, either directly or indirectly, for people living in other countries, as well as their own citizens. This obligation is simply the extension of the "no harm" principle of States in international law. The extraterritorial obligations of States in relation to the right to food are referred to in general comment No. 12 which notes that "food should never be used as an instrument of political and economic pressure". States should therefore refrain from implementing food embargoes or similar measures that endanger conditions for food production and water supply, and access to goods and services essential for securing the right to food. Similarly IFIs should also refrain from taking decisions that could lead to potential violations of the right to food in other countries. As multi-State actors, IFIs should be held accountable for human rights violations by other member States that have ratified the Covenant.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 64
- Paragraph text
- All of these mechanisms have the common of preventing and addressing human rights abuse by business enterprises but fail to provide sufficient monitoring mechanisms. The voluntary nature of soft law instruments is generally not sufficient to protect human rights and thus fails to close the existing "accountability gap" of extraterritorial responsibilities. However, one should not be too quick to rule out categorically the legal applicability of such declarations just because they are of a voluntary nature. Law is not limited to what States set forth. Legal norms can also be formed in society. To treat the concept of law as being entirely dependent on the State is to overlook the unique nature of social norms.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 22
- Paragraph text
- Food systems include production, processing, transport and consumption of food and are shaped by political, environmental, cultural, and socioeconomic factors. The industrial food system currently dominates the world. It focuses on increasing food production and maximizing efficiency at the lowest possible economic cost and relies on industrialized agriculture, including monocropping and factory farming, industrial food processing and mass distribution and marketing. Reflecting their affordability, availability and aggressive marketing strategies, industrialized food products constitute a very significant portion of the world's food sales.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Human rights criteria for making contract farming and other business models inclusive of small-scale farmers 2011, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- States, under international law, have the duty to respect, protect and fulfil the right to adequate food. The duty to respect requires States not to take any measures that result in preventing access to adequate food. The duty to protect requires measures by States to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not deprive individuals of their access to adequate food (see E/C.12/1999/5, para. 15). Consequently, States must control long-term arrangements between investors and buyers and between farmers and producers to prevent the risk of abuse or, where abuses do occur, to ensure that effective remedies are available. They must also protect basic labour rights recognized under the core International Labour Organization (ILO) instruments, since the failure to comply with such rights can lead to violation of the rights to work and to an adequate standard of living recognized in international human rights law. The duty to fulfil obliges States to proactively engage in activities intended to strengthen people's access to and utilization of resources and means to ensure their livelihood, including food security (see E/C.12/1999/5, para. 15). To the maximum extent of their available resources, States must, therefore, create an environment enabling farming communities to enter into various arrangements under conditions that ensure that their rights will be effectively safeguarded, despite sometimes stark inequalities of power and asymmetries of information among the various parties.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Economic Rights
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2011
Paragraph
The transformative potential of the right to food 2014, para. 38
- Paragraph text
- The right to food is central to the success of these efforts at rebuilding local food systems. First, a key condition for the success of such strategies is that participation is encouraged at a local level, in order to allow all stakeholders (from the producers to the end consumers) to arrive at a joint diagnosis of which improvements could be made to rebuild the local food system and to propose certain social innovations. Local initiatives informed by social participation will be better informed and therefore more effective in reaching their objectives, and they will result in a more transparent and accountable use of resources. The establishment of local food councils formally linked to municipalities can be one way of achieving this. Second, the right to food provides a way to measure whether the initiatives launched are successful, thus facilitating monitoring. The definition of the right to food recalled above provides a set of indicators to define success, in ways that avoid conflating it with the reduction of income poverty or increased agricultural outputs. Third, crucially, the right to food introduces the dimension of accountability: social innovations aimed at the mobilization of local resources to rebuild food systems through a bottom-up approach will have lasting impacts if they result in commitments that beneficiaries can claim - for instance, commitments to provide certain types of support to local food producers or to deliver adequate food to low-income communities.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 36
- Paragraph text
- Such initiatives are particularly concerning because the private sector can advocate food supplements so effectively. For example, commercialization of such products as ready-to-use-therapeutic foods, branded with the logos of transnational companies, may also increase consumers' brand loyalty to a company's unhealthy soft drinks and snack foods. Furthermore, many businesses involved in fortified products are the same multinationals violating the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Right to food and nutrition 2016, para. 37
- Paragraph text
- Nevertheless, fortification initiatives do make an important contribution to efforts to achieve food and nutrition security, provided they form part of a comprehensive strategy that addresses the social, economic and cultural determinants of food systems. Such solutions must always be critically evaluated and narrowly implemented to ensure that they are used only to provide temporary relief and do not replace long-term solutions, such as diversification of agriculture, or interfere with local production systems.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2016
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 11
- Paragraph text
- The obligation to respect requires that the State refrain from interfering with the existing levels of enjoyment of the right to food and that it guarantee existing entitlements, for instance, by ensuring that those who produce their own food be secure in their access to the resources, including land and water, on which they depend, or by ensuring that those who could have access to income-generating activities allowing them to purchase food are not denied such access.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 1
- Paragraph text
- The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food was established by the Commission on Human Rights in resolution 2000/10. In September 2007, the Human Rights Council, in resolution 6/2, reviewed and extended the mandate for three years. In resolution 6/2, the Council instructed the Special Rapporteur to: (a) promote the full realization of the right to food and the adoption of measures at the national, regional and international levels for the realization of the right to food; (b) examine ways and means of overcoming obstacles to the realization of the right to food; (c) continue mainstreaming a gender perspective and take into account an age dimension in the fulfilment of the mandate; (d) submit proposals that could help the realization of Millennium Development Goal 1; (e) present recommendations on possible steps towards achieving progressively the full realization of the right to food; (f) work in close cooperation with all States, intergovernmental and non governmental organizations, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other relevant actors to take fully into account the need to promote the effective realization of the right to food for all; and (g) continue participating in and contributing to relevant international conferences and events with the aim of promoting the realization of the right to food. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur was subsequently endorsed by the Council in resolutions 13/4 and 22/9, renewing the mandate for periods of three years.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Gender
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Fisheries and the right to food 2012, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Access rights of artisanal and small-scale fishing communities - more than 90 per cent of whom are in developing countries - are protected under various instruments. Under article 5 (i) of the 1995 Fish Stocks Agreement, States are required to take into account the interests of artisanal and subsistence fishers. In article 6.18 of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, there is recognition of the important contributions of artisanal and small-scale fisheries to employment, income and food security, with States recommended to appropriately protect the rights of fishers and fish workers, particularly those engaged in subsistence, small-scale and artisanal fisheries, to a secure and just livelihood, as well as preferential access, where appropriate, to traditional fishing grounds and resources in the waters under their national jurisdiction.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2012
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 7
- Paragraph text
- While there have been significant developments in a number of countries in response to the crisis, concerns about price volatility remain, with the world economy showing little sign of stabilizing. Indeed there has been a worrisome rise in local food prices in recent years. Additional steps must be taken at the global level to reduce the risk of future food crises resulting from rapid price increases. In this regard, the Special Rapporteur will continue to monitor the situation and urges States, both individually and collectively, to fulfil their legal obligation under human rights law to do their part in ensuring sustainable access to food for people.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- All
- N.A.
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Vision of the mandate 2014, para. 12
- Paragraph text
- It is in this context that the Special Rapporteur believes the international community should look to the future and establish what more can be done to ensure an enabling environment for people to access food in a dignified manner and to establish applicable remedies for those who are unable to do so. In his final report to the Human Rights Council in March 2014, the previous Special Rapporteur highlighted framework laws and national strategies in support of the realization of the right to food, highlighting a number of countries where examples of good practice exist. The Special Rapporteur intends to assess the experience of those countries and will examine the implementation of such laws at the national level, as a means of identifying possible models for other countries.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2014
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 51
- Paragraph text
- As early as 1999, in its general comment No. 12, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights acknowledged that "even where a State faces severe resource constraints, whether caused by a process of economic adjustment, economic recession, climatic conditions or other factors, measures should be undertaken to ensure that the right to adequate food is especially fulfilled for vulnerable population groups and individuals". In accordance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, most States accept the responsibility for fulfilling the right to food, designing and implementing policies that support its progressive realization and ensure access to adequate food. In the context of climate change, States must avoid policies and actions that undermine people's ability to produce their own food or to access food for themselves and their families.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 52
- Paragraph text
- States must also endeavour to support policies that limit and overcome negative effects on the right to food. A human rights framework requires all States to seek to reduce harmful emissions into the global atmosphere, with a view to reducing their negative effect on the enjoyment of human rights. In addition, in its statement on the world food crisis (E/C.12/2008/1), the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights pressed States parties to adopt "strategies to combat global climate change that do not negatively affect the right to adequate food and freedom from hunger, but rather promote sustainable agriculture". This statement is in harmony with article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Unfortunately, while it does mention the strategies that States should employ to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies, the United Nations Framework Convention refers to the use of "appropriate methods" to minimize "adverse effects on the economy, on public health and on the quality of the environment" (art. 4 (1) (f), rather than referencing human rights.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Impact of climate change on the right to food 2015, para. 53
- Paragraph text
- Since 2008, the Human Rights Council has regularly highlighted the negative implications of climate change on human rights. Furthermore, at the request of the Council, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) presented a report in 2009 that addressed the adverse effects of climate change on specific rights, including the direct relationship between the right to adequate food and climate change (A/HRC/10/61, paras. 25-27). The Council reiterated the negative impact of climate change on the right to food in subsequent resolutions adopted in 2009, 2011, 2014 and, most recently, in June 2015.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Environment
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 2
- Paragraph text
- The right to food was first recognized in article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since then it has been recognized in a number of international instruments, with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (hereinafter "the Covenant") representing the most significant treaty on the right to food. The Covenant (to date ratified by 162 States) has been vital in shaping and developing the normative framework on the right to food. The treaty defines the right to food as a distinct and fundamental right to be free from hunger and to have sustainable access to food (art. 11). It outlines specific obligations for all States parties to take measures to progressively attain the full realization of the right to food.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2015
Paragraph
Assessing a decade of progress on the right to food 2013, para. 10
- Paragraph text
- These are not symbolic advances. Victims of violations are entitled to "adequate reparation, which may take the form of restitution, compensation, satisfaction or guarantees of non-repetition" (see E/C.12/1999/5, para. 32). The recognition of the right to food in domestic law empowers courts or other independent monitoring bodies to impose compliance with the obligations of the State to respect, to protect and to fulfil the right to food. Significant progress has been made in this regard in recent years.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2013
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 4
- Paragraph text
- Access to land and security of tenure are essential to ensure the enjoyment of not only the right to food, but also other human rights, including the right to work (for landless peasants) and the right to housing. This fact led the former Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing to conclude that the Human Rights Council should "ensure the recognition in international human rights law of land as a human right". The present report confirms that conclusion, while taking the right to food as its departure point. It describes the increasing pressures on land. It then discusses the right of land users to be protected in terms of their existing access to natural resources, particularly land. It also argues in favour of ensuring more equitable access to land.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- All
- Year
- 2010
Paragraph