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2014 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

Introduction: In Search of Better Options: Food Sovereignty, the Right to Food and Legal Tools for Transforming Food Systems

verfasst von : Priscilla Claeys, Nadia C. S. Lambek

Erschienen in: Rethinking Food Systems

Verlag: Springer Netherlands

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Abstract

The stakes for building better food systems are high. Our current path is leaving many behind, destroying the environment and entrenching inequality and systemic poverty. This introduction sets the scene to Rethinking Food Systems and provides an account of the legal and rights-based approaches taken throughout the book. It also begins a discussion on the benefits and limitations to using the law to address hunger and malnutrition. Further, by examining the arguments of the contributing authors and the crosscutting themes in their chapters, this introduction begins to explore the following questions: What are just, sustainable, and equitable food systems? What are the values on which they are built? What tools are available to push for change? What are the advantages and disadvantages of rights-based approaches? Should actors focus on the sub-national, national, regional or global level in their advocacy efforts? And should these actors push for new laws, focus instead on policies and programmes, or put efforts into developing alternative practices? How should they approach the challenge of large-scale land acquisitions in the Global South, intellectual property regimes imposed from above or the growing fragmentation in the international management of food systems? What is and what should be the role of the state in addressing issues of hunger and food insecurity and what role do and should international institutions, consumers and producers play?

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Fußnoten
1
See U.N. Food & Agri. Org. [FAO], The State of Food Insecurity in the World 4 (2009). The FAO estimated that close to 1 billion people, or 1/6th of humanity, were hungry and undernourished in 2009. Id.
 
2
Riots occurred in poorer countries like Haiti, emerging economies like Brazil and industrialized nations including the United States. See Eric Holt-Giménez, Raj Patel & Annie Shattuck, Food Rebellions! Crises and the Hunger for Justice 1–4 (2009).
 
3
Anthony Kariuki, Kenya Seeks Sh32bn Food Aid, Daily Nation (Jan. 19, 2009).
 
4
Russia to Impose Temporary Ban on Grain Exports, BBC News (Aug. 5, 2010). See also U.N. Food & Agri. Org [FAO], Initiative on Soaring Food Prices: Country Responses to the food Security Crisis: Nature and Preliminary Implications of the Policies Pursued 10 (2009).
 
5
See e.g., World Bank, China Quarterly Update 13 (Feb., 2008); Chuin-Wei Yap, China Caps Prices of Cooking Oil to Ensure Supply, Wall Street J. (Dec. 2, 2010).
 
6
See Clemens Breisinger et al., International Food Policy Research Institute [IFPRI], Beyond the Arab Awakening: Policies and Investments for Poverty Reduction and Food Security viii (2012). See also Protests and the Pump: The Egypt Effect May be More Pronounced for Food than Oil, The Economist (Feb. 3, 2011).
 
7
Press Release, World Bank, Food Price Hike Drives 44 Million People into Poverty, Press Release No: 2011/333/PREM (Feb. 15, 2011).
 
8
See, e.g., Alex Renton, How Will the World Feed Itself in 40 Years’ Time?, The Guardian (Oct. 11, 2009); Donald G. McNeil Jr., Malthus Redux: Is Doomsday Upon Us, Again? New York Times (June 15, 2008); Justin Lahart, Patrick Barta & Andrew Batson, New Limits to Growth Revive Mathusian Fears, Wall Street J. (Mar. 24, 2008).
 
9
Press Release, U.N. Population Fund [UNFPA], World Population to Reach 7 Billion on 31 October (May 3, 2011).
 
10
Francis Moore Lappé, Diet For a Small Planet (1971).
 
11
Susan George, How the Other Half Dies (1977).
 
12
Jean Drèze & Amartya Kumar Sen, Hunger and Public Action, in The Amartya Sen & Jean Drèze Omnibus 258 (1989).
 
13
Id. at 264.
 
14
Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famines, in The Amartya Sen & Jean Drèze Omnibus, supra note 12, at 154.
 
15
For more information on FIAN, see http://​www.​fian.​org/​.
 
16
Press Release, Vía Campesina, An Answer to the Global Food Crisis: Peasants and Small Farmers Can Feed the World (Apr. 24, 2008).
 
17
Letter from Henry Saragih, Vía Campesina, to Jacques Diouf Secretary General of the U.N. Food & Agri. Org. [FAO], Yasuo Fukuda, Prime Minister of Japan and President of the G8, and John W. Ashe, Permanent U.N. representative, Antigua and Barbuda, and Chairman of the Group of 77, Concrete Measures are Needed to Strengthen Peasant and Farmer-based Food Production; the Food Price Crisis Exposes the Instability of Liberalized Agricultural Markets (Apr. 28, 2008).
 
18
Press Release, Vía Campesina, An Answer to the Global Food Crisis: Peasants and Small Farmers Can Feed the World (May 1, 2008).
 
19
See e.g. U.N. Food & Agri. Org. [FAO], FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, available at http://​www.​fao.​org/​worldfoodsituati​on/​wfs-home/​csdb/​en/​; see also U.N. Food & Agri. Org. [FAO], Crop Prospects and Food Situation (Dec. 2007).
 
20
This tendency may find its source in the widely shared mistrust in the potential of law and human rights as a tool for social change. Sociologists and anthropologists, for example, have been slow in engaging with the theory and practice of human rights, in part because they felt uncomfortable with the universalism attached to the human rights idea, because of the lasting influence of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Weber. See Mark Goodale, Introduction, in Anthropology and Human Rights in a New Key, 108 American Anthropologist 1 (March 1, 2006); Patricia Hynes et al., Sociology and Human Rights: Confrontations, Evasions and New Engagements, 14 Int’l J. Hum. Rts. 811 (Nov. 2010).
 
21
U.N. Comm. on Econ., Social and Cultural Rights [UNCESCR], General Comment No. 12: The Right to Adequate Food, para. 6, U.N. Doc. E/C.12/1999/5 (May 12, 1999) [hereinafter General Comment No. 12]. According to the General Comment No. 12, three key elements—availability, accessibility and adequacy—form the foundation of the right to food, describing the core content of the right: adequacy refers to the quality, nutritional and cultural value of food consumed; availability “refers to the possibilities either for feeding oneself directly from productive land or other natural resources, or for well-functioning distribution, processing and market systems that can move food from the site of production to where it is needed in accordance with demand”; and, accessibility means food should be both economically accessible (referring to affordability and purchasing power) and physically accessible (“that adequate food must be accessible to everyone, including physically vulnerable individuals, such as infants and young children, elderly people, the physically disabled, the terminally ill and persons with persistent medical problems, including the mentally ill”). Id. at paras. 12–13.
 
22
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217 A (III), U.N. Doc. A/810, at 71 (1948), art. 25.
 
23
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted on 16 December 1966, G.A. Res. 2200(XXII), U.N. GAOR, 21st sess., Supp. No. 16, U.S. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 993 UNTS 3, art. 11.
 
24
The right to food has been incorporated into a number of other international and regional instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 6), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Articles 12 and 14), the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (Article 28), the European Social Charter (Articles 4, 12 and 13), the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (Articles 16, 22 and 24), the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (Article 14), the American Convention on Human Rights (Article 26) and the S. Salvador Additional Protocol (Article 12).
 
25
See General Comment No. 12, supra note 21, at paras.40–41.
 
26
Id. at paras.21–35.
 
27
See U.N. Food & Agric. Org. [FAO], Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security (2004).
 
28
For more information on implementing the right to food at the national level see, Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Countries Tackling Hunger With a Right to Food Approach (Briefing Note No. 1, 2010) [hereinafter Countries Tackling Hunger] (surveying progress in implementing the right to food at the national level in Africa, Latin America and South Asia); Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, From Charity to Entitlement: Implementing the Right to Food (Briefing Note No. 5, 2012) [hereinafter From Charity to Entitlement] (discussing constitutional protection of the right to food and implementation of the right to food through laws and policies in nine countries in Eastern and Southern Africa); Olivier De Schutter, U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, A Rights Revolution: Implementing the Right to Food in Latin America and the Caribbean (Briefing Note No. 6, 2012) [hereinafter A Rights Revolution] (discussing constitutional protection of the right to food and implementation of the right to food through laws and policies in nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean); Lidija Knuth & Margret Vidar, U.N. Food. & Agri. Org. [FAO], Constitutional and Legal Protection of the Right to Food Around the World (2011) (providing a global survey of right to food implementation, with detailed descriptions of constitutional protection); U.N. Food. & Agri. Org. [FAO], Right to Food Making it Happen: Progress and Lessons Learned Through Implementation (2011) [hereinafter Right to Food Making it Happen] (providing detailed description of processes in Brazil, Guatemala, India, Mozambique and Uganda).
 
29
See South Africa Constitution art 27(1)(b), (1994) (“Everyone has the right to have access to … sufficient food and water”). See also Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, to the Human Rights Council, Addendum: Mission to South Africa, A/HRC/19/59/Add.3 (2012).
 
30
Knuth & Vidar, supra note 28, at 13; Kenya President Ratifies New Constitution, BBC News, 27 August 2010; U.N. Food & Agri. Org. [FAO], The Right to Food Unit, The Republic of Kenya Recognizes the Right to Food in the New Constitution (Aug. 31, 2010). Affording the right constitutional protection provides direction to state policy, and depending on the specificity of each domestic legal system, may be used be used to challenge laws that lead to violations of the right to food, as well as to redress specific violations of the right to food by the State.
 
31
A Rights Revolution, supra note 28, at 4–5.
 
32
See Countries Tackling Hunger, supra note 28, at 7–10; From Charity to Entitlement, supra note 28, at 10–12; A Rights Revolution, supra note 28, at 5–6.
 
33
Writ petition (Civil) No. 196 of 2001 (Supreme Court of India). See also Lauren Birchfield & Jessica Corsi, Between Starvation and Globalization: Realizing the Right to Food in India, 31 Michigan J. Int’l L. 691 (2010).
 
34
Id.
 
35
Right to Food Making it Happen, supra note 28.
 
36
See, e.g., Human Rights Council, 6th Session, Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/6/L.5/Rev.1 (Sept. 26, 2007).
 
37
Id. at para. 36. The extraterritorial obligations of States in respect of economic, social and cultural rights where recently compiled and restated in the Masstricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the Area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. See Olivier De Schutter, et al., Commentary to the Maastricht Principles on Extraterritorial Obligations of States in the area of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 34 Hum. Rts. Q. 1084 (2012) (including the full text of the Principles).
 
38
See Vía Campesina, The International Peasant’s Voice, http://​viacampesina.​org/​en/​index.​php/​organisation-mainmenu-44 (last visited Mar. 9, 2013).
 
39
Id.
 
40
Vía Campesina, The right to produce and access to land. Food Sovereignty: A Future without Hunger (Statement at the occasion of the World Food Summit, Rome, Italy, Nov. 11, 1996).
 
41
Vía Campesina, Compte Rendu de la IIème Conférence Internationale de la Vía Campesina (Apr. 18–21, 1996); Via Campesina, Tlaxcala Declaration of the Vía Campesina (Declaration of the Second International Conference of Vía Campesina, 1996).
 
42
Nyeleni Food Sovereignty Forum, Declaration of Nyeleni (Feb. 27, 2007).
 
43
Priscilla Claeys, The Creation of New Rights by the Food Sovereignty Movement: The Challenge of Institutionalizing Subversion, 46 Sociology 844 (2012).
 
44
Tina D. Beuchelt & Detlef Virchow, Food Sovereignty or the Human Right to Adequate Food: Which Concept Serves Better as International Development Policy for Global Hunger and Poverty Reduction?, Agri. & Hum. Values (Jan. 2, 2012).
 
45
The concept of legal opportunity structures—taken from Israël who paraphrased Tarrow’s “political opportunity structures”—is particularly appropriate to describe the process of identifying and opening of institutional spaces allowing for legal changes. See Liora Israël, Faire Émerger le Droit des Étrangers en le Contestant, ou l’Histoire Paradoxale des Premières Années du GISTI, 16 Politix 115, 115–43 (2003); see generally Sidney Tarrow, Sidney, Power in Movement (1998).
 
46
See U.N. Food & Agric. Org. [FAO], Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security (2012).
 
47
Whether there is a global or national “constituency” to support and champion economic, social and cultural rights is a question advocates will have to further explore. For some background, see Paul J. Nelson & Ellen Dorsey, New Rights Advocacy: Changing Strategies of Development and Human Rights NGOs 83 (2008).
 
48
See General Comment No. 12, supra note 21 (providing human rights responsibilities, not obligations, for international institutions such as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations Development Programme, as well as other United Nations’ programs). See also Special Representative of the Secretary-General on the Issue of Human Rights and Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises, John Ruggie, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights: Implementing the United Nations “Protect, Respect and Remedy” Framework, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/17/31 (2011).
 
49
Rajeev Patel, Transgressing Rights: La Vía Campesina’s Call for Food Sovereignty, 13 Feminist Econ. 87, 93 (2007).
 
50
See generally Claeys, supra note 43.
 
Metadaten
Titel
Introduction: In Search of Better Options: Food Sovereignty, the Right to Food and Legal Tools for Transforming Food Systems
verfasst von
Priscilla Claeys
Nadia C. S. Lambek
Copyright-Jahr
2014
Verlag
Springer Netherlands
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7778-1_1