Where is my right to food? Understanding, questioning and demanding our right to eat in dignity
I will come clean: I am a lawyer and I will try to convince you. On this occasion, I will not persuade you to blindly trust the law, but to scrutinize it. Specifically, I want you to understand, to question, and then to fiercely demand your right to food. This is because, beyond rhetoric, the right to food has a key role to play in solving one of our most pressing challenges: to secure food for all in the Anthropocene. And we will not be able to attain the full potential of the right to food unless we put it to the test. Let’s see if I can manage to persuade you that the right to food is a legal tool worthy of examination and claim.
Understanding the right to food
The right to food (officially the right to adequate food) is a human right. Human rights are the fundamental minimums that allow us to live our life in dignity and to thrive. Every person is entitled to human rights, the right to food included. Even though the right to food does not owe its existence to its legal recognition — as human rights are inherent to the human, not legal or any other condition — the expression and protection of such a right in the law is crucial to its realization.
The right to food was first recognized by international law within the spectrum of a dignified standard of living in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and later included in the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Ever since, international law and institutions have been developing the meaning and scope of the right to food. They have, so far, generally defined it as the right to eat in dignity, achieved when every person has access to socially just, environmentally sustainable, nutritious and culturally appropriate food. This definition reveals the powerful capability of the right to food to improve food security amidst a complex global food crisis.
Elements of this definition could be further expanded, as there is a vast body of literature that has thoroughly analyzed the concept of the right to food. However, I want to highlight that beyond its theoretical/philosophical component — important, but perhaps elusive — the right to food is a right. It is an enforceable entitlement, a tool to obtain something within the rule of law. I propose to you then to see the right to food as an instrument that can decisively contribute to the advancement of food security by regulating our food system.
Questioning the right to food
As any tool, the right to food has to be used and then evaluated in order to prove if it is properly performing or if it has to be adjusted, and it is here where it gets challenging. Since its initial international recognition in 1948, countries around the world have been implementing right to food provisions into their legal systems to support its realization. So far, thirty countries have explicitly included the right to food into their constitutions with the aim of providing it with strength and permanency. Additionally, throughout the world, legislatures have been enacting laws, administrations have been executing policies, and courts have been ruling to respect, protect and fulfill the right to food. However, there is scarce research further analyzing the implementation and exercise of the right to food. Correspondingly, there is little evidence for how this human right could be adjusted to improve its performance. As a result, it is unclear whether the right to food has helped alleviate food insecurity and if this fundamental right is delivering as expected.
In contrast, there is robust proof of the appalling number of hungry people in the world, which indicates that the right to food might be falling behind. Furthermore, there is strong evidence on how our global food system is contributing to deepening inequality and social injustice, to climate change, to environmental degradation, and to the rise obesity and non-communicable diseases.
If we are uncertain about the right to food performance, should we then discard it right away? Let us first ask what does the right to food uniquely offer to improve food security. The right to food is not the only human right that has potential to address food security problems. The fundamental right to health, to equality and non-discrimination, to a healthy environment, to adequate standard of living, to water and sanitation, to education and culture are some examples of human rights that would also improve food security. Nevertheless, the right to food is the only human right that focuses on one of the main characteristic that defines us — and now threatens our existence — as a species: the mundane yet extraordinary act of nourishing ourselves. The right to food is worth retaining in large part because its comprehensive nature holds the capacity to address all that is intertwined in our complex food system. This systems approach transcends boundaries of governmental silos, geopolitical borders, and food related dimensions to make sure all of the components of the food system are considered and tackled.
Demanding the right to food
For the right to food to become the instrument we need it to be, we need to examine it closer. We need more research on its implementation and evaluation. We need access to reliable and transparent data on the right to food and the food system broadly. But more decisively, we need to take the first steps towards its realization: we need to use it, to profusely exercise it, to vehemently demand our right to food.
So on your way to the supermarket, when you are asking yourself if you are meeting the dietary needs for a healthy life, whisper: where are the right to food law and policies promoting food literacy and highly nutritious food?
Then, while traveling the infinite supermarket aisles still puzzled by the nourishment question but now also thinking about which food is better for biodiversity, soil, water, and climate, take a pause and tweet the government authority of your choice: where are the right to food law and policies enforcing agro-production transparency and boosting investments in research and development of environmentally respectful ways of growing food?
When you approach the cashier and wonder if she has the same opportunity as you to select, question, and consume food, then go further. Extend that inquiry to all people involved in the global agro-production. Then grab your calendar and make a plan to energetically shout at the next member of parliament meeting: where are the right to food laws and policies ensuring dignified wages and social assistance that improve the socioeconomic circumstances of food system workers?
Finally, when you think you cannot have more of the unjust, unsustainable and unhealthy food system we have created to ourselves, go one more step and consider the 815 million human beings starving while one third of all food produced is lost or wasted. Take a deep breath and now fiercely demand: where are the right to food law and policies that put people and planet first, power and profit second?
I rest my case.
Did I convince you?
