Milestones in elaborating the human right to food (HRF)

Year

Development

1974

World Food Conference Declaration reaffirms the right to food. Such intergovernmental conference declarations are not binding, but rather “soft law” indications of global consensus (Cotula and Vidar 2003).

1976

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) enters into force as binding international law.

1979

The U.N. Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) begins monitoring the HRF.

1983

U.N. Subcommission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights names Asbjørn Eide Special Rapporteur on Right to Food.

1983– 1984

ECOSOC commissions a report on food as a human right, which begins the process of adding clarifications and new implementing instruments, with direct assistance from the Netherlands Human Rights Institute (Alston and Tomasevski 1984) and United Nations University (A. Eide et al. 1984), whose reports consider the key terms: “adequate food,” “rights,” and various levels of “obligations.” These conferences also consider how “rights” are related to national legal structures and rule of law; food, agriculture, health, and development planning; and social welfare legislation within a larger environmental, political–economic, and health context. They also begin to define “minimally adequate food” for the purpose of monitoring nutritional well-being. Finally, they are concerned with identifying where violations of human rights, particularly through social or political exclusion, enter into the causal nexus of malnutrition; this conceptual framework is later widely adopted within the U.N. system.

1985

ECOSOC establishes the Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (CESCR) to receive country reports and monitor progress on implementing the ICESCR. Committee also holds General Discussion Days to discuss relevant questions and issues General Comments to clarify the content of specific provisions. The committee is composed of independent experts, serving in their personal capacity, elected by the states parties. Although its views are not binding per se, they are accorded “particular weight” (Cotula and Vidar 2003).

1986

Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN) is founded and offers initial guidelines on interpretation of the HRF. FIAN is particularly concerned with how access to land and livelihoods affects access to adequate food and nutrition.

1987

ECOSOC accepts FIAN’s initial guidelines and opens its offices to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which are allowed to offer supplemental reports to those supplied by governments on implementation of the ICESCR.

1989

U.N. publishes A. Eide’s report on the right to food (A. Eide 1989). ECOSOC accepts FIAN’s revised HRF guidelines.

1990

[World Summit for Children (WSC) sets nutrition goals as parameters of the rights of the child. These include the right of the child to breastfeed (for 4–6 months) as well as implementation of country-level policies and programs that will halve childhood malnutrition and virtually eliminate diseases caused by vitamin A, iodine, and iron deficiencies. ]

1991

[UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) collaborate on “Ending Hidden Hunger” (micronutrient goals to eliminate diseases caused by vitamin A, iodine, and iron deficiencies) among children. ]

1992

[Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)/WHO International Conference on Nutrition affirms adequate food as a human right (specifically, the right not to starve) and reaffirms the WSC nutrition goals for children. ]

1993

World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna reaffirms the universality, interdependence, and indivisibility of all human rights (as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the ICESCR), and specifically reaffirms the right to adequate food (U.N. 1993). Creates Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. World Alliance for Nutrition and Human Rights (WANAHR) is established.

1996

World Food Summit Plan of Action, Paragraph 7.4, asks the High Commissioner for clarifications on the HRF that will lead to more effective actions.

1997

FIAN issues a Code of Conduct on the HRF, addressed to states, civil society, the private sector, and international organizations. The code is endorsed by hundreds of NGOs. FIAN is increasingly recognized as a key international NGO on the HRF and plays a key role in a series of consultations sponsored by the Office of the High Commissioner and FAO.

1999

[A. Eide updates the 1989 study on HRF for the U.N. Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Commission on Human Rights (A. Eide 1999).] The U.N. Committeee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issues General Comment 12 on Right to Adequate Food (CESCR 1999), clarifies state, civil society, and community obligations to work together to enable a context where all meet their nutritional needs: The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman, and child, alone or in community with others, has physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement. The comment elaborates language detailing necessary steps by states and civil-society to respect, protect, and fulfill the right to food.

2000

[U.N. Commission on Human Rights names Jean Ziegler Special Rapporteur on Right to Food. ]

2002--2005

Declaration of World Food Summit: five years later calls for the establishment of an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) to develop voluntary guidelines that governments can follow and also advances efforts to set benchmarks for “adequate food” and for monitoring national food security and nutrition performance. (2002)Intergovernmental FAO Council unanimously agrees to Right to Food Guidelines (2004) (FAO 2005).

FIAN issues HRF reporting guidelines for NGOs (Künnemann and Epal-Ratjen 2005).