Food and Human Rights in Development : Evolving Issues and Emerging Applications

The right to adequate food and to be free from hunger is a fundamental human right whose realisation is within the reach of the present generation, provided there is commitment to meeting corresponding obligations on the part of state and other duty bearers, and improved, broadly based understanding of the nature of these obligations as basis for their effective implementation. The first volume of this book introduced the concept of the human right to adequate food and elaborated its theoretical foundation and operational meaning in development. This second volume carries the debate further, with a relative shift in emphasis on implementation issues. It begins with a series of reviews of how different academic disciplines which influence the agenda for development have embraced or rejected human rights dimensions in their scholarly discourse and practical advice to governments. This is followed by concrete examples of how some states have started to apply a human rights based approach to food and nutrition policies and action, recognising the potential of such an approach as much as the many challenges still ahead. The cases reveal that one major obstacle is the lack of awareness, knowledge and capacity at all levels for applying human rights in national and local development. The need for appropriate education and capacity strengthening is therefore a central message. Overall, the experience presented suggests that human rights in development have reached a stage-of-noreturn, with the climate for the adoption and application of right to adequate food principles and obligations slowly but steadily improving.

Wenche Barth Eide is a Norwegian human rights scholar with base in Law and Social Science Research. She is emeritus Associate Professor at the University of Oslo, Department of Nutrition (until 1997 under Nordic School of Nutrition). She holds a Master's Degree (Cand. real.) of Zoology (Zoo-physiology) at the University of Oslo 1962, and a Postgraduate Academic Diploma in Nutrition at the University of London (1965–66). She became a University Fellow, at the Institute for Nutrition Research (1963–66), then moved to the US and became a Consultant to the UN System (UN Protein-Calorie Advisory Group, PAG) to lead an African-Norwegian team to prepare a first ever report of the UN on Women in Food Production, Food Handling and Nutrition, on leave from UiO 18 months, 1975-1976. She was a Consultant, of the Norwegian Research Council (at the time Council for Research on Societal Planning, RFSP). Then she became Technical Adviser in Nutrition, at the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Rome (1989–94) on leave from UiO. 

Uwe Kracht, an agricultural economist with a PhD degree from the Technical University Berlin, has dedicated most of his professional career to sustainable, human-centered development, with emphasis on food, agriculture, nutrition and the elimination of poverty. In pursuit of these activities, he has been involved in efforts to place these within a framework determined by ethical and human rights principles. After working as an international manager in the US food industry with responsibilities for Latin America, Europe, Australia and Japan, he joined the United Nations system in the early 1970s to advance the fight against hunger and malnutrition through the work of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Food Council (WFC) over a period of two decades. As WFC’s Chief of Policy Development and Economic Analysis he was responsible for the successful negotiation at the UN General Assembly to incorporate specific hunger-alleviation goals into the International Development Strategy for the 1990s. He was also co-convener of consultations between Bretton Woods institutions and UN agencies on food and anti-poverty objectives in structural adjustment programs, which contributed to changes in policy and operational procedures in the concerned institutions. Since the mid-1990s, he was active as an independent development consultant, promoting the application of economic, social and cultural rights to food, nutrition and broader development problems, which included responsibility for launching a broad- based NGO initiative for the implementation of the 1996 World Food Summit’s recommendations to clarify and operationalize the right to food as a fundamental human right. He has written extensively on food, nutrition and development issues. His over 50 publications include two books on food security and nutrition and two on food and human rights in development.