Fifteen Years Implementing The Right To Food Guidelines

The Right to Food Guidelines provide practical guidance on ways to implement the right to adequate food in a wide range of policy and programmes areas through a human rights-based approach. Since the adoption of the Right to Food Guidelines, FAO and its partners have produced a wealth of tools, strengthened capacity, and facilitated multi-stakeholder dialogues worldwide. But the goal of realizing the right to food of everyone is not accomplished yet- over 820 million people are currently suffering from chronic hunger. This fifteen-Year Retrospective on the Right to Food Guidelines helps us look back and understand what has worked and why, where the bottlenecks lie, and how governments and their partners can be most effective in the fight against hunger and malnutrition.

Consumers are a powerful force for change towards a sustainably developing world that leaves no one behind and respects the human rights of all. This publication is aimed at making the connections between the important work of consumer organizations and the realization of the right to adequate food, increasing the visibility of these organizations and highlighting their importance to food security, healthy diets and food systems transformations. It is also intended to support consumer organizations in their awareness raising, and capacity development efforts towards even greater impact. In showcasing how the work of consumer organizations contributes towards securing the right to adequate food for all at local, national, regional and global level, it seeks to reinforce their place as vital partners at the policy and decisionmaking table. It is designed as a complement to Consumer Organizations in Action: a growing community of consumer organizations, presenting their experiences in food issues, as well as facilitating networking, and the exchange of knowledge, skills and good practices.

Childhood obesity is one of the most pressing global public health challenges of the 21st century. In response, States need to employ a multisectoral approach including labelling rules, food marketing restrictions and fiscal policies. However, these legal measures interact in a complex fashion with international economic and human rights law raising a range of legal questions. This timely book edited by Garde, Curtis and De Schutter explores these questions offering insightful perspectives. Of fundamental interest to legal professionals and academics, Ending Childhood Obesity also makes the legal complexities accessible to a broad range of public health and other policy actors addressing obesity and related non-communicable diseases.

This publication brings together the practical experiences and lessons learned during the years 2006 to 2009 with the implementation of the right to food at country level, based on the Right to Food Guidelines. It offers a wealth of information on work done in Brazil, Guatemala, India, Mozambique and Uganda, and also reflects the main issues raised and conclusions reached during the three days of sharing at the right to Food Forum in 2008. Includes DVD.

The adoption of Voluntary Guidelines to Support the Progressive Realization of the Right to Adequate Food in the Context of National Food Security (Right to Food Guidelines) in 2004 and the Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication (SSF Guidelines) in 2014 were two major achievements in the effort to ensure food security and nutrition. This handbook has been developed to support the joint implementation of the SSF Guidelines and the Right to Food Guidelines through an integrated approach and to increase policy coherence and uptake. The document provides an overview of the contents of these voluntary guidelines and identifies potential synergies. It also explains the human rights-based approach and discusses some crucial areas, with special attention to the specific roles and responsibilities of key actors. This document is primarily directed at those involved in the integration of the SSF Guidelines and the Right to Food Guidelines into national policies and development programmes targeting the small-scale fisheries sector in the context of food security and nutrition. However, it can be equally interesting to other stakeholders who take part in the implementation of the provisions of both instruments in their day-to-day activities and who are concerned with the sustainability of the small-scale fisheries sector. The adoption of the Right to Food Guidelines in 2004 and the SSF Guidelines in 2014 were two major achievements in the effort to ensure food security and nutrition.

It is now more than a decade since the Right to Food Guidelines were negotiated, agreed and adopted internationally by states. This book provides a review of its objectives and the extent of success of its implementation. The focus is on the first key guideline – "Democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law" – with an emphasis on civil society participation in global food governance. The five BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are presented as case studies: representing major emerging economies, they blur the line between the Global North and South, and exhibit different levels of human rights realisation. The book first provides an overview of the right to adequate food, accountability and democracy, and an introduction to the history of the development of the right to adequate food and the Right to Food Guidelines. It presents a historical synopsis of each of the BRICS states’ experiences with the right to adequate food and an analysis of their related periodic reporting to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, as well as a specific assessment of their progress in regard to the first guideline. The discussion then focuses on the effectiveness of the Right to Food Guidelines as both a policy-making and monitoring tool, based on the analysis of the guidelines and the BRICS states.

The right to adequate food is firmly established in international human rights law. It is among those most cited in solemn declarations and most violated in practice. In a landmark decision, the 1996 World Food Summit decided to break with the all too familiar right-to-food rhetoric and requested a clarification of "the content of the right to food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger" and the means for its implementation. Since then much efforts have gone into further conceptualisation of social and cultural rights in general and the right to adequate food in particular. UN agencies, scholars, interested governments and civil society have joined forces in attempting to provide a foundation for national and international follow-up of the recommendations of the World Food Summit, reinforced by the Millennium Development Goals. This first of two volumes provides evidence of some of this work and gives direction for future activities to promote and protect the right to adequate food for all. It has contributions from some 15 authors who have all been directly involved, from different angles, in the advancement of the right to food and related human rights over the past years. Besides introducing the concept of the right to food and elaborating on its theoretical basis and meaning in development, it provides several recent examples from work both at the national and international level to apply it in practical situations, and with a special view to how to go about identifying the corresponding obligations of states and complementary duties and responsibilities of non-state actors and international organisations. Finally, several chapters address the right to food under special circumstances and for special groups needing particular attention. The book is the first of its kind on the right to food as a human right. It is not a textbook but is intended to inform and stimulate further debate among scholars, policy-makers and practitioners and activists alike, on some of the major issues of concern in applying a right-based approach to alleviating food insecurity, hunger and malnutrition, and in promoting access to and consumption of nutritionally adequate, safe and culturally acceptable food on a sustainable basis for all. It is now evident that with the current pace of events the goal set by the WFS and the MDG of halving poverty and hunger by 2015 will not be achieved. There is a growing need to watch some of the possible effects of rapid economic globalisation and market liberalisation on food and nutrition security conditions, and to promote countervailing measures to offset their most negative consequences, particularly for vulnerable groups. The right to food is a first test case of the extent to which the application of economic, social and cultural rights can effectively exert such counterforce in an increasingly economics- and market-driven international climate, and enhance progress towards established goals.