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MONITORING STATES’ RIGHT TO FOOD POLICIES
Although the human right to food has been enshrined in international law and many national constitutions and legislations, the de facto enjoyment of the right to food is still a long way from being guaranteed. The challenge for ahead is the improvement and monitoring of the implementation of the right to food at national level.
A strong reference to the international instruments and interpretation guides that were developed during the last decade contributes to this effort. In 1999, the UN-Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Right adopted a legal interpretation of the right to food, the so called General Comment No. 12. In November 2004, the Council of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations adopted the “Voluntary Guidelines” for the implementation of the right to adequate food. The Voluntary Guidelines introduce a rights' based methodology to food security policies which imposes on states to concretely identify root causes and victims of hunger, and to adopt their policies according to the findings by focusing all efforts on targeting the most vulnerable first. The Voluntary Guidelines describe in detail what measures states should take and what they should avoid, It thus provides a valuable tool to monitor if governments respond adequately to hunger and malnutrition. By assessing state's performance based on the Voluntary Guidelines, FIAN aims to contribute to re-orient states' policies towards the realisation of the right to food.
Documents on Monitoring and Voluntary Guidelines
