20 years of UN Right to Food Guidelines: time for full implementation

Millions of people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition due to structural inequalities, violence in societies and food systems, and rampant grabbing of territories, characterized by the unjust and unsustainable acquisition of land, water, seeds, and other natural resources as well as unfair and unjust trade regimes. Due to gender-based violence and intersecting forms of discrimination women, girls and diversities have been disproportionately affected by such dispossession and mounting inequalities. At the same time, extractivism, commodification and financialization, including in the context of industrial agriculture and aquaculture, have triggered the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution with devastating impacts on the realization of the right to food and nutrition both for present as well as for future generations.

The Right to Food Guidelines were adopted by the UN Committee on World Food Security (CFS) and the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in 2004. They have provided a solid ground for the elaboration and development of a full body of human rights norms and policies subsequently adopted by the UN, such as the CEDAW General Recommendation 34, FAO Tenure Guidelines, Small-Scale Fisheries Guidelines, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. They have contributed to the advanced human rights narrative and enriched normative legal framework of the right to food and nutrition, providing a guidance towards human rights-based transformation of food systems.

Today, 29 countries explicitly recognize the right to adequate food in their constitutions, while more than 100 countries acknowledge it implicitly or through directives, principles or other pertinent provisions. In this context, we would like to highlight Nepal’s role as a pioneer: the country’s constitution guarantees the right to food and food sovereignty, and a law to this effect was passed in 2018. The law provides for institutional mechanisms at the national, provincial and local levels, as well as the coordinated development of a national nutrition plan. An ordinance to implement the law was passed by the Government of Nepal in March this year.  With this legal recognition, Nepal has focused its efforts on reducing the proportion of undernourished population by half since 2018, and currently ranks 69^th out of 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index.

This is in sharp contrast to other South Asian countries. In Bangladesh, for example, a right to food law was drafted by the Law Commission as early as 2016, but its passage is still pending. In India, despite a number of positive developments, such as the Supreme Court’s recognition of the right to food as a fundamental right in 2001 and the enactment of landmark legislation such as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005 and the National Food Security Act of 2013, the hunger situation  is serious and the country ranks 111^th in the Global Hunger Index.

We call on governments to strengthen their commitments towards the realization of the right to food and nutrition and to end hunger and malnutrition, by incorporating international human rights provisions into national legislation, regulations, policies and programs. This entails creating mechanisms for accountability, ensuring meaningful participation of affected communities in decision-making processes, and establishing transparent systems to monitor and redress instances of violations of the right to food.

We urge governments worldwide to uphold their obligations regarding the realization of the human right to food and nutrition by implementing the guidelines and taking decisive actions to end hunger and malnutrition. By doing so, we can collectively build a future where the enjoyment of the right to food and nutrition is a reality for all, where the rights of individuals and communities are respected, protected and fulfilled, and where the global community stands united against the forces that perpetuate hunger and discrimination.

International cooperation among states for the realization of economic, social, and cultural rights is an obligation of all states. Every state has a responsibility to actively contribute to maintaining enduring peace and justice – particularly in conflict-affected nations – and toward ending poverty and hunger. By addressing the root causes, holding responsible actors accountable, and fostering collaboration at local, national, and international levels, we can collectively strive towards a world where the right to food and nutrition is realized for all. In particular, we, the undersigned organizations, recommend the following to all states for the implementation of the Right to Food Guidelines:

Strategic collaborations: Strengthen convergences and joint strategies with civil society in its diversity by prioritizing rights holders such as social movements, Indigenous Peoples, feminist movements, small-scale food producers and others.

Strengthening governance with social participation at all levels: Create and implement food governance systems with strong social participation mechanisms and with a solid legal and institutional framework and guaranteed conditions of operation.

Defending the public interest from corporate influence in food systems: Develop comprehensive legal frameworks of responsibility, regulation and accountability for corporations, from production to consumption, as well as norms that protect governance spaces from corporate influence and conflict of interest.

Engagement in processes and policies to transform food systems and strengthen land tenure: Promote and actively engage in the transformation of food systems respecting local food cultures, valuing agro-socio-biodiversity and the principles of agroecology, and prioritizing local and territorial systems, particularly the importance of land tenure security.